Local questions in San Francisco

San Francisco’s Sutro Baths building was destroyed by fire caused by arson on June 26th, 1966. The landmark structure, opened by Adolf Sutro in 1896, stood below the Cliff House and housed indoor bathing pools, with an ice rink and penny arcade added later. It struggled financially because of high operating costs, and was sold in a deteriorated condition in Read more...

San Francisco International Airport has three domestic terminals, numbered 1 through 3, and one international terminal. Terminal 1, known as Harvey Milk Terminal 1, was formerly called the South Terminal, Terminal 2 was previously the Central Terminal, and Terminal 3 was formerly the North Terminal and is exclusively used by United Airlines domestic flights. San Francisco International Airport departure terminals Read more...

The iconic section of Lombard Street in San Francisco is the block between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets in the Russian Hill neighborhood. Here, the one-way downhill section snakes its way through a series of eight tight hairpin turns, leading to it being dubbed the Crooked Street. This red-brick-paved section was created in 1922 to make the hill’s steep grade more Read more...

The Farallon Islands lie some 28 miles off the west coast of San Francisco in the Pacific Ocean’s Gulf of the Farallones. On clear days, the group of rocky islands and sea stacks are visible from the mainland as jagged peaks on the horizon, and despite their distance offshore, they are formally part of the City and County of San Read more...

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge weighs approximately 887,000 tons (or 804,670 metric tons), including anchorages and approaches. In the 1980s, the original concrete road deck was replaced with a lighter, stronger, orthotropic steel deck, reducing the bridge’s total mass by some 12,300 tons (or 11,160 metric tons). Excluding the anchorages and approaches, the bridge structure weighs approximately 419,800 tons (or Read more...

Robert Franklin Stroud, nicknamed the Birdman of Alcatraz, was a convicted murderer, imprisoned in US federal penitentiaries continuously from 1909 until his death in 1963. First incarcerated in 1909 on McNeil Island, Washington, for 12 years for manslaughter, Stroud gained a reputation for violent behavior. In 1912 he moved to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, where, in 1916, he Read more...

When San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts was demolished in 1963, it was rebuilt with modern construction materials over the next decade, to the same design. The only parts reused were in the exhibition hall which was rebuilt on its 1915 steel frame, and retains some of the original fireplaces and doors. The Palace of Fine Arts was originally constructed Read more...

The Presidio of San Francisco is a 1,491-acre former US Army installation in the northwest corner of the city, at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge, transferred to the National Park Service when it was vacated by the military in 1994. Today, the Presidio is a thriving urban park with a unique mix of residential communities, businesses, historic Read more...

The area of San Francisco now known as Cow Hollow was so named because it was where settlers in the mid-1800s established dairy farms, attracted by the natural fresh water sources and good grazing land for cows. Known then as Spring Valley, it was a verdant area of meadows, natural springs, and sand hills, which by the 1880s sustained over Read more...

Notorious American gangster Al Capone spent 4½ years in the prison on Alcatraz Island after being transferred there in August 1934 from the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta. Capone was serving an 11-year sentence for tax evasion, during which time his mental health seriously declined due to syphilis contracted prior to his incarceration. He spent his final year at Alcatraz on Read more...

The San Francisco Symphony doesn’t have a formal dress code and for most concerts it is a matter of personal choice. The dress of most concertgoers at Louise M Davies Symphony Hall ranges from smart casual to business or cocktail attire. The only exception is for events such as the SF Symphony Opening Gala where more formal attire like tuxedos Read more...

Tatiana, a four-year-old Siberian tiger escaped her open-air enclosure by scaling a 12-foot-4-inch (or 3.8 meter) high wall at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day, 2007, and mauled three men visiting the zoo, killing one of them. 17-year-old Carlos Souza of San Jose died after suffering blunt-force trauma from tiger bites to his head and neck. His friends, brothers Read more...

At its center, the height of the Golden Gate Bridge from the water to the underside of the bridge deck averages 220 feet (or 67 meters) at high tide, increasing to 225 feet (or 68.5 meters) at low tide. The bridge towers stand 746 feet (or 227 meters) above the water and 500 feet (152 meters) above the road deck. Read more...

Cars are allowed on Lombard Street in San Francisco although the iconic ‘crooked’ section is one-way only, downhill between Hyde and Leavenworth streets. To drive down the famous zigzag section you will need to approach from the west on Lombard Street, or alternatively head north on Hyde Street and turn right at Lombard Street to access the top of the Read more...

ABC Broadcast Center is located on Front and Vallejo Streets in North Beach, San Francisco, where the studios of KGO-TV, ABC’s owned and operated local television station, branded as ABC 7, is based. San Francisco channel KRON 4 also leases working and studio space in the same building, but as a competing TV station, their facilities are completely separate from Read more...

San Francisco experiences foggy weather, particularly in summer, as the hot air in California’s Central Valley rises upwards, creating a low pressure region that causes the cooler moist air sitting over the surface of the Pacific Ocean to be sucked inland. The air over the Pacific Ocean is laden with moisture which condenses into water droplets as it moves over Read more...

Embarcadero Station is the busiest BART stop as measured by the average number of weekday passengers exiting the station. During February 2020, BART reported that an average of 47,941 people exited the station daily on weekdays, followed closely by 45,090 at nearby Montgomery Street Station. Embarcadero Station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit underground station on Market Read more...

The Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco has bars near the lobby entrance and on the second floor. To avoid the lines, you may pre-order drinks and snacks at the bar before a show and they will be ready for pick-up with your name during the intermission. Other than bottled water, drinks may be only taken into the auditorium if you Read more...

Dogs are permitted at Baker Beach in San Francisco, and are allowed off-leash in some areas provided they are under voice control at all times. Off-leash dogs are allowed on the beach north of Lobos Creek but only if they will respond immediately to commands to return to a leash when called. Dogs must be on a leash at all Read more...

The depth of water under the Golden Gate Bridge is approximately 377 feet (or 115 meters) at its deepest point. The US Geological Survey, with other research partners, have mapped central San Francisco Bay and its entrance under the Golden Gate Bridge using multibeam echosounders. In 2006, they published a topographical image with indicative depths of the sea floor around Read more...