San Francisco - Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach

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The square takes its name from violent pro-Union demonstrations held there in 1861 as the Civil War brewed. The square recently underwent a radical facelift in an attempt to make it less dowdy C and less inviting to the homeless. In the center of the park you can still see rising serenely above the construction the Dewey Monument, a 97-foot Corinthian column topped by a winged victory statue, commemorates Admiral James Dewey's victories in the Spanish-American War. Look in any direction and you will see upscale department stores: Neiman Marcus, Macy's, and Saks Fifth Avenue all line the square. Cable cars roll by on Powell Street. To the east, in front of the Westin St. Francis Hotel, foreign flags tell you which heads of state and other dignitaries are presently staying in its VIP suites.

Once you've gotten power shopping out of the way head east on Geary to Grant Avenue, turn right and visit the Emporio Armani Boutique. Entering this imposing granite edifice, formerly--and appropriately--a bank, you can satisfy your appetite for the latest Italian fashions, and for lunch the Armani Cafe is good enough to warrant a trip even if you're strictly a Brooks Brothers type.

Heading up Grant away from Market Street halfway along the next block, you'll cross Maiden Lane, a charming two-block pedestrian passage lined with precious boutiques and galleries. Maiden Lane's appeal belies the disreputable origins of its name. In Barbary Coast days, this is where prostitutes plied their trade. The building at 140 Maiden Lane (between Grant and Stockton) was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Its curving ramp is supposedly a precursor for Wright's Guggenheim Museum design. You can't miss Maiden Lane's cafes--the tables spill out into the middle of the street. If you didn't grab a snack at the Armani store, this is a good place to do it.

Continue up Grant to Post. At the corner you'll find Shreve & Co., San Francisco's stately, stuffy answer to Tiffany's (the San Francisco Tiffany & Co. store faces Union Square at Post). We'll take a little detour here--turn left on Post and head up the block to the flagship store of cookware cataloguer Williams-Sonoma, and make a point of visiting Gump's across the street. A San Francisco institution, Gump's offers a beautiful, expensively eclectic collection of gifts. Art glass, Asian art, and antiques are specialties of Gump's. Don't miss their museum-quality jade. During the Christmas season, the elaborate displays in Gump's windows attract an audience by the tens of thousands.

If you haven't bankrupted yourself yet, go back to Grant, turn left, and walk past the outsized Banana Republic housed in the extravagant vintage building that once housed the now defunct White House department store and then through the Lion Gate.

You'll quickly notice the pagoda-style roofs and other romantic architectural embellishments that tell you that you're in Chinatown. As San Francisco began to rebuild after the earthquake and fire of 1906, the Chinatown merchants association, in a move to ease restrictions and discrimination on the Chinese population, proposed making a tourist attraction out of the area. From 1906 on through the 1920s, the "chinoiserie" facades you see today were either tacked on to existing buildings or drawn on to the plans of new ones. The idea was a hit. Quickly, the pleasantly exotic New Chinatown supplanted its former opium- and vice-ridden image. Hundreds of thousands of tourists began to visit and spend money in Chinatown, as millions have continued to do today.

For a look into the inner Chinatown, walk the three blocks past the Dragon's Gate to Sacramento, turn left, and then walk up the hill half a block to Waverly Place, the scene of a bloody battle between Chinese tongs in 1879. The buildings on this two block-long alley feature some of the most elaborate and fanciful facades in Chinatown. Walking there in the evening, you may hear the strains of Chinese music drifting out from the Tin How Temple above you. It's open to visitors seven days a week until 4 p.m.

At Washington Street, where Waverly Place ends, turn left and walk up the few yards to Ross Alley, once known as the "Street of the Gamblers," with 22 gambling dens to its credit. Walking back to Washington, stop at Sam Woh, if you're hungry again. Sam Woh's was the infamous domain of the late head waiter Edsel Ford Fong, who would greet cowering diners by telling them to "sit down and shut up!" Equally disagreeable service continues in this tradition. The food's not great, but locals love to go to Sam Woh for the abuse.

Walk back downhill to Grant Avenue. From the corner you can look down Washington to see Portsmouth Square, the cultural center of Chinatown.

Continue along Grant to Pacific, taking in the babble of hundreds of conversations in Cantonese, and the smell of dozens of Chinese bakeries. At seafood stores, you'll see fish, frogs, and other live creatures in crowded tanks, awaiting selection by discriminating shoppers. If you didn't just eat at Sam Woh (and still have an appetite after looking at the frogs), head up Pacific to New Asia for dim sum. There you'll find a cavernous dining room where two dozen ladies push carts of dim sum, assorted dumpling-like treats paid for by the plate.

At Broadway, turn right, and right again onto Columbus Avenue. A few steps will take you into poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Bookstore, a shrine of "Beat" culture. The store features a collection of literature, poetry, and avant-garde theory and criticism, some of it published under the City Lights label, which you just don't find anywhere else. Vesuvio's bar, on the other side of Kenneth Rexroth Alley; the Tosca Cafe, across Columbus; and the Cafe Trieste, across Broadway on Grant Avenue, are all former Beat hangouts. Each can boast of having ejected Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg, or other Beat luminaries from the premises on at least one occasion.

Proceed on Columbus Avenue across Broadway past the many cafes, trattorias, and delis that make up heart of Italian North Beach. Stop and have an espresso. As you cross Green Street, you'll notice that the street signs say Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard, in honor of the funny and colorful revue that has been playing down the block at the Club Fugazi seemingly forever.

At the corner of Columbus and Union streets, walk across Washington Square Park to the Church of Sts Peter and Paul, the site of Joe diMaggio's first wedding to starlet Dorothy Arnold, as well as his funeral. Even if you're not a baseball fan, however, the graceful church is worth a visit.

If it feels like it's snack time, and if you're an Italian frame of mind (as you should be by now), head into the Liguria Bakery up the street at Filbert and Stockton. Here's what they sellfocaccia (pizza bread). Choose from tomato, onion, and plain, and the proprietor will wrap it up in plain paper for you and tie it with string. Take your focaccia and saunter up Filbert to do a little shopping among the wonderfully funky and eclectic stores of Upper Grant Avenue. Stop into Quantity Postcards and check out its outrageously bizarre collection of postcards and curiosities.







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Armani Cafe


Coiffed cappuccinos and styled paninis
 1 Grant Avenue
(at the corner of O'Farrell Street)
San Francisco, CA 94102
+1 415 677 9010
Armani Cafe
Westin St. Francis


Sophisticated Urban Elegance
 335 Powell Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
+1 415 774 0124
http://www.westin.com
Westin St. Francis
Sts. Peter and Paul Church


Historic North Beach church
 666 Filbert Street
(across from Washington Square)
San Francisco, CA 94133-2805
+1 415 421 0809
http://www.stspeterpaul.san-francisco.ca.us/church/
Sts. Peter and Paul Church
Maiden Lane


Four star shopping
 between Stockton Street and Grant Avenue
(off Union Square)
San Francisco, CA 94108
Maiden Lane
Tien Hau Temple


San Francisco's oldest Chinese temple
 125 Waverly Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
Tien Hau Temple
Liguria Bakery


Italian staple
 1700 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
+1 415 421 3786
Liguria Bakery
New Asia


Chinese food, San Francisco-style
 772 Pacific Avenue
(between Grant Avenue and Stockton Street)
San Francisco, CA 94133
+1 415 391 6666
New Asia
Cable Cars


Cable Cars
 1201 Mason St
(@ Washington St) Division Headquarters and Museum
San Francisco, CA 94108
311 (SF); 511 (Bay Area); +1 415 701 2311 (elsewhere); +1 415 701 2323 (TTY)
http://www.sfmta.com/cablecar
Cable Cars
Shreve & Co.


Famous downtown jeweler
 200 Post St
(at Grant St)
San Francisco, CA 94108
+1 415 296 8187
http://www.shreve.com
Shreve & Co.
Emporio Armani


Upscale designer
 1 Grant Avenue
(at the corner of O'Farrell Street)
San Francisco, CA 94108
+1 415 398 0202
http://www.giorgioarmani.com/
Emporio Armani
City Lights Bookstore


Poetry, rare titles, famous authors
 261 Columbus Ave
(between Pacific Avenue and Broadway Street)
San Francisco, CA 94133
+1 415 362 8193
http://www.citylights.com
City Lights Bookstore
Neiman Marcus


Upscale department store
 150 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
+1 415 362 3900 / +1 877 634 6264
http://www.neimanmarcus.com/
Neiman Marcus
Vesuvio


Where the Beats Meet
 255 Columbus Avenue
(at Jack Kerouac Alley)
San Francisco, CA 94133
+1 415 362 3370
http://www.vesuvio.com
Vesuvio
Macy's


A department store for everyone!
 170 O'Farrell Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
+1 415 397 3333
http://www.macys.com/
Macy's
Saks Fifth Avenue


Upscale, downtown department store
 384 Post Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
+1 415 986 4300
http://www.saksfifthavenue.com/
Saks Fifth Avenue
Tiffany & Company


Famous jewelers
 350 Post Street
Union Square
San Francisco, CA 94108
+1 415 781 7000 / +1 800 843 3269
http://www.tiffany.com/
Tiffany & Company
Banana Republic


Cashmere me
 256 Grant Avenue
(at Sutter Street)
San Francisco, CA 94108-4604
+1 415 788 3087 / +1 888 277 8953
http://www.bananarepublic.com/
Banana Republic
Tosca


Arias for a quarter
 242 Columbus Avenue
(between Broadway and Pacific Avenue)
San Francisco, CA 94133
+1 415 391 1244 / +1 415 986 9651
Tosca
Cafe Trieste


Live opera and espresso
 609 Vallejo Street
(at the corner of Grant Street)
San Francisco, CA 94133
+1 415 392 6739
http://www.caffetrieste.com
Cafe Trieste
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