“111 Places in San Francisco That You Must Not Miss”
Emons, $19.90
Every city has its unique sites. San Francisco certainly does, as this entertaining book proves. Author Floriana Petersen has chosen 111 places that scream “San Francisco.” The selections are an eclectic bunch, typical of the city itself.
Consider a few literary places. Dashiell Hammett wrote “The Maltese Falcon” in an apartment near Union Square, and journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s house on Parnassus Street was where he was living when he wrote about the Hells Angels.
Some places recall almost-forgotten crimes: a branch of the Hibernia Savings & Loan was where members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, which included kidnapped publishing heiress Patty Hearst, burst in and announced a holdup in 1974.
There are sites dedicated to the city’s liquor history (Anchor Brewing); its rich counterculture history (the Beat Museum in North Beach); and sports and entertainment history (Candlestick Park and Cow Palace). The birthplace of Levi Strauss & Co. is here (the building now is a Quaker elementary school). The company was founded by Strauss, “an oval-faced, never-married Bavarian,” but it was one of Strauss’ customers, a Russian immigrant and itinerant tailor named Jacob Davis, who invented the iconic blue jeans.
Cinematic history also is here. Fans of the Hitchcock classic “Vertigo” can walk in the footsteps of the characters made famous by James Stewart and Kim Novak: The Empire Hotel now is the Hotel Vertigo, while Gallery 6 in the Legion of Honor museum was where the Novak character contemplated “Portrait of Carlotta” by American painter John Ferren. (“Sadly, the painting was eventually lost.”)
Some places are little known outside the area. Hunters Point is an old Navy shipyard that was turned into an artist colony in 1983; today it is one of the largest artist collectives in the country, Petersen writes. Similarly, Petersen describes the Interval as “a techno utopian bar for thinkers and drinkers”; it is run by the Long Now Foundation, an organization that was founded in 1996 by Stewart Brand, the original editor of the Whole Earth Catalogue. Yet another artist factory is Project Artaud. Established in 1971 on the edge of the Mission District, it is home to roughly 80 artists of various stripes.
Among the most unusual places is Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church on Fillmore Street. The jazz legend is the storefront church’s patron saint; inside is a painting of Coltrane, a golden halo around his head, as he holds Scripture in one hand and a tenor saxophone in the other.
Also here are the famous parrots of Telegraph Hill; Pink Triangle Park in the Castro District, which makes San Francisco the only city to publicly honor the gay people who were imprisoned and killed by the Nazis during World War II; and the grand old Victorian houses in the Rock Colony of Haight-Ashbury, where many of the 1960s rock stars lived and created the so-called San Francisco Sound, including Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.
Each entry features a tip. For the famous and reinvented Tosca Cafe, for example, Petersen suggests patrons try the house cappuccino, a bourbon-based cocktail with chocolate and milk.
“Sydney & the Great Barrier Reef”
Avalon Travel, $19.99
One of the great travel destinations in the world is the Great Barrier Reef. The planet’s largest coral reef system, the Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea stretches over 1,400 miles and features some 900 islands. Author Ulrike Lemmin-Woolfrey suggests the best diving locations as well as the best choices for cruising the reef (whether organized, private or doing it yourself). Sydney in all its splendor takes up a big chunk of the book too: its culture, nightlife, shopping, dining and, of course, beaches.
The book concludes with a wildlife guide (sea life, mammals, reptiles, birds and insects) and a backgrounder section on Australian cultural values: Australia prides itself as being the land of the “fair go,” or giving someone a chance.
June Sawyers is a freelance reporter.
