Where is san francisco located. San Francisco - the city of eternal spring

If you think San Francisco is all about the Golden Gate Bridge and cable cars, you're right, it is. However, in addition to these well-known symbols, the city has a rich history, beautiful architecture, but the main thing that its residents are proud of is the unofficial title of the freest city in the world, which San Francisco proudly wears. At different times, in some surprising way, it became the center of attraction for adventurers and non-standard-minded people - it is no coincidence that the hippie movement was born here.

Bridge "Golden Gate" - "calling card" of San Francisco Understanding why this particular city is "the freest" is not so difficult if you remember the history of San Francisco. For tens of millennia, Indians lived on its territory, but in 1776 the Spaniards arrived here. Then the settlement was called Yerba Buena. In 1848, the city began to develop and grow rapidly - mainly due to the Gold Rush epidemic that covered these places; then he got modern name. In just a year, the population of San Francisco increased from 1,000 to 25,000 people, people from all over the world came here in search of work, but especially a lot of people from China. China Town still occupies a significant part of the city, a fifth of the population of San Francisco are Chinese.

In 1906, the city was almost destroyed by a strong earthquake, during which three thousand people died and another 300 thousand were left without a roof over their heads. However, over time it was restored. In the 80s of the last century, there was another devastating earthquake in the city, which destroyed the highway that ran along the embankment. By the way, they did not restore it - but now the city has a wonderful area for walking.

Today, San Francisco is one of the most vibrant cities in America, where many cultures and nationalities coexist. The hippie revolution that took place here in the late 60s of the last century turned it into a center of attraction for creative, non-standard and free-thinking people. Some of them are still here today - those who in 1967 took part in the "Summer of Love" festival, speaking on the side of the sexual revolution and proclaiming personal freedom as the highest good that a person can have.

Participants of the festival "Summer of Love" in San Francisco

San Francisco, late 60s In the 80s, San Francisco once again became the epicenter of dissent, this time thanks to homosexuals who first felt free here. To date, almost 15 percent of the city's residents are representatives of sexual minorities - this is more than in any other city in the world. By the way, it was here, in the Castro gay quarter, that the symbol of the LGBT community, the rainbow flag, once appeared. Harvey Milk, the first American politician who declared his orientation openly, also lived here. However, adherents of traditional love feel no less free here.

A couple of days is not enough to get to know San Francisco - this place is worth spending at least a week here.

Marina Savelyeva (HELLO.RU) "grabbed" the symbol of the city - a cable car Most travelers first of all rush to see the main attraction depicted on every postcard - the Golden Gate Bridge, the "Golden Gate". However, the bridge is far from the most interesting thing in this city. What really surprises here is the people. Elderly hippies, street musicians, gays and couples with children do not interfere with each other at all, living side by side.

Dolores Park in San Francisco In addition to hiking, during which it is best to get to know the townspeople, renting a house from local residents. Instead of staying in hotels located in the tourist center of the city, it is much better to choose one of the options that are abundantly presented on the Airbnb site and spend a week in a regular residential area.

Haight-Ashbury quarter.

This is one of the most interesting areas of the city. Firstly, one of the few quarters that were not destroyed by the 1906 earthquake. Accordingly, the Haight-Ashbury retains old buildings dating from the 19th century. Secondly, this area is considered the birthplace of hippies. In the 50s of the 20th century, you could buy the cheapest housing in the city here, which provoked an influx of representatives of countercultures. As a result, in 1967, the center of this "movement" was formed here - thousands of people from all over the world celebrated the "Summer of Love". By the 80s, it was already part of history, and now Haight-Ashbury is considered quite a prestigious area to live in. Artists and musicians settle here, next to hippies, who can still be found here. Walking along the Haight Ashbury, do not be afraid to turn into the alleys - there you can see a lot of bright graffiti with which the walls of the houses are painted. Most of them are original slogans, with the help of which the “children of flowers”, like 50 years ago, call for love and freedom. By the way, graffiti is not only in this area, there are a lot of them throughout the city.

Graffiti depicting Carlos Santana, who lived in San FranciscoGraffiti in San Francisco takes up entire streets

The area, for every square meter of which there is some symbol of the LGBT community. Rainbow flags can be seen in every window, all the souvenirs in the shops are with the same symbols. Even the pedestrian crossing in Castro is colorful! And it's not just that. Castro is a gay quarter.

LGBT symbols are everywhere in the Castro area

Entire generations of people free from prejudice have grown up in San Francisco

However, do not expect to be surrounded on the streets by scantily clad men fighting for their right to love each other. Residents of this area have not proved anything to anyone for a long time - they just live. If it weren't for the colorful flags (most of which appeared here in support of a recent US law allowing members of sexual minorities to enter into legal marriage), you would hardly immediately understand how this area differs from others. Unless a couple of hours later, sitting in a cafe or standing in line at the checkout in a store, you would involuntarily catch yourself thinking that there are mostly men around.

Chinatown

As already mentioned, a fifth of the population of San Francisco are Chinese. For the most part, these are the descendants of immigrants who arrived here in the 19th century in search of work. However, if you decide to travel around the city by taxi, every second driver will be Chinese and most likely will speak terrible English. During the earthquake, Chinatown was destroyed and then completely rebuilt. Today, the district occupies a fairly large area in the city.

Lombard Street

The steepest street in every sense of the city, one of the sections of which has an angle of inclination of 27 degrees. Speed Vehicle here it is limited to 8 km / h, but no one tries to go faster: Lombard Street is mostly visited by tourists who want to look at the street carefully and therefore are not in a hurry to pass quickly.

vintage stores

For lovers of vintage and flea markets, San Francisco is a real paradise. In numerous stores located throughout the city, you can find anything from designer jewelry for $ 2-3 to a spectacular leather chair of the 50s for $ 80.

Decades of fashion - one of the largest vintage stores

Showcase of the Decades of fashion store: here you can buy both real vintage items of clothing, and modern, sewn "antique"

A dress with a story can be bought for $30A real vintage bathing suit - for $ 15

Silicon Valley

In the southwest of San Francisco lies Silicon Valley (or Silicon, as we call it) - the largest technology center in the world. There are technical universities and head offices of Adobe, Apple, eBay, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Yahoo!, LinkedIn and many other companies. The staff includes the best scientists in the world, many of whom live in San Francisco. If you get a chance to visit any of these offices, go - you won't regret it. Internal organization organizations unusual and interesting. Airbnb was also founded in San Francisco in 2008 and is also headquartered here.

After walking along the streets and peeping at the life of local residents, you can go on "spot" excursions - visit the famous Pier 39, where dozens of sea lions rest, dine at Fisherman's Wharf. The best view of the city opens from Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. 210 meters high, you can take excellent panoramic pictures of the city, the entrance to the tower is free, but you will have to pay to go to the observation deck.

The famous "Pier 39" - favorite place sea ​​lions

Another place that is criminal not to visit when you arrive in San Francisco is the famous Alcatraz prison. It is located on the island of the same name, which is visible from the pier. Now the prison has been disbanded, and within the walls of the gloomy buildings there is a museum that reminds visitors that at the beginning of the 20th century there was one of the most severe prisons in the world, where especially dangerous criminals served time. The narrow windows of the cells were arranged in such a way that the prisoners could see the city and the free life in it, realizing even more clearly that it was now inaccessible to them. It is believed that not a single prisoner managed to escape from Alcatraz, although attempts were made. Even those who managed to leave its walls could not reach the shore alive because of the cold waters and strong currents in the bay.

View of the island and Alcatraz prison from Coit Tower

The Painted Ladies are also worth a look, six colorful houses in the Alamo Square area. These and several thousand more houses were built in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. The earthquake destroyed most of the buildings, but these six houses remained intact. The fashion for bright, colorful houses at the end of the 19th century was widespread, local newspapers even wrote that if someone's house does not have a lemon or, for example, bright blue hue, then its owner simply does not have taste. Following these houses, which are also called "Six Sisters", "Painted Ladies" throughout America began to be called colorful houses in the style of the Victorian era.

And finally, about the "Golden Gate". This red bridge, almost 2.5 kilometers long, is a symbol of San Francisco. Despite the beauty of the object, it has a rather macabre reputation. The Golden Gate was popularly nicknamed the "suicide bridge", because for almost 80 years of its existence, more than 1000 people said goodbye to their lives with its help. The dense fog that envelops the bridge most of the time looks impressive and mysterious on postcards, but in real life can make it difficult to see the bridge. So when planning a trip to Golden Gate, be sure to check the weather forecast.

Marina Savelyeva (HELLO.RU)

A few more tips:

1. For the US, San Francisco has a well-developed system public transport, however, locals prefer to travel by car. So when planning your trip, be prepared to spend $30 to $50 a day on 20-minute round trips. Or you can travel by bus, it will cost you 5-7 dollars a day, but taxis are certainly more convenient and faster.

2. Traveling around the city will be easier if you use the services of Uber taxi. In the American Uber, everything is exactly the same as in the Russian one, and you don’t even have to reinstall the application on your phone - it will simply adjust to the country on the spot. However, there is one caveat: in America, Uber contains a Pool function, by selecting which you can take a fellow traveler along the road and split the bill with him in half.

3. The writer Jack London was born in San Francisco, the actors Robin Williams and Savely Kramarov lived, and to this day the houses of Carlos Santana and Steven Spielberg are located here. Find out in advance where they lived to see the city through their eyes.

Excellent climate all year round for travel. The weather in San Francisco is quite warm during the months. The city is located in the middle latitudes. Comfortable average annual ambient temperature +19.6°C during the day and +12.3°C at night. It is a popular travel city in the USA. Below is the climate and weather in San Francisco in winter, spring, summer and autumn.

The best months to travel

High season in San Francisco in July, August, September with excellent weather +21.5°C...+23.4°C. During this period in this popular city the least rainfall, about 0 days per month, falls from 1.2 to 10.9 mm of precipitation. The number of clear days is from 13 to 22 days. Monthly climate and temperature in San Francisco are calculated based on recent years.



Monthly air temperature in San Francisco

The warmest weather in San Francisco by months and in general in the USA is in August, September, October up to 23.5°C. At the same time, the lowest ambient air temperatures are observed in February, December, January up to 13.5°C. For lovers of night walks, the figures range from 9°C to 15.8°C.

Number of rainy days and precipitation

The most rainy periods are February, March, December, when the weather is bad for 5 days, up to 71.2 mm of precipitation falls. For those who do not like humidity, we recommend August, September, July during this period it rains on average only 0 days per month and the monthly rainfall is 1.2mm.



Comfort Rating

The climate and weather rating in San Francisco is calculated by months, taking into account the average air temperature, the amount of rainfall and other indicators. For a year in San Francisco, the score ranges from 3.0 in February to 5.0 in October, out of a possible five.

Climate Summary

	Month	Temperature air during the day	Temperature air at night	solar days	Rainy days (precipitation)
	January	+16°C	+10.2°C	22	3 days (19.1mm)
	February	+13.5°C	+9°C	16	3 days (46.6mm)
	March	+17.5°C	+11.2°C	15	4 days (46.7mm)
	April	+19.5°C	+11°C	21	2 days (16.0mm)
	May	+22°C	+12.5°C	20	1 day (11.0mm)
	June	+20.8°C	+12.2°C	20	2 days (17.4mm)
	July	+21.5°C	+13.8°C	13	1 day (5.0mm)
	August	+23°C	+14.8°C	13	0 days (10.9mm)
	September	+23.4°C	+14°C	22	1 day (1.2mm)
	October	+23.5°C	+15.8°C	17	2 days (8.0mm)
	November	+19.2°C	+12.8°C	19	2 days (35.6mm)
	December	+14.8°C	+10.8°C	16	5 days (71.2mm)

Number of sunny days

The greatest number of sunny days is noted in April, January, September, when there are 22 clear days. During these months, the weather in San Francisco is excellent for walks and excursions. The sun is least in August, July, March, when the minimum number of clear days is 13.

- a city that grew out of the Good Grass.
Located in the west of the state of California, the administrative center of the district of the same name. The largest commercial, financial and industrial city of the American West. The epicenter of the "gold rush" of the XIX century. The capital of all informal youth movements of the 20th century.

San Francisco. With what only enthusiastic epithets he was not awarded! Beautiful, dazzling, mysterious… Connoisseurs say: San Francisco is the most picturesque city in America. Solid and reliable, with many banks and corporations, and at the same time free and rebellious. He is hailed by the staunch romantic Jack London as "the world's home port of romantic adventures." And Robert Stevenson remarked: “This is the City of Gold, to which adventurers are carried by all the winds of heaven. I am amazed that the charm of a thousand and one nights has become a reality in a single generation.”

By American standards, San Francisco is not very big. Bounded by the ocean and natural terrain, it covers an area of ​​122 sq. kilometers. And in terms of population (730 thousand), it is not among the ten most major cities U.S.A. But, nevertheless, with the suburbs of the Santa Clara Valley and the city of San Jose, San Francisco forms a huge metropolis (6.3 million people). Silicon Valley, where engineers and programmers work and new "high" technologies are created, is just in its line. The US Electronics Industry Center produces a fifth of the world's electronics.

The city is located at the very tip of the peninsula and is surrounded on three sides by the ocean. But the resort of San Francisco can be called conditionally. It is washed by the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean. Thick fog envelops the city every night, and cool sea breezes disperse it only in the morning. There are no cold winters here, but there are no really hot summers either. The temperature throughout the year is kept within +20 ° C. Mark Twain said about the local weather: "The coldest winter in my life was in the summer in San Francisco." Romantics call San Francisco the city of eternal spring, and skeptics call it eternal autumn.
"Frisco", "City", "City by the Bay" - the Americans awarded their favorite with such nicknames. And if California in America is called the "Golden State", then San Francisco can be called the "Golden City". There is a lot in it, one way or another, reminiscent of the noble metal. The Golden Gate Bay, the bridge that connects the peninsula to the mainland, is the Golden Gate. The beautiful city park is also called the Golden Gate.

But do not forget that the history of the city began much earlier than the time of the "gold rush". The first, in 1542, the ships of the Portuguese Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who served the Spanish crown, visited here. In 1579, the famous English pirate F. Drake sailed along these shores. But the first settlement was founded only in 1775, when Spanish sailors discovered a bay with a convenient bay. They founded Fort Presido and the village of Yerba Buepa in this place, which in translation meant “Good Grass”. It is from this “Good Grass” that the future city actually grew. Later, the indefatigable Spanish missionaries built a church, which received the name of St. Francis of Assis. In 1848, Mexico lost the war with the United States and gave them the upper part of California, which also included a small seaside village. The Americans began to call the town the same as the church - San Francisco.
The city is counting down its prosperity on August 19, 1848. It was on that day that the New York newspaper Herald published a sensational report: in California, a gold deposit was discovered on the Sacramento River. This information was later confirmed by US President James Knox Polk. Since that time, settlers began to arrive in a small town with a population of five hundred people in search of happiness. In 1849, the city was inhabited by more than 10,000 adventurers, and in 1850 there were already a hundred thousand. Not only Americans came here for good luck. Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Greeks, Filipinos, Scandinavians, Mexicans, this is not a complete list of nationalities. All of them settled in their communities around the city, forming a kind of conglomerate. Now, traveling around San Francisco, you can get into amazing corners where residents sacredly preserve the traditions of their native places.

Chinatown is San Francisco's Chinatown. This is one of the largest Chinese settlements outside of Asia with more than 60 thousand people, and the largest in America. Walking the streets of the quarter, you plunge into the unique atmosphere Chinese city- Numerous buildings in the form of pagodas, ethnic restaurants, souvenir shops. All inscriptions on cafes and shops are duplicated in Chinese and made in oriental style, and the houses of the residents are painted in colors that, according to legend, should bring good luck to their owners. Red gives happiness, green - longevity, yellow promises the owner a good fortune, and black - money.

Describing the history of San Francisco, it is impossible not to touch on the "Russian question" in North America. One of the 42 hills on which the city is located is called the Russian Hill. here in the middle of the 19th century. graves of Russian fur seal hunters who worked for the Russian-American Company were discovered. And not far from the city, if you go north along Freeway No. 1, there are the restored remains of the wooden fortress Fort Ross, founded by Russian settlers in 1812. It is sad to realize that it was from the Russians that the enterprising American Sutter bought the land on which, eight years after the sale, gold was first found. Now the "Russian quarters" are located in the Richmond area. Russians, like other ethnic groups of emigrants, are trying to preserve their identity. There are Russian restaurants, Russian cinemas showing exclusively Russian cinema, Russian newspapers, many of which are delivered from Moscow.

California also attracts the Americans themselves with its own lifestyle, so unlike other states. Not only emigrants from abroad move here, internal immigration is strong here. The incredible mixture of races and peoples in the city has created here an extraordinary freedom of morals and tolerance for someone else's way of life. For its free inhabitants, there are absolutely no strict Puritan traditions. The bars of the city have entered the legend. The weakness of local residents for strong drinks was emphasized by “Mr. San Francisco” - Herb Kane, a well-known local historian who devoted his whole life to studying his city: “San Francisco learned to drink in the days of the gold rush and improves in this capacity all his life.” And in the 50-60s of the XX century. San Francisco has become the capital of a global counterculture that has challenged the morals and tastes of a world of well-fed and limited laymen.

Young rebels Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg created in the 1950s the Beat generation philosophy and its new values, among which the motorcycle, alcohol, poetry and jazz are in the first place. You can go to City Light, where Allen Ginsberg was reading The Howl. Or visit "Lights big city in North Beach, the former headquarters of the beatniks. Now it is one of the richest and most interesting bookstores in the United States.
Hight-Ashbury is a neighborhood in San Francisco from which a generation of hippies roamed the world. Compared to the more aggressive beatniks, the "flower children" preferred passing cars, drugs, oriental teachings and rock. The hippies staged a half-million "Summer of Love" here in 1967, the culmination of their movement. Now the area for tourists has been put into museum order. One of its attractions is the wild-colored psychedelic bus that Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, cultized by Hollywood Czech Miklash Forman, drove across America.

One of the symbols of free America, the famous jeans, was born here. Work pants for gold miners from Levi Strauss have become the iconic clothes of the rebellious generation. The mass fashion for them came with the beatniks, from the Hollywood images of James Dean and Marlon Brando. Against the backdrop of all the ups and downs, the history of this clothing is very indicative. It was working, then rebellious, and now the average American or European cannot imagine his life without comfortable casual trousers.
San Francisco is still one of the world leaders in non-standard attitude to life. The city is the most prominent center of the gay civil rights movement. On Christopher Street, seven-color flags are hung in the windows of many houses so that no one doubts the sexual orientation of their residents.

San Francisco is located in a seismically dangerous and not - under it passes the crevice of San Andreas. Now Oma "behaves" relatively calmly - 100 shocks per month with a force of less than 1 point. In modern homes, such small jolts are almost imperceptible. You notice them only when the paintings on the walls periodically change their position. But there were times when the element showed itself in all its might. Strong earthquakes were noted here in 1812 and in 1865. From 1849 to 1852, San Francisco experienced six major fires caused by underground vibrations. In 1906, it was almost completely destroyed by a strong earthquake and a large fire that followed. But the city has always been rebuilt. It is no coincidence that its coat of arms is adorned with the legendary Phoenix bird, reborn not from the ashes, but from a ring of flame. After the last destruction, restoration proceeded at a truly "Stakhanovite" pace. Already in 1915, San Francisco was restored to such an extent that it was able to host the international exhibition "Panama International".
The city's desire for continuous development is characterized by the fact that during the years of the Great Depression, when the United States was going through hard times, an ingenious project was implemented here, which has now become a symbol of San Francisco - the Golden Gate Bridge. This is one of the longest (total length - 2730 m, central span - 1280 m) and beautiful bridges in the world. It spread across the bay and connects the city to the mainland. It has six lanes of traffic, and for walkers there are two walking paths. If you look down from the bridge, at the fog swirling below, then there is a fantastic feeling of flight. The romantic image of the bridge and the strait of the same name was sung by Jack London: “The Golden Gate really gilded in the rays of the setting sun, and behind them the immense expanses of the Pacific Ocean opened up. Behind them is the Pacific Ocean, China, Japan, India, and ... Coral Islands. You can sail anywhere through the Golden Gate, to Australia, to Africa, to seal rookeries, to the North Pole, to Cape Horn.

The history of the bridge is very interesting. The need for its construction began to be thought about at the very beginning of the 20th century, when cars appeared in the life of citizens. The initial estimate for the project was $100 million.
The amount was really very solid, so such projects were not taken seriously. But Joseph Straus, an experienced engineer, said that he would meet the construction cost of 27 million. By the way, the real estimate did not exceed the promised one by much - by 8 million. Construction began in 1933, and in 1937 the bridge was inaugurated. From now on, you can get into the city directly from the mainland, paying $ 3 per car. And at the entrance to the bridge there is a bronze figure of engineer Joseph Straus, protecting his offspring from all sorts of troubles.

In some ways, the city is typically American, in some ways it has its own unique features. Repeatedly rebuilt after fires, each time it became a little different, reflecting the inclinations and tastes of its architects. The central street of San Francisco - Markst Street. It was drawn by the Irishman Jasper O'Farrell diagonally to the already laid streets, taking the Champs-Elysées of Paris as a model. As elsewhere, the city center is decorated with huge skyscrapers made of glass, steel and concrete. For example, the office of the Transamerica Corporation, built in 1972, is a pyramidal building 260 meters high. Or a complex of five skyscrapers - the Embarcodero Center, designed by D. Portman.

Named after the carpenter who first discovered gold, John Marshall Square is home to the San Francisco Civic Center. The majestic buildings of gray granite, built in a classical style, were declared a landmark of national importance in 1978. The building of the City Hall (Town Hall), built in 1915, is also located here, the object of special pride of the townspeople. The dome of the Town Hall is modeled on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the main Catholic church. It has a height of 102 m and is 4 m higher than the Washington Capitol.

Despite its business rhythm, San Francisco is conducive to unhurried walks. It is very good to walk here on foot or on special sightseeing trams - cable cars. The city even has a museum dedicated to the townspeople's favorite type of gransporg. The tram rises along the "humped" streets with the help of steel ropes. The elevation changes of the hilly terrain are practically not felt here. On the contrary, each new road turn reveals another facet of the beautiful city. Almost all of modern San Francisco was built up before 1935. Since the 50s of the XX century. building a helstio in a city bounded by natural terrain has been reduced. In the 1990s, a moratorium was declared on the demolition of any buildings. Therefore, houses built in the Victorian style are replacing buildings in the neoclassical style. Next you can see luxurious italian mansions and Moorish turrets - the Palace of Fine Arts, the community center, the Morris store. From the height of the Coit Tower, you can admire the opening panorama of the city with its sights - Telegraph Hill, Fort San Francisco, Historic ships (historical ships).

There are a lot of museums in the city, and they all differ in variety - from serious academic to interesting everyday ones: the Museum of Asian Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. M. H. de Young Memorial Museum of Painting, Wells Farto Historical Museum, Maritime Museum, Wine Museum. They exhibit collections of antiques, works of art, including ancient Indian.
There are more than 140 theaters in the city, of which the most famous are the Opera House, the Alcazar Theater, the Orpheus Theater, as well as concert halls - Curran, Little Fox, On Broadway.

San Francisco is a major center of science and education. The most famous educational institutions are the University of San Francisco, the Department of the University of California, the State University at San Francisco, the conservatory. It is also home to the California Academy of Sciences, founded in 1853. It manages the Morrison Planetarium (Morrison Planetarium), and the Steinhart Aquarium (Steinhart Oceanarium), open to tourists.
A distinctive feature of the city can be called its streets. Some of them have a slope of up to 35 degrees. Cars park at a sharp angle to the pavement, otherwise they will roll, despite the most reliable brakes. The steepest and most winding street in the world is Lombard Street, which is located on Russian Hill. Laid in the 20s of the XX century, it has become one of the symbols of the city and is listed in the Guinness World Records. The round slope of the hill gives the street a broken outline. Without the zigzags, descending the slope would be like moving down the chute of a ski jump. Except without snow.

A fairly dense building still provides space for flowers and trees. There are more than 130 parks in the city.
Among them is the most and (the local Golden Gate is the National Recreation Area. A powerful green massif is the pride of not only the residents of San Francisco. This is the largest urban man-made park in the United States, it covers an area of ​​411 hectares. It is hard to imagine that such beauty was created The park was laid out on a sandy stretch of the seashore, the sand was reinforced with grass, and the territory was fenced with a rampart from the winds from the Pacific Ocean.
Here all the lakes, waterfalls, green valleys and hills are created by caring human hands. Walking along the paths of the park (their total length is 43 km), you can go to the Rhododendron Valley, where the largest collection of these plants in the world is collected, or visit the elegant Japanese Garden with a traditional Japanese house for tea ceremonies, and your feet will lead you to the exquisite Aroma Garden , or the Bible Garden.

You can't miss the romantic Shakespeare's Flower Garden. The author of such a "literary-botanical" masterpiece is Alice Eastwood. According to experts, she "created a collection full of poetic harmony." There is a wall in the garden, in which six bronze slabs with 88 quotations from Shakespeare are mounted. In the center of the wall is a safe containing a copy of the sculptural portrait of the great playwright, made from a death mask in 1620 by G. Johnson. This rarity (there are only two such portraits) was handed over to the garden from the inhabitants of Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare died.
The Botanical Garden of the California Academy of Sciences is also located on the territory of the park complex. Here, more than 500 species of plants from all over the world are collected in the natural-scientific collection.

Park "Golden Gate" is a favorite vacation spot for citizens. Here you can not only admire nature, but also have a festive picnic. Or listen to one of the many concerts organized right under the open sky. And for fans of roller skates - this is a traditional gathering place. But even this park could not contain all the natural attractions of San Francisco. For example, in Sutro Park there is an End of Land (“End of the Earth”), the westernmost point of the continental surface of the Earth in the direction of its rotation around its axis.
If we talk about the nature of the city, one cannot but mention the majestic Pacific Ocean, its beaches and embankments. There is constant surf here. Watching the endless full distance, you renounce everything earthly, from the anxieties and worries of the crazy rhythm of life. On the piers and piers, you can see the rookeries of fur seals basking in the sun. Residents of the city tell funny stories about how you can "nose to nose" in the water with these funny animals. The beaches are located at Point Reyes, and although the water is rather cool, there is no shortage of people who want to swim and sunbathe.

The final touch of urban features is the local cuisine. Fast food restaurants are not particularly favored by the townspeople. Residents of San Francisco know a lot about the refined niche. Here they catch the most delicious crabs in the world, white sturgeon, Chikun salmon. Excellent restaurants on Rybachaya Embankment will not leave indifferent the most demanding gourmet.
Yes, San Francisco is one of the most beautiful and distinctive cities in the United States. And Robert Stevenson very rightly said in his time: "San Francisco has only one drawback: it is difficult to leave it."

The history of the formation of the city of San Francisco, the geographical characteristics of San Francisco, the culture of San Francisco

San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906, geography and climate of San Francisco, quarters and parks of San Francisco, museums of San Francisco, sights of the city of San Francisco

Section 1. History of the city of San Francisco.

Like many mountain towns, the social climate in early San Francisco was unstable. This situation caused a great resonance in, and the Compromise of 1850 series kindled feuds on the basis of the problem of "cruel labor". In 1851, and again in 1856, a "Committee of Vigilance" was set up to fight crime, government corruption, and violence against immigrants, but this committee may have created more lawlessness than it prevented. This popular movement lynched 12 people, kidnapped hundreds of Irish people, government officials, and forcibly forced the city's elected officials to resign. Twice the "Vigilance Committee" was stopped by the use of force, after which it was decided that the city was "cleaned out." This committee later focused on immigrants from Chinatown, creating a lot of unrest in the Chinatown area, which led to the creation of a law to weaken Chinese immigration to the United States by reducing the number of immigrants allowed in the city. The Chinese Immigration Act was passed in 1882 and repealed in 1943.

The city of San Francisco was the seat of San Francisco County from 1849 until 1856. But because the city's population was so out of proportion to the population of the entire county, the California state government decided to divide the county. passed through the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, a little north of the mountain San Bruno. Everything south of the line became the new San Mateo County, centered on the city of Redwood City, and everything north of the line became the new incorporated city-county of San Francisco.

In the fall of 1855, a ship arrived in San Francisco carrying refugees from the Far East, from territories prone to cholera epidemics. Just as during the gold rush, population growth far outstripped the development of infrastructure, including sanitation, so a serious cholera epidemic became the number one problem. The Sisters of Mercy helped solve the problem, they worked in the first hospital in San Francisco County, but already in 1857 they opened a new free hospital, which still functions today. It is located on Stanian Street.

In the 1890s, San Francisco was also suffering from the party mafia, the city was ripe for reform and change. Adolf Sutro, a member of the Farmers' Populist Party, became mayor in 1894. In fact, apart from building the Sutro Bass pool complex, he failed in all his attempts to improve the city.

The next mayor, James D. Phelan, elected in 1896, achieved great results. He introduced a new system that made it possible to increase the funds of the city by investing them in. This helped him build a new sewer system, 17 new schools, 2 parks, a hospital and a main library. After Phelan left the mayor's office in 1901, he became interested in rebuilding the city into a large and modern "Paris of the West". When the Arts of San Francisco asked him to develop a plan for beautifying the city, he hired famed architect Daniel Burnham. Burnham and Phelan's plan was incredible; it proposed a fifty-year attempt at rebuilding the city, widening the diagonal of the boulevards, creating open spaces and parks. Some parts of the plan were eventually implemented, including the opera houses north of City Hall, the subway lines under Market Street, and the Embarcadero Boulevard surrounding the city.

In 1900, a ship carrying rats infected with bubonic plague arrived in San Francisco. Mistakenly assuming that the corpses buried in the ground are sources of infection, the city authorities forbade the burial of bodies inside the city limits. The cemeteries moved to an undeveloped area by that time, south of the city, where the city of Kolma is now located. 50 blocks of Chinatown were under quarantine while the authorities argued how to get out of the current situation. The plague outbreak ended in 1905. However, the problem with the location of cemeteries and the lack of land remained. In 1912, all cemeteries were moved to Kolma, where the dead now outnumber the living: more than a thousand dead to one living. At the same time, they decided to leave the San Francisco mausoleum as a historical monument of the Dolores Mission era.

April 18, 1906 there was a devastating earthquake, whose epicenter was located 3 km west of San Francisco. The magnitude of surface waves was 7.7; seismic moment - 7.9. The whole city was flooded, then fires broke out, which destroyed supposedly 80% of the city, including almost the entire center. Many residents were trapped between the flood and the fire approaching their areas, it was decided to conduct an evacuation through the bay, which saved many people's lives. Refugee camps were located in Golden Gate Park, Washen Beach, and other undeveloped parts of the city. Even 2 years after the earthquake, many refugee camps were functioning. At that time "mortal" bell ringing sounded 478 times, however, according to 2005 data, more than 3,000 people officially died. With a population of 410,000 people. up to 300,000 inhabitants were left homeless.

Almost immediately after the aftershocks and the devastating fire, plans began to be developed for the rapid reconstruction of the city. One of the outstanding and incredible plans, designed by the famous urban planner Daniel Burnham, was submitted for consideration. His bold plan included the construction of Ottoman-style avenues and boulevards, as well as the main transport artery running through the entire city. The project contained plans for the construction of a massive civil complex with a classical structure, which was to become the largest urban park in the world. It would stretch from the hills of Twin Peaks to Lake Merced. But this plan was not accepted, and it was postponed until better times, many still criticize it for its impracticality in spending city supplies and unrealistic requirements for buildings. The idea was opposed by private owners and the industrial campaign, as the city needed to buy out a large amount of their land in order to implement this plan. When the original street layout was restored, many elements from Burnhman's plan saw the green light, such as the neo-classical civic complex, wide streets, the main thoroughfare, the subway under Market Street, the fisherman's pier, and the monument on the Hill, Coit Tower.

In 1915, San Francisco hosted the Panama Pacific Exposition, which was the official celebration of the opening of the Panama Canal, by which time the city had been completely rebuilt after the earthquake. After the exposition ended, all its grandiose buildings were destroyed, except for the Palace of Arts, which lives to this day, but in a slightly modified form.

The Bay Bridge (San Francisco - Oakland) was opened in 1936, and in 1937 the Golden Gate Bridge was officially opened. During World War II, San Francisco was the main supply point for troops.

After World War II, many of the American military, who were in love with the city, settled in it, which contributed to the creation of the Sunset quarter and the Visatishin Valley. During this period, California Transportation (Caltrans) began aggressively implementing the Bay Area's expressway program. However, Caltrans suddenly ran into a serious problem in San Francisco, where very high population density meant that any highway construction would leave many residents homeless. Kaltrans attempted to minimize the road construction area by introducing two-level roads, but the development of technology at that time did not allow the construction of such complex structures, and therefore the project was canceled because it was unsafe. In 1959, the city council voted to ban the construction of any roads in the city, an event that became known as the "Road Revolution". Despite this, minor road modifications were allowed. Since that time, anti-traffic police have been monitoring compliance with the ban. In 1989, the Loma Prietta earthquake destroyed the Embarcadero Highway and part of the Central Highway. After several referendums, the city's residents decided not to rebuild any of the structures. The areas that covered these roads have been reconstructed, with greater success being the rebuilding of the Embarcadero, which has been rebuilt into a historic coastal area.

In 1950, Harvard graduate Justin Herman took charge of the San Francisco City Redevelopment Agency. He immediately began an aggressive renewal of the city's natural reserves. He also proposed a plan to divide San Francisco into large lots and build them up. modern buildings. Critics accused Herman of racism, perceiving his changes in the architecture of the city as an attempt to isolate and then evict African Americans. According to his plans, the Embarcadero Center, Japantown, Geary Street and the Yerba Buena Gardens were built.

In the late 60s, San Francisco became the epicenter of the hippie scene, a seething cauldron of music, drugs, sexual freedom, creative expression, and politics. The apogee of the era was the Summer of Love in 1967, when thousands of hippies from all over the world came to the Haight-Ashbury area to celebrate love and freedom, thus creating a unique phenomenon of cultural, social and political rebellion.

During the reign of Mayor Dianne Feinstein (1978-1988), San Francisco experienced a real "reconstruction boom" called Manhattanization. Skyscrapers sprouted in the financial district, and the "boom" also included the introduction of condominiums over several areas of the city. There was an opposition movement in the city, made up of people who believed that skyscrapers would destroy the unique characteristics of the city. Similar to the "road revolution" 10 years earlier, the "high-rise revolution" began in the city, which forced San Francisco to introduce high-rise. The second wave of skyscraper construction, like the first, was met with discontent among the population.

During the 80s, homeless people began to appear in many cities in the United States, and soon this problem became relevant in San Francisco. Mayor Art Egnos, the first and by no means the last, tried to solve this problem. Egnos issued a law allowing the homeless to camp at Civic Center Park, the camp was named "Camp Egnos". The next mayor, Jordan, launched the Matrix program a year later, its goals were to evict all the homeless from the city by force. The program fully paid for itself, he was able to evict almost all the homeless. His successor, Willy Brown, completely ignored the problem, which completely annulled the merits of his predecessor. The homeless again filled the streets of the city. Today, Mayor Gavin Newsom is fighting the homeless through the promising Care Not Money program, which provides a variety of rehab and employment programs for the homeless.

On October 17, 1989, an earthquake of magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale struck. The epicenter was in the Santa Cruz Mountains, about 70 miles from San Francisco, the aftershocks in the city took place a few minutes before the start of Game 3 of the World Series. The earthquake severely damaged numerous roads, including the Embarcadero and Central Highways. The damage to these roads was so severe that they decided to completely destroy them. In addition to roads, the tremors caused severe damage in Marin County. In the United States, this quake became known as the "World Series quake".

During the development of the Internet and dot-com companies, highly paid Internet businessmen, programmers and other workers reached out to the city, creating high housing prices, which caused a significant rise in its price. High rents forced many families to leave the city for good. The collapse of the computer industry in 2001 greatly affected the economic condition of the city. To this day, proximity to Silicon Valley and a large number of "computer" companies make high technology the main industry of the city. San Francisco has the lowest number of children in the total number of residents, it is 14.5% lower compared to other major US cities.

Geography and climate of San Francisco

San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States, at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula. The boundaries of the city are strongly stretched along the coasts of the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay. The city includes several islands: Alcatraz, Treasure Island and Yerba Buena. The city also has the uninhabited islands of Faralon, located at a distance of 43 kilometers in the Pacific Ocean. It is often said that San Francisco is a square with a side of 7 miles (~11 kilometers).

San Francisco is famous for its hills. A hill in the city is called an elevation of more than 30 meters. There are 42 hills within the city limits, some areas of the city are named after the hills on which they are located (Knob Hill, Pacific Heights, Russian Hill, Potreto Hill and Telegraph Hill).

Not far from the geographical center of the city, a little to the south, there are a number of hills with the lowest population density, here the entertainment and information infrastructure of the city mainly prevails. There are television and transmitter towers on Sutro Hill. Next door are the Twin Peaks, one of the highest hills in the city and one of the most popular tourist destinations. The highest hill in San Francisco is Mount Davidson, 282 meters high, in 1934 a high cross was built here (its height is 31.4 m).

San Francisco is located near two tectonic faults, which are the cause of frequent earthquakes. Small earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area occur intermittently. The threat of major earthquakes places high standards on the strength of new buildings and forces the city to rebuild early buildings and bridges.

San Francisco's coastline limits the growth of the city, so some areas, such as Marin, Hunter Point, and most of the Embarcadero area, have been developed using artificial coastal fill. artificial island Treasure Island was built from material quarried during the construction of a bridge across the bay. Such areas are very unstable in the event of earthquakes, as the 1989 earthquake clearly demonstrated, causing severe destruction in Marin County.

A saying erroneously attributed to Mark Twain reads, "The coldest winter I have ever experienced is a San Francisco summer." The climate in San Francisco is generally similar to the Mediterranean climate, characterized by mild, wet winters and warm, dry summers. San Francisco is surrounded by water on three sides, so its climate is influenced by the rather cool Pacific Ocean in the area due to the cold currents, which leads to a mild climate with little seasonal temperature fluctuations.

The city's average summer temperature is 18°C, 10°C cooler than Livermore, the nearest city inland. The highest temperature in San Francisco was 39°C on July 14, 2000. The average monthly temperature of the warmest month - September - is 18.2 °C, which is colder than July in Moscow, although the latitude of San Francisco is south of Baku, at the level of Ashgabat. However, average daily temperatures above 16 ° C are kept from the beginning of May until the end of October. The daily temperature in winter is about 15 °C. Thermometers in the city almost never fall below zero Celsius, the lowest temperature was recorded on December 11, 1932, when it fell to -3 °C. The season from May to September is completely dry, the rainy season starts from November and continues until March. Snow is very rare in San Francisco, since 1852, there have been only 10 recorded cases of snowfall. The city's heaviest snowfall was on February 5, 1887, when snow levels reached 3.7 inches in downtown.

The combination of cold ocean water and the high air temperature of the California mainland leads to the formation of the San Franciscan Fog, which in summer can envelop the city (especially its western part, in the eastern regions the fog is less dense) for days on end. Fogs are active in the city at the end of summer and from September to October. High hills are responsible for a 20% discrepancy in the amount of annual precipitation in different areas. They also protect eastern counties from the fogs and cool temperatures that prevail in the Sunset area. The microclimate on the eastern side of the city is more sunny and dry.

Cityscape of San Francisco

The San Francisco Historic Center is the northeast "square" bordered on the south by Market Street. Now it is the center of the Financial District, close to Union Square and the district of hotels and shops. In these areas, there are cable tram tracks, which, from the top of Knob Hill, descend to Fisherman Wharf. Also in the historical "square" are Russian Hill with the famous winding street - Lombard Street, with the urban version of Little - North Beach and Telegraph Hill.

Mission County is predominantly working-class, populated mostly by immigrants from Mexico and.

During World War II, Japantown was on the brink of destruction as the government decided to evict all Japanese Americans. However, almost immediately after the eviction of the Japanese, the area was filled with thousands of African Americans.

The Alamo Square quarter is famous for its row of houses called the Painted Ladies, where mansions are located. In the north is an expensive residential area - Marina.

Richmond is a vast region in the north of Golden Gate Park, stretching to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Today it is often called the "New Chinatown", but in addition to the Chinese, immigrants from other parts of Richmond live in Richmond as well. In the south of the Golden Gate Park is the Sunset area, where the Asian diaspora predominates. Richmond and Sunset are the largest middle-class neighborhoods; together they are known as the Avenue. Due to the high crime rate, Bay View Hunters, located in the southeastern part of the city, is the poorest and most dangerous neighborhood in the city. The other southern quarter of the city is different from the Bay View Hunters, it is populated by students and the working class.

The South of Market, San Francisco's industrial district, has undergone a complete refurbishment during the dot-com era and has witnessed the construction of many high-rise buildings. Following the success of the South of Market, another area, Mishin Bay, has begun a complete overhaul of its infrastructure.

Ocean Beach stretches along the entire Pacific coast, but it is unsuitable for swimming, although it is popular with surfers, due to cold water and strong currents. The entire area east of the Golden Gate Bridge to the Presidio Park, the former military base, occupies Baker Beach, the beach is known for its colonies of the endangered plant Hesperolinon congestum.

In total, there are over 200 parks in San Francisco. The largest and most famous park in the city is the Golden Gate Park, which covers an area stretching from the city center to the Pacific Ocean.

Once the entire territory of the park was covered only with grass and dunes, but now the park consists of thousands of artificially planted plants and trees. The park is rich great view various gardens, the most famous of them: the conservatory of flowers, the Japanese tea garden and the botanical garden Streebing-Arboterium.

Merced Lake is a freshwater lake surrounded by parkland, which is located near the San Francisco Zoo, which has become home to more than 250 species of animals, many of which are endangered. Buena Vista Park is located in the Haight Ashbury area, famous for its role in the Hippie movement of the 60s. Officially the oldest park in San Francisco, it was founded back in 1867 and at first bore the name Hill Park, and in 1984 received its current name. The park is located on a hill with a really nice view of the city.

Culture of San Francisco

San Francisco is characterized as a city with a high standard of living. During the Internet revolution, the city became one of the richest in the United States, thanks to the attraction of highly skilled workers. Many poor areas have experienced a rebirth. The city center has experienced a "renaissance" spurred on by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero and the South Beach and Mission Bay areas. Thanks to numerous reconstructions and rebuildings, the city has grown a lot in housing, they still remain one of the highest in the country.

A large diaspora from Asia and South America makes San Francisco an international city. 39% of its inhabitants are foreigners, there are several neighborhoods where only immigrants live and work. Starting in 1970, it was decided to hold an annual Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown, as a large number of Chinese live in the city, and every year it only increases.

34. In the foyer of Operations Memorial Opera House, one of the last buildings built in the Beaux Arts style in the USA

Many foreign actors, writers, and other entertainment workers who arrived in the 50s established the modern coffee shop culture, and they also pushed the city into the social upsurge of the 60s. San Francisco became one of the centers of liberalism as the city's politics were dominated by Democrats, Greens and Progressive parties. Residents of the city, since 1988, have never cast more than 20% of the vote for a candidate from the Republican Party in the United States.

Writer Jack London was born in San Francisco.

San Francisco has a large number of museums, the most famous of which is the Museum of Modern Art, which contains exhibits of the present and the 20th century. The museum moved to a new building on the South of the Market in 1995, the collection attracts about 600,000 visitors a year. The Ligin-of-Honor Palace mainly exhibits European works. Golden Gate Park is famous for its Museum of Fine Arts - M. H. de Young. It was founded in 1894, but badly damaged after the Loma Prieta earthquake, in 2004 it was closed for reconstruction by the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron, and opened on October 15, 2005. Just like the Asian Art Museum, M. H. de Young exhibits non-European works. The Asian Art Museum has one of the largest collections of Asian artefacts and works in the world. From 1958 until 2004, all exhibits were located in the wing of the M. H. de Young Museum, but when it was closed for renovation, the Asian Art Museum moved to the San Francisco Library building.

The Palace of Fine Arts, originally built for the Panama Pacific Exposition, today welcomes tourists like the popular science museum, the Exploratorium.

Near Lake Merced is the San Francisco Zoo, which cares for about 250 animals, 39 of which are considered critically endangered. The city has many museums with non-traditional themes: the International Women's Museum, the Museum of the African Diaspora, the Modern Jewish Museum, the Museum of Folk Trades, the Museum of Caricatures and the Mexican Museum. San Francisco is famous for its eccentric museums: Antique Vibrator Museum, Mechanics Museum, Ophthalmology Museum, Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, Stamp Gallery, Tattoo Museum (old tattoo machines and tools), UFO Museum, Bigfoot and Loch Ness Museum monsters and the Wax Museum at the Fisherman shipyard.

The Walt Disney Museum in San Francisco opened in October 2009 by the daughter of animation classic Diana Disney. The museum is located in the Royal Fort of San Francisco. The exposition includes Disney's personal belongings, materials for films, films themselves, including those that the public has never seen. The building housed 215 monitors for showing tapes and a cinema hall for 120 people.

Symphony concerts, operas and ballets are quite frequent in San Francisco, all of which take place in the building opera house"Memory of War", in one of the largest theaters in the country. Urban ballet and opera are the oldest performing arts in the United States. The city is also home to the American Conservatory Theater (known as A.C.T.), which immediately after arriving in San Francisco in 1967 became the Bay Area's premier theater show. In addition, a new conservatory and theater center has appeared in the city, known for staging performances not only for a wide range of spectators, but also for people with an unusual sexual culture. Bay Area Theater is the premier theater promotion company. This, its members include 365 theaters in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bay Area Theater is the editor-in-chief of Calbort magazine.

In addition, the world's first 200-member gay choir is based and performs in San Francisco and is called the San Francisco Gay Men's Choir. In addition to the choir, the city has the San Francisco Free Gay and Lesbian Ensemble, the first openly gay musical organization.

San Francisco has excelled in the theater of improvisation, the city has a distinctive style. Compared to Chicago, where an improvisational production lasts 30-45 minutes per evening, in San Francisco it lasts 2 hours. In San Francisco, they assume that a person who can perform something according to a script can also play well on the improv stage. The greatest successes in the art of improvisation have been made by groups such as BETs Improvisation, The Unwritten Theater Campaign, Three for All, Truly Fictional Magazine, Leela Theatre, Chris Hopkins and the San Francisco Improv Alliance.

During the 1960s, San Francisco saw the formation of new rock trends, starting with the Sound of San Francisco. Two of the most influential San Francisco bands of the 60s, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, began their careers in 1965. San Francisco was home to the famous punk rock band the Dead Kennedys. During the 80s and early 90s, the city witnessed numerous punk rock, electronic, industrial and rave movements that influenced San Francisco's musical culture. In the late 1990s, when "gentrification" took place in the city, many musicians had to leave, impoverishing the city's creativity a little. In San Francisco, mainly in Fillmore and Hunter Point, there is a large number of rap artists, the most famous of them: Messy Marv, RBL Posse, Rappin "4-Tay, San Quinn, JT the Bigga Figga and Paris. There is a lot of trust in the city received an electronic music direction influenced by west coast house music and trance music from San Francisco.Some of the most popular DJs and producers of electronic music in San Francisco: Miguel Migs, Mark Farina and DJ Garth.Om Records, one of the most respected labels in The USA is also located in San Francisco, and almost every weekend there is some fairly well-known European DJ playing in one of the clubs, and sometimes several.

San Francisco hosts many different and unique street festivals, parties and parades. The Folsom Street Fair takes place in September, the Chinese New Year Parade in February, Carnival (Christian holiday season) takes place during the spring, Fleet Week in October, and the Lovefest Rave Festival takes place in early October. San Francisco also hosts various grassroots sports such as the Bay to the Breakers or the San Francisco Marathon.

Many neighborhoods in the city have their own annual festivals, especially live music performances. The biggest ones are Castro Street Fair, Union Street Art Festival, North Beach Festival and Hayst Ashbury Fair. The San Francisco Opera puts on a free festival every year in Golden Gate Park. The San Francisco Symphony, similar to the Opera, puts on several performances in July, and is also an integral part of the Sturm Groove festival. On July 4, American Independence Day, the annual fireworks display takes place over Fisherman's Wharf; another fireworks show takes place in May at KFOG: Kaboom!.

The San Francisco 49ers are the largest professional football team in the city in the NFL. Its playing history began in 1946, and in 1971 the club moved to Monster Park (the club's modern arena), located at Candlistik Point. The club's success peaked in the 80s and 90s, when the team, led by stars Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott and Jerry Rice, won the Super Bowl 5 times.

The San Francisco Giants, members of major league baseball, were originally based in New York, but were forced to move to San Francisco before the 1958 season. Unfortunately, stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCoway and Barry Bonds failed to win the World Series after the club moved to San Francisco. In 1989, the Giants' 3rd World Series game was brought to a halt by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T Park, which was opened in 2000 as part of the South Beach and Mishin Bay redevelopment program.

San Francisco universities are actively involved in the city's sports life. The Dons, an athletic team at the University of San Francisco, compete in Division 1 of the National College Athletic Association (NAAC). Bill Russell was the leader of the Dons men's basketball team when they won the NAAC championship in 1955 and 1956. The Gators, representing San Francisco State University, are in Division 2.

The city has a fairly strong lacrosse team, the Dragons, who play in the major lacrosse league. The club performs at the Kezar Stadium, located in the southeast corner of Golden Gate Park. In addition to the Dragons, Kezar Stadium hosts the California Victoria team, which plays in the league's first division in soccer. The city has another semi-professional soccer team playing in the amateur division.

San Francisco is rich in resources and opportunities for sporting events. Therefore, since 1912, the city has hosted an annual walking competition - the Bay Breakers, although it is more famous for the colorful costumes of the participants and the festive spirit of the public. A more serious event, the annual San Francisco Marathon, draws over 7,000 participants. The city has about 320 km of bike paths, and the Embarcadero and Marine Green neighborhoods attract skateboarders and rollerbladers. There are all conditions for tennis lovers in the Golden Gate and Dolores park. Since sailing is popular in San Francisco, a yacht club was built in the Marina area.

The San Francisco Chronicle, where the famous Pulitzer holder Herb Cain worked, is considered one of the most widely read newspapers in northern California. The once-famous San Francisco Examiner, the brainchild of William Randolph Hearst's empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, has morphed into a small tabloid over the years. The Sing Tao Daily has become the largest Chinese-language newspaper printed in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city has a weekly alternative press such as the Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. The most famous glossy magazine in the city is the San Francisco Store. San Francisco Daily Journal, one of the oldest and largest dailies. Newspapers and magazines:

By the way, the Russian-American weekly newspaper has been published in San Francisco since 1994. It is distributed free of charge throughout Northern California.

24 hours The weekly newspaper is distributed in Russian shops, offices, kiosks and other gathering points of the Russian community in San Francisco and California's Bay Area.

West East Weekly International Russian Newspaper weekly newspaper. Today, the West-East newspaper is published in San Francisco, California. The newspaper began to be published on September 1, 2000. Then it was called "Denver Courier" and initially came out only in the state of Colorado.

Fact Magazine A Russian-American Infotainment magazine published in Los Angeles and distributed throughout California.

Russian Yellow Pages Russian telephone directory of the San Francisco Bay Area. Russian Yellow Pages is one of the most popular magazines in the Bay Area, founded in 2002. The magazine is published twice a year in a huge circulation and is distributed to Russian-speaking businesses, and also provides services to the Russian-speaking population of San Francisco and the Bay Area.

The TV broadcast area in San Francisco is ranked 6th in the US, and the radio broadcast is 4th. All the major television companies in the country have built branches serving the Bay Area, most of them in San Francisco. The city has several local television and radio stations, CNN, and has regional offices in San Francisco.

Public law television and radio stations with the call sign KQED broadcast from the Potreto Hill area. Radio station KQED-FM is the country's most popular affiliate of National Public Radio. San Francisco-based companies CNET and Salon.com were pioneers in Internet media.

Downtown San Francisco

The backbone of the San Francisco economy is tourism. With its depiction of the city in films, music, and popular culture, San Francisco is recognizable around the world. This is the city where Tony Bennett left his heart, where Franklin Stroud, known as the "bird catcher", spent many years in prison, and where Rice-a-Roni became the favorite food of the population. San Francisco is the 5th most visited city in the US by foreign tourists, and Pier 39, located in Fisherman's Wharf, is the third most visited destination in the country. More than 15 million tourists visited the city in 2005, leaving about 7.5 in the city's coffers. A large infrastructure of restaurants and hotels is concentrated in the Moscone Center area. San Francisco is one of the top ten convention and conference destinations in North America. San Francisco is one of the top 10 cities in the world.

The gold rush pushed San Francisco to develop, now the city is the main financial center on the west coast. Montgomery Street and the Financial District are known as the "Wall Street of the West" and are home to the Federal and Pacific Exchange. America, a pioneer in providing services to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco in 1928. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and insurance companies are located or have regional offices in the city. The center hosts about 30 international financial organizations, 6 Fortune 500 companies, and a large number of infrastructures aimed at providing professional services to the population (law offices, PR companies, architectural companies, and so on).

The city's economy has skyrocketed since the rise of Silicon Valley to the south requiring high-end attraction. The valley also hosts a biotech and biomedical research center. Mission Bay is home to UCSF's second campus, which trains a highly professional workforce and serves as the headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which funds the statewide stem cell research program.

Small companies, with fewer than 10 employees, make up 85% of all in the city. The number of employees in the campaigns, with a staff of over 1,000, was halved starting in 1977. It is very rare to find huge supermarkets called "Big Boxes" in the city, this is due to the fact that the construction of Big Boxes negatively affects San Francisco, from which the city treasury receives most of it. The Small Business Commission backed a campaign to keep the small business share, forcing the city council to impose restrictions on areas in which supermarkets can be built, a strategy supported by city residents who voted for the entry into force of the restrictions.

San Francisco has been a city-county since 1856; there is only one in California. In addition to being the mayor, he is also the head of the district. The mayor's jurisdiction extends beyond the county, an example being the San Francisco Airport, which is in San Mateo County but is owned by the San Francisco government. According to the Wrecker Act, signed in 1913, San Francisco was granted eternal life: the Hatch Hetchy Valley and the watershed in Yosemite National Park.

The government of San Francisco consists of 2 equal branches. The first branch is the executive, headed by the mayor and other elected officials. The second branch is legislative, it consists of 11 members that make up the city council, it is at the head of the council (in 2006, Aaron Peskin). The president is responsible for passing laws and enacting laws, although city residents have the ability to directly influence the legislature by voting. Members of the city council are chosen as representatives of different districts of the city. If the mayor dies or resigns, his powers will pass to the president of the council, such a case occurred in 1978 when George Moscone was assassinated and his powers passed to Dianne Feinstein. The city's budget for 2007-2008 was more than 6 billion.

The federal government uses San Francisco to host various departments such as the US Court of Appeals, and. Before disarmament in 1990, there were 3 military bases in the city: Presidio, Treasure Island and Hunters Point. They inherited only the Fleet Festival. San Francisco is home to the Supreme Court of the State of California, as well as a number of other state institutions. There are 30 diplomatic missions from around the world in San Francisco, including the Consulate General of the Russian Federation.

As of 2005, the population of the city center was 739,426. With about 16,000 people living in one square mile, San Francisco is the 2nd most densely populated city in the US. About 0.7 million people live in San Francisco, this is the largest number among the entire Bay Area, the city ranks 5th in the United States in this indicator, according to the 2000 census.

Whites make up about 44% of the total population of San Francisco, Asians about 31%, Hispanics of any race - 14%, less than 8% of the total number of people are African Americans.

Few San Francisco residents have lived in the city all their lives. Only 35% of residents were born in California, 26% in the United States, and 39% outside the state.

In San Francisco in 2005, the average household earned $57,496, the fifth highest among major US cities. Following the national trend to move out of more expensive cities in pursuit of higher incomes, many middle-class residents have left San Francisco, which has affected the percentage of children. There are 14.5% fewer children in the city compared to others big cities countries. In San Francisco, 7.8% are low-income families, less than the US average.

The homeless have been a "chronic disease" in San Francisco since the 1980s. The city has more homeless people per capita than any other city in the United States. A large number of homeless people influenced the increase in criminal activity. For example, in 2003, San Francisco had 5,725 felonies and 38,163 property crimes, more than the national average. Among the 50 largest cities by population, San Francisco ranks 32nd in violent crime and 38th in property crime.

A significant (about 20 thousand people) Russian-speaking community lives in San Francisco and its suburbs: many live in the Richmond area. This area is famous for its abundance of Russian shops and restaurants. The Russian cultural center, founded in 1939, is located in the city. The Consulate General of the Russian Federation dates back to pre-revolutionary Russia and has been operating in the prestigious Pacific Heights area since 1973.

Press in Russian: "Russian Club of San Francisco" - electronic newspaper in Russian; daily news, events and a directory of Russian-speaking businesses in San Francisco and the Bay Area.

For the last two years of his life, the Soviet actor Savely Kramarov lived in the suburbs of San Francisco.

Writer Margarita Meklina lives in San Francisco. She is the winner of the "Russian Prize" for 2008 in the nomination "Small prose" for a series of essays and stories "My criminal connection with art." The prize is awarded in Moscow to foreign authors who write in Russian.

The newspaper Russkaya Zhizn is published in San Francisco, editor-in-chief Vladimir Belyaev. The newspaper tells its readers truthfully about the events in the Russian Federation.

San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay people of any US city. According to the census, 2.7% of the total population are homosexuals. San Francisco is the first city in the world in terms of the number of homosexuals living in it, according to various sources, from 10% to 15.4% of the total population. This situation is connected with the migration of gays and lesbians from a conservative province to an extremely liberal metropolis.

San Francisco is one of the historical gay centers: the story of the political rise of homosexual Harvey Milk is connected with the Castro gay quarter, the most famous symbol of the LGBT community - the rainbow flag - appeared here, the first LGBT film festival in the world, Frameline, was erected, Memorial Park was erected Pink triangle, and so on.

San Francisco State University is part of the California State University System. It is located near Lake Merced. The university annually graduates 30,000 students and accepts newcomers, teachers, many with advanced degrees, teach more than a hundred disciplines. City College of San Francisco, located in Ingliside County, is considered one of the largest colleges in the country. It teaches about 100,000 students and offers a long-term program of study. In 1855, the Jesuit University of San Francisco was founded, today it is located in the Lohne Mountain area. The university focuses on the free-thinking arts and is one of the oldest universities founded west of the Mississippi River.

UC San Francisco is one of 10 campuses in the California University System, and the 2nd employer in the city. Specializes in biomedical research and graduates students only with a medical education, one of the top five medical schools in the United States. The university has a CUSF medical center, which is one of the top 10 hospitals in the country. In 2003, CUSF's new 43-acre campus opened for research in biotechnology and the mind and behavioral sciences. The Civic Center neighborhood is home to Hastings College of Law, founded in 1878, the oldest law college in California and producing more judges than any other institution.

Many experts in fine arts studied at the San Francisco Institute of Art or at the largest private Academy of Arts in the United States.

The California Culinary Academy, as part of the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers applicants to learn the art of cooking and baking, as well as restaurant management.

San Francisco residents have a wide choice of public schools, but in most cases they prefer to send their children to Lowell High School, the oldest school west of the Mississippi River, and to a small school for the Arts. Compared to 10% nationwide, just under 30% of San Francisco students attend one of the 100 private or parochial schools. Of these 100 schools, 40 fall under the control of the San Francisco Roman Catholic Church.

Among the many private schools, 2 schools can be distinguished: St. Ignatius Preparatory College and the Sacred Heart School. Both schools are the oldest and bitter rivals. Every year, schools organize the Bruce Mahoney competition, in honor of the memory of 2 schoolchildren killed during the 2nd World War.

San Francisco infrastructure

Because of its unique geography, which often hindered road construction, and because of the results of the "road revolution" in the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few cities in the United States that has opted for a European arterial style of road layout instead of a large freeway network. Residents of the city continue to follow this, choosing, after the Loma Prieta earthquake, the complete destruction of the Embarcadero freeway and part of the central freeway, turning them into boulevards.

Several major freeways pass through the city, connecting the north of the west coast with the south or the west coast with the center of the mainland. I-80 to New York begins as it approaches the Bay Bridge, which connects San Francisco and Oakland, the only direct road to the east coast of the bay. US 101 connects San Francisco to San Jose (southbound) and Marin County (northbound via the Golden Gate Bridge). The SR 1 also passes through the Golden Gate Bridge. Highway I-280, starting in the city, also connects it to San Jose. SR 35, which runs along the crest of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city along Skyline Boulevard in southern San Francisco. The busiest streets in the city are Geary Boulevard, Lincoln Way, Fell Street, Market Street and Portola Drive.

The San Francisco public transit system is the most developed system on the West Coast of the United States. About 35% of the city's population use public transport daily. The city's transportation system includes buses, trolleybuses, surface and underground Muni Metro light rails. All this is the so-called MUNI system, which also includes the famous historic cable cars (see San Francisco cable car).

In addition to intracity transportation, San Francisco has a developed suburban communications system. The city has a kind of agglomeration subway, the operation of which is provided by the BART agency. BART is a regional fast travel system that connects San Francisco to east coast through the Transbay Tunnel, it also has jurisdiction over connections to San Mateo, San Francisco National Airport, and Millbray. The Caltrain rail system links San Francisco to San Jose.

San Francisco International Airport (: SFO, ICAO: KSFO, FAA LID: SFO), located 21 km south of the city on the San Francisco Bay, in San Mateo County, it is under the jurisdiction of the City-County of San Francisco. It is the hub for United Airlines, the largest tenant, and Virgin America.

San Francisco Airport is located on the artificially filled territory of the San Francisco Bay. The airport's international terminal is the largest in North America. During the late 1990s, when traffic became very dense and caused more and more delays, it was decided to build an additional runway, which required additional drainage of the bay. In 2005, the airport ranked 14th in the United States and 23rd in the world in terms of the number of passengers served, receiving about 32.8 million people annually.

There are two more major civilian airports not far from San Francisco. This is San Jose Airport - Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport (IATA: SJC, ICAO: KSJC, FAA LID: SJC) - located 70 km southeast of San Francisco, as well as Oakland International Airport (IATA: OAK, ICAO: KOAK, FAA LID: OAK), located 32 km east of the city on the opposite shore of San Francisco Bay.

The Port of San Francisco was formerly the largest and busiest port on the US West Coast. Now this title belongs to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Its feature was the numerous piers located perpendicular to the shore. They had in their presence cranes for unloading moored ships and developed transport routes for transporting goods to warehouses. The port received cargo from ports around the world and was the main center of the west coast for the timber trade. The West Coast Dockworks, held in 1934, was an important event in the history of the labor movement and led to the suspension of the port and clashes with the forces of the National Guard.

The development of container shipping, which eliminated the need for pier-based ports, moved most of the commercial traffic to Auckland. Many piers remained abandoned for many years after the destruction of the Embarcadero Highway until the completion of the reconstruction of the port area. The Port Center is the Ferry Building, which still handles commuter transportation issues. The building has been restored and converted into market square. Piers not used for mainstream shipping are currently used mainly for office buildings, shops, museums, mooring of tourist boats, yachts and private ships.

Landmarks of San Francisco

Leave impressive monuments of architecture and tiresome trips to museums to other cities. Days in San Francisco (San Francisco or simply Frisco) are best spent on the bay of the same name bathed in the sun in the digestion of generous seafood - regardless of whether you are a person or one of the seals of the subspecies of sea lions, gracefully dangling and hitting the belly against the water on Pierce 39.

With its 43 hills and a population of eccentrics, freethinkers, crazy inventors and just weird people, this city stubbornly refuses to come down from the clouds to earth. Instead, reality rises to the heights of the eccentricity of San Francisco, with all those parrots plowing through the treetops, restaurants with inventive cuisine of maestro chefs and itinerant poets who do not utter a single unrhymed word. In a word, crazy San Francisco is not for the faint of heart, but it is worth all the nerves and megabytes of digital cameras spent.

The cost of living in San Francisco is high, but it is fully justified: here everyone gets what they are looking for - inventive new cuisine, quality cultural events, excellent art or strong alcohol. In addition, many things in San Francisco can be obtained completely for free: the natural beauty of the city, street festivals, walks in the parks, gallery openings, or idle conversation. Other treats are cheap as hell, like Vietnamese noodles, an N-subway ticket to the beach, or the so-called "happy aurs" at Mission dive bars. With a little ingenuity, San Francisco can be a fantastic and inexpensive vacation.

Hostels and B&Bs are the best accommodations for those looking to save money. Car rental will cost about $40 per day without insurance, plus bezin. Parking - $4 for a couple of hours (if you can find a free parking space, of course), for the wrong parking - $30, but they will haunt you for a long time, even if you left the car for a couple of minutes. Overnight parking will cost $35 if the tourist has not bothered to arrange in advance with the hotel. For comparison: the average fare for a taxi will be $12, and a Muni ticket will be $1.50. However, those who want to go on excursions along the coast or to the Wine Country cannot do without a car.

San Francisco is world famous for the Golden Gate, one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. It is worth visiting the SFMOMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Union Square, the local Chinatown with many fun souvenir shops and a million Asian eateries.

Fishermans Wharf is a collection of silly rides and a starting point for cruises around the bay. From there, kilometers of parks and beaches stretch west to the Golden Gate, and beyond the bridge, the Napa and Sonoma Valleys begin - the place where the best wines in the country originate.

Here are the wineries that you should definitely visit: Beringer, The Hess Collection and Rubicon. Also widely known are the island-prison Alcatraz, Mount Tamalpas with a magnificent panorama of the city and the bay, the building of the Var-Memory Opera House and the Cable Car Museum.

Angel Island is a former World War II filtration camp and is now a popular hiking and picnic spot. As well as the famous High Ashbury (or Hythe) area, considered the birthplace of the hippie movement.

Alcatraz is an island in San Francisco Bay. He gained particular fame thanks to the prison for especially dangerous criminals, which functioned until 1963. Currently, a museum is open on Alcatraz. One of the most famous attractions in San Francisco.

Alcatraz Island is located in the middle of San Francisco Bay, 2.5 km directly from San Francisco itself. Alcatraz is a very popular San Francisco landmark and has been featured in many movies, cartoons, television shows, books and computer games. At the same time, few imagine what a rich history this rocky island boasts.

Native American tribes lived around San Francisco Bay as early as 10,000 years ago. Historians suggest that they sailed to the island and used it for their own purposes. In August 1775, the Spanish naval officer Juan Manuel de Ayala entered San Francisco Bay and explored territories still unknown to Europeans. He named one of the islands of the bay "island of seabirds" (La Isla de Los Alcatraces). It is not entirely clear which island he named it, but over time, the name Alcatraz was given to a small barren rock island.

In February 1848, California became a possession of the United States, this event coincided with the discovery of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The "gold rush" that began immediately after this led to an explosive growth in the population of San Francisco, when in three years the number of inhabitants increased from 500 to 35,000. To facilitate navigation in the bay, in 1854, a lighthouse was built on Alcatraz, which became the first on the US West Coast . The US Army, realizing that San Francisco was vulnerable to enemy attack, sought to protect the entrance to the harbor, including the military fort on Alcatraz Island. The fort was completed in December 1859. During the American (1861-1865) Alcatraz was the largest military fort west of the Mississippi River.

The period of military prison on the island began in 1861, when the army began sending convicted soldiers to Alcatraz. Over the next forty years, the island's military importance declined, and in 1907 all guns were removed from the fort. The prisoner soldiers built most of the buildings on the island, in fact it was the last role of the military on Alcatraz, who left the island in 1933.

A federal prison existed on the island for 28 years from 1934 to 1963. Alcatraz was a maximum security prison with minimum privileges for inmates. Among the prisoners arriving at Alcatraz were the most notorious criminals in the United States, gang leaders and especially dangerous repeat offenders. 336 ordinary cells and 42 solitary cells were never completely filled, on average, about 260 prisoners were kept on the prison island. Alcatraz was a special prison where prisoners from other prisons were sent for misconduct. Accordingly, good behavior in prison made it possible to earn a transfer to another institution. Almost never the convicts were released directly from Alcatraz. On average, prisoners spent about 8 years on the island.

According to the federal government, none of the prisoners who tried to escape the island were able to do so. There were 14 attempts in total, involving 36 prisoners. 23 were caught, six were shot dead, two more drowned. Five people went missing, their bodies were never found and no one saw them again. However, from 1861 to 1933, when a military prison functioned on Alcatraz, successful attempts to escape directly from the island were recorded.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered the closure of the Alcatraz prison in 1963. There were two main reasons. Firstly, the stay of one prisoner cost the treasury $ 10 daily, while in any other prison only $ 3. The second reason was the heavy pollution of the bay with sewage from the island. Hollywood has released many films about Alcatraz, but the cruelty and violence on the island has been clearly embellished. In reality, Alcatraz was a tough but relatively safe prison.

Tourists depart for Alcatraz from Pier 33, located on the Embarcadero. Please note that this is a very popular tourist attraction, so tickets to the island can be sold out 7-10 days in advance. It is highly advisable to take care of booking tickets in advance.

There are several types of tours to Alcatraz, costing from $26 to $58. On average, the duration of the tour is 2.5-4 hours. In addition to day tours, a unique night tour of the island is offered. Tourists can take advantage of audio tours, which were recorded using the real voices of guards and prisoners (in English). The best time to visit Alcatraz Island is April to May or September to October. From January to March you can avoid the crowds.

Pier 39 is a shopping and entertainment center built on the pier in San Francisco. Being popular place recreation for local residents and tourists, the pier is notable for the variety of opportunities for entertainment and recreation. Numerous souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes, cinemas, game centers and attractions are located on the pier, street performances are organized. Also, of course, Pier 39 is famous for the California sea lions who have chosen the pier as their home.

Of the many restaurants located on the pier, the most notable is the floating restaurant Ostrov (Forbes Island Magazine), but you can also enjoy sweets, ice cream and fruit from numerous street vendors. However, the most interesting feature of the pier is the fur seal rookery located towards the end of the pier.

California sea lions have always lived in San Francisco Bay, but first appeared on Pier 39 in September 1989. Although the reasons for the migration remained unclear, the wharf has been refurbished and every effort has been made to ensure that the animals can move freely and feel safe. By the end of 1989, more than a dozen sea lions had settled on the pier. When the number of individuals exceeded 150 in 1990, yacht owners began to complain about the smell and noise, and there was also a real danger of ships colliding with half a ton animals.

62. Pier 39 is located in Fisherman's Wharf (Fishing Wharf) directly opposite Alcatraz Island

But the factor of tourists attracted by the lions outweighed, and the yacht parking was moved to another place. The number of marine animals living on the pier is constantly changing. In search of food, sea lions periodically leave the pier, but invariably return, usually in the spring. Scientists calculated that in total about 1,500 animals settled on the rookeries of pier No. 39. Sea lions are the decoration of this wonderful pier and are madly in love with tourists.

Right at the entrance to the pier is the Aquarium of the Bay. Aquarium - an exhibition center where you can get acquainted with underwater world San Francisco.

The aquarium consists of three parts. In the first one, visitors can get acquainted with representatives of the fauna of the bay. The second part of the center is the largest and is made in the form of a glass tunnel over 90 meters long. The tunnel is surrounded by 3 million liters of water, where 20,000 marine animals live. Through the glass, you can see passing schools of fish, unusual jellyfish, sharks and other representatives of the bay. In the second tunnel you can get acquainted with the deep-sea world and see incredible animals. In the last section of the Aquarium, you can even touch individual marine creatures, such as a stingray, starfish or a leopard shark.

70. Photo Suspension bridge "Golden Gate" 3

This grandiose building was erected from 1933 to 1937. At the time of its opening, it was the largest suspension bridge in the world. Traffic is organized along six car lanes. Depending on the time of day and day of the week, the number of lanes for traffic in different directions varies. In addition to car lanes, the bridge can be crossed on foot or by bicycle, and completely free of charge, moving in any direction. Motorists, on the other hand, cross the bridge for free, moving only in a northerly direction. For those who enter the city, that is, cross the bridge from north to south, there is a small fee of a few dollars. Curiously, if you enter San Francisco on weekdays, you will be exempt from paying 77. Photo of bridge construction 6

Fog is a frequent companion of San Francisco. In summer and early autumn, you can watch a bewitching spectacle of how fog envelops the bay and the Golden Gate. The lower the temperature, the thicker and more abundant the fog. You can experience amazing feelings if you watch this spectacle from the bridge itself, but be sure to dress warmly.

Earthquake danger

There is no escape from this danger. Being close to tectonic faults, the bridge and the city itself are under constant threat from the elements. The bridge withstood a real test in 1989 during an earthquake of 7.1 points, but unlike the Bay Bridge, in which a section was destroyed, the Golden Gate Bridge was not damaged at all.

Fort Point

On the south bank of the strait, near the base of the bridge, is Fort Point. This is a small fort, whose casemates can be entered completely free of charge from Friday to Sunday. On other days it is closed. During the Civil War, Fort Point was supposed to defend the harbor from Confederate troops.

San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge- a bridge stretching across the San Francisco Bay (San Francisco Bay) and connecting San Francisco and Oakland. The name of the bridge is often shortened to Bay Bridge.

The construction of the Bay Bridge was started in 1993, although the need for it was discussed during the gold rush. The opening of traffic occurred in November 1936, half a year before the Golden Gate Bridge was put into operation.

In fact, the bridge consists of two spans of approximately equal length. The first span connects downtown San Francisco with the island of Yerba Buena, and from it there is a second span to Oakland. Part of the traffic on the island of Yerba Buena takes place in a tunnel. The total length of the bridge exceeds 7 km. All spans of the bridge are two-tiered, i.e. traffic is organized simultaneously on different height. Directly from the island of Yerba Buena, you can move to another island - Treasure Island (Treasure Island).

The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge is a toll bridge, but the toll is only charged on the Oakland side when driving towards San Francisco. The fare depends on the day of the week and time, at the beginning of 2012 it is $4-6.

At the moment, the eastern part of the bridge span is undergoing a large-scale reconstruction, which should be completed in 2013.

Lombard street

An attraction that tourists are sure to bring to San Francisco is Lombard Street. The street is generally ordinary, but its section on Russian Hill with eight sharp turns allows San Francisco residents to proudly talk about "the most crooked street in the world."

In the 20s of the XX century, people living on this street wanted to keep up with their neighbors and get cars. But the street was also too steep for vehicles with a 27% gradient. In addition, such inconveniences had a negative impact on the value of houses located along this steep section of the road. As a result, it was decided to reduce the slope to a tolerable 16%, and make the road curved. The 400m red brick road is currently one-way from top to bottom (west to east) with a 5 mph (8 km/h) speed limit.

Lombard Street is an amazingly beautiful street. Colorful houses on both sides of the street, along with colorful flower beds, neatly trimmed trees and bushes, go well with the red serpentine of the road. All this gives the street an unforgettable atmosphere of comfort. The street looks especially advantageous in spring and summer, when chrysanthemums bloom in the flowerbeds. It's funny, but in fact, Lombard Street is neither the most crooked nor the steepest street even in San Francisco itself. However, this does not matter, because you will not find another street like this.

Twin Peaks- two "twin" hills located in the very center of the San Francisco Peninsula. This is a very popular attraction. If there is no fog, then a wonderful view of the city opens from a height. The hills of Twin Peaks have nothing to do with the famous TV series of the same name.

Located at a distance of 200 meters from each other, the hills have their own names. The northern one is Eureka and the southern one is Noe. On the north hill is a popular viewpoint known as "Christmas Tree Point". From this fenced area, you have a great 360-degree view of San Francisco and the bay, there are also telescopes. Many people think that the night view from Twin Peaks is even more interesting. You can get to Christmas Tree Point by car, parking is free.

During festive events, such as fireworks on July 4th, Twin Peaks gets crowded. To get a place you need to go there early in the morning.

At any time of the year it is very windy at the top - everyone going there should take a windbreaker or other warm clothes.

Sources

Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia, WikiPedia

tonkosti.ru – Subtleties of tourism

countries.turistua.com – Best tour search

americancities.ru - American cities

San Francisco has long been considered one of the the most beautiful places USA. Thanks to his geographic location, natural features and rich history the city is famous as a contrasting, many-sided and very colorful. The legendary symbol of the American West, the brainchild of the "gold rush", San Francisco attracts tourists from all over the world. Americans themselves often call the city "the pearl of the West Coast."

San Francisco is located on a small peninsula between the bay of the same name and the Pacific Ocean, connected to each other by the Golden Gate Strait. Numerous hills on which the city is located, oceanic winds and frequent fogs have become in some way its "calling card". By the way, there are about 50 hills of various heights in the city, and the Twin Peaks hills are the most popular with tourists - they offer a magnificent view of the bay and the city.

Ever since the days of the California "gold rush" the city has secured the status of the financial and industrial center of the region. Today, there are many research centers and industries related to high technology, genetic engineering and medical electronics, so the city continues to play an important role in the economic life of the country. In addition, due to its favorable location, San Francisco serves about 30% of the trade of the entire west coast of the country.

History of San Francisco

Initially, the territory of modern San Francisco was inhabited by Indians, European colonists came here in 1769. Seven years later, the Spaniards founded the mission of St. Francis of Assisi here, around which a small settlement was formed.

After the independence of Mexico from Spain, the territory of modern California became Mexican, and the new city was named Herba Buena, which means "good grass" in Spanish. However, Mexico soon loses the war with America, and in 1848 the territory of California becomes a possession of the United States. The city is officially renamed San Francisco, and the active expansion of nearby territories for construction begins.

Perhaps the California gold rush that began in 1848 played a key role in the history of San Francisco. Literally in a year, the population of the city increased from 1,000 to 25,000 people. The city infrastructure was not ready for such an influx of people, problems with health, crime and housing began.

Another turning point in the history of San Francisco was the strongest earthquake in 1906, which, combined with the fires that had begun, almost completely destroyed the city. After that, an era of rapid reconstruction and development began, and gradually San Francisco acquired a modern look.

City population

The population of San Francisco is about 815 thousand people, while the city ranks second in the country in terms of population density after. More than 40% of residents have higher education, which makes competition in the labor market very significant. The average income level here is quite high, while due to high housing and food prices, the cost of living in San Francisco is quite high.

The city is known around the world for its tolerance of people with non-traditional sexual orientation. According to statistics, about 15% of the population of San Francisco belong to the gay community - this is the highest figure in the world.

Transport

Public transport in San Francisco is very popular with residents - up to 35% of the population use its services daily. The city's public transportation network is said to be the best on the West Coast, with surface and underground light rail, buses, trolleybuses, a commuter train network, as well as a ferry service and the famous historic cable car.

The "light rail" cars (light rails) or San Francisco buses are often crowded, but this is perhaps the best way to get around the city for tourists. In any case, it is not recommended to rent a car - endless traffic jams, narrow streets and expensive parking lots are unlikely to bring much pleasure.

Main Attractions

The main attraction of San Francisco, its hallmark is the Golden Gate Bridge - one of the largest suspension bridges in the world. The length of the bridge is a little less than 2 kilometers, the height above the water level is 67 meters.

Also very popular is Golden Gate Park - the most beautiful oasis of greenery in the middle of a big city, stretching for five kilometers in length and resting on Ocean Beach. This beach, by the way, runs along another park, symbolically nicknamed "Lands End". This place is the most extreme point of continental land in the direction of rotation of our planet, the New Year comes here last.

On one of the islands near San Francisco is the famous Alcatraz prison (Alcatraz), familiar to many from the movie "The Rock". In the past, this is one of the most severe prisons for especially dangerous criminals, only a few managed to escape from here. Today, the prison is not used for its intended purpose and has been turned into a museum; you can get here from San Francisco using the ferry from Pier 33.