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Since its beginnings in the 1850s, this densely populated neighborhood has held its own powerful cultural identity despite every threat and cajolery. To walk along its cluttered, clattering streets and alleys is to be transported to another continent and into another way of life – a “city” within the city.

The Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded City Lights in 1953. It’s a great place to leaf through a few volumes of poetry or the latest free papers to find out what’s on around town.

The city’s administrative center is an excellent example of grand Beaux Arts taste and illustrates San Franciscans’ pride in their city. It is perhaps the most ambitious and elaborate city center complex in the US and it continues to undergo enhancements. Besides the imposing City Hall, with its vast rotunda, gold-leaf detailing, and formal gardens, the area also includes the War Memorial Opera House, the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, the Herbst Theater, the State Building, the New Main Library, and the monumental Old Main Library, re-inaugurated in its new incarnation as the Asian Art Museum.

The frescoes were painted by local artists in 1934, to provide jobs during the Depression (see Beach Chalet). The murals are socio-political commentary yet are also appealing for their details of life in California at the time.

The flowery descent down these rustic steps provides great views of the Bay.

Montgomery Street, now the heart of the Financial District, was once lined with small shops where miners came to weigh their gold dust. It marks roughly the old shoreline of shallow Yerba Buena Cove, which was filled in during the Gold Rush to create more land. Today it is lined with early 20th-century banking “temples” and modern fabrications of glass and steel. At the end of Market Street stands the newly renovated Ferry Building, which once handled 100,000 commuters a day before the city’s bridges were constructed, and is now a bustling meeting spot with cafés and artisan food shops. Its tower is inspired by the Moorish belfry of Seville Cathedral in Spain.

Bank of California, Financial District

Renovated in the 1950s, this neighborhood right next to the Transamerica Pyramid contains some of San Francisco’s oldest buildings. In the 19th century the area was notorious for its squalor, and was nicknamed the “Barbary Coast,” but brothels and drinking establishments have given way today to upscale offices and the city’s most lavish antiques shops. The blocks around Jackson Street and Hotaling Place feature many original brick, cast-iron, and granite façades.