San Francisco

Coit Tower is a 210-foot tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built in... 1933 at the request of Lillie Hitchcock Coit to beautify the city of San Francisco; Coit bequeathed one-third of her estate to the city "to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved". The art deco tower, made of unpainted reinforced concrete, was designed by architects Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard, with fresco murals by 27 different on-site artists and their numerous assistants, plus two additional paintings installed after creation off-site. The tower was not designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle, despite Coit's affinity with the San Francisco firefighters of the day, in particular with Knickerbocker Engine Company Number 5. Coit Tower was paid for with money left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a wealthy socialite who loved to chase fires in the early days of the city's history. The tower took five years to construct.
more

San Francisco City Hall, re-opened in 1915, in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful... movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is the fifth largest in the world. The present building is actually a replacement for an earlier City Hall that was completely destroyed during the 1906 earthquake. The principal architect was Arthur Brown, Jr., of Bakewell & Brown, whose attention to the finishing details extended to the doorknobs and the typeface to be used in signage. Brown's blueprints of the building are preserved at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Brown also designed the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, Veterans Building, Temple Emanuel, Coit Tower and the Federal office building at 50 United Nations Plaza. The building's vast open space is more than 500,000 square feet and occupying two full city blocks. It is 390 ft between on Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street, and 273 ft between Grove and McAllister Streets.
more

Pier 39 is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction built on a pier in San Francisco, California. At Pier 39, there are shops, restaurants, a... video arcade, street performances, an interpretive center for the Marine Mammal Center, the Aquarium of the Bay, virtual 3D rides, and views of California sea lions hauled out on docks on Pier 39's marina. The marina is also home to the floating Forbes Island restaurant. A two-story carousel is one of the pier's more dominant features, although it is not directly visible from the street and sits towards the end of the pier. The family-oriented entertainment and presence of marine mammals make this a popular tourist location for families with kids. The pier is located at the edge of the Fisherman's Wharf district and is close to North Beach, Chinatown, and the Embarcadero. The area is easily accessible via the historic F Market streetcars. From the pier one can see Angel Island, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Bay Bridge. Blue & Gold Fleet's bay cruises leave from Pier 39. Pier 39 was first developed by entrepreneur Warren Simmons and opened October 4, 1978. California Sea Lions have been always present in San Francisco Bay.
more

Ghirardelli Square is a landmark with shops and restaurants in the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco, California, USA. A portion of the area is... listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Pioneer Woolen Mills and D. Ghirardelli Company. Ghirardelli Square once featured over 40 specialty shops and restaurants. Some of the original shops and restaurants still occupy the square. Ghirardelli Square is undergoing an extensive renovation. Many of the specialty shops have closed or moved to other locations . In the main plaza there are new shops and restaurants. The square also recently opened a new children's day care center, Peekadoodle Kids' Club. Notably, Gary Danko will soon open a second restaurant within walking distance of his original San Francisco eatery. This new restaurant will be in the Mustard Building along with the Fairmont Heritage Place which occupies the original factory space as well as the top floors of the Clock Tower and Woolen Mill buildings.
more

The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is a part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco . The name is used both for the museum collection... and for the building in which it is housed. The Legion of Honor was the gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, wife of the sugar magnate and thoroughbred racehorse owner/breeder Adolph B. Spreckels. The building is a three-quarter-scale version of the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur also known as the Hôtel de Salm in Paris by George Applegarth and H. Guillaume. It was completed in 1924. The museum building occupies an elevated site in Lincoln Park in the northwest of the city, with views over the Golden Gate Bridge. Most of the surrounding Lincoln Park Golf Course is on the site of a potter's field called the "Golden Gate Cemetery" that the City had bought in 1867. The cemetery was closed in 1908 and the bodies were relocated to Colma. During seismic retrofitting in the 1990s, however, coffins and skeletal remains were unearthed. The plaza and fountain in front of the Palace of the Legion of Honor is the western terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across America.
more

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is a museum in San Francisco, California, United States. It has one of the most comprehensive collections of... Asian art in the world. Until 2003 the museum shared a space with the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park; during its last year in the park it was closed for the purpose of moving to its new location, and it re-opened on March 20, 2003 in the former San Francisco city library building opposite the San Francisco Civic Center, renovated for the purpose under the direction of Italian architect Gae Aulenti. Lord Cultural Resources, a cultural professional practice, was also commissioned to undertake a three-part sequence of planning studies for the relocation of the Museum. The collection has approximately 17,000 works of art and artifacts from all major Asian countries and traditions, some of which are as much as 6,000 years old. Major galleries are devoted to the arts of South Asia, West Asia , Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, China, Korea and Japan. There are 2,500 works on display in the permanent collection.
more

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an... internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art. The museum’s current collection includes over 26,000 works of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts. The building complex was designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta. SFMOMA's Research Library was established in 1935 and contains extensive resources pertaining to modern and contemporary art, including books, periodicals, artists’ files, and lecture recordings. The museum also houses a restaurant, Caffè Museo, and a coffee bar run by the Blue Bottle Coffee Company. SFMOMA was founded in 1935 under director Grace L. McCann Morley as the San Francisco Museum of Art. For its first sixty years, the museum occupied the fourth floor of the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center. A gift of 36 artworks from Albert M. Bender, including The Flower Carrier by Diego Rivera, established the basis of the permanent collection.
more

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is a multi-disiplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena... Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, national, and international artists and the Bay Area's diverse communities. YBCA programs year-round in two landmark buildings—the Galleries and Forum by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki and Theater by American architect James Stewart Polshek. The center has been used for the launch of new products by Apple Inc., including the iPhone and the iPad. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts embraces many musical genres and styles. Not only does their center provide a stage for Bay Area musicians and chorales, but also stimulating musical practices from all over the world. Along with solo performances, YBCA also has invited various musical projects to use its facilities, like the tribute to composer Elliot Carter in 2008 and the Long Now Foundation in 2010. The connection between these various musical practices is the intent for social change through education of another culture or creating a community around a purpose.
more

Joseph Paul "Joe" DiMaggio , nicknamed "Joltin' Joe" and "The Yankee Clipper," was an American Major League Baseball center fielder who played his... entire 13-year career for the New York Yankees. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak , a record that still stands. DiMaggio was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955. DiMaggio was a three-time MVP winner and 13-time All-Star . In his thirteen year career the Yankees won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships. At the time of his retirement, he had the fifth-most career home runs and sixth-highest slugging percentage in history. A 1969 poll conducted to coincide with the centennial of professional baseball voted him the sport's greatest living player. Joe DiMaggio was the middle of three brothers who each became major league center fielders, the others being Vince and Dom.
more

Barbara Bouchet, is a German-American actress and entrepreneur. She has acted in more than 80 films and television episodes and founded a production... company that has produced fitness videos and books as well as owning a fitness studio. Some of her roles include playing Miss Moneypenny in Casino Royale, Kelinda in Star Trek: "By Any Other Name", as Patrizia in Non si sevizia un paperino and Mrs. Schermerhorn in Gangs of New York. Barbara Goutscher was born in Reichenberg, in the Sudetenland, in what was then Germany. After World War II her family was placed, along with many others, in a resettlement camp in the American occupation zone in Germany, from where they were, in time, able to apply for, and be granted, permission to emigrate. The family learned that they were eligible to migrate to the United States, as a result of the humanitarian provisions of the Displaced Persons Act, which had been legislated by Congress in 1948. After arriving in America, her family was eventually able to settle in San Francisco, California.
more

Kevin Rose is an American Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Revision3, Digg, Pownce, and Milk. He also served as production assistant and... temporary co-host at TechTV's The Screen Savers. Rose was born in Redding, California and lived in Oregon before his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he spent most of his childhood. He became an Eagle Scout with the Boy Scouts of America. Rose transferred to Vo-Tech High School in Las Vegas in 1992. He then attended the University of Nevada Las Vegas, majoring in computer science but dropped out in 1998. He worked for two dot-com startups through CMGI. Rose was hired as a production assistant for The Screen Savers. He began appearing on-air, in "Dark Tip" segments, and on Unscrewed with Martin Sargent where he provided information on developing computing activities. He became a regular co-host when Leo Laporte left TechTV on March 31, 2004. On March 25, 2004, Comcast's G4 gaming channel announced a merger with TechTV which resulted in a round of layoffs. Rose moved to Los Angeles to stay with G4.
more

Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior United States Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate... since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988. Born in San Francisco, Feinstein graduated from Stanford University. In the 1960s she worked in city government, and in 1970 she was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She served as the board's first female president in 1978, during which time the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk drew national attention to the city. Feinstein, who was the first to discover the shootings, succeeded Moscone as mayor. During her tenure as San Francisco's first female mayor she took a politically moderate stance, leading a revamp of the city's cable car system and overseeing the 1984 Democratic National Convention. After a failed gubernatorial campaign in 1990, she won a 1992 special election to the U.S. Senate. Feinstein was first elected on the same ballot as her peer Barbara Boxer, and the two became California's first female U.S. Senators.
more

Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United... States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011. She was the first woman to hold the office and to date, has been the highest-ranking female politician in American history. A member of the Democratic Party, Pelosi has represented California's 8th congressional district, which consists of four-fifths of the city and county of San Francisco, since 1987. The district was numbered as the 5th during Pelosi's first three terms in the House. She served as the House Minority Whip from 2002 to 2003, and was House Minority Leader from 2003 to 2007, holding the post during the 108th and 109th Congresses. Pelosi is the first woman, the first Californian and first Italian-American to lead a major party in Congress. After the Democrats took control of the House in 2007 and increased their majority in 2009, Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House for the 110th and 111th sessions of Congress.
more

Patrick Thomas is an American actor and voice actor. Thomas has had roles in several different TV shows and movies. He has also done voice acting.... He also goes by the aliases Pat Thomas, Puppy Thomas, and Courtney Burr.
more

Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson , nicknamed "The Juice", is a retired American collegiate and professional football player, football broadcaster,... actor, and a currently incarcerated convicted criminal. Originally attaining a public profile in sports as a running back at the collegiate and professional levels, Simpson was the American Football League's Buffalo Bills' first overall pick in the 1969 Common Draft, and the first professional football player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season, a mark he set during the 1973 season. While five other players have passed the 2,000 rush yard mark he stands alone as the only player to ever rush for more than 2,000 yards in a 14-game season . He also holds the record for the single season yards-per-game average which stands at 143.1 ypg. Simpson was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. He also had successful careers in acting and sports commentary. In 1995, Simpson was acquitted of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman after a lengthy, internationally publicized criminal trial – the People v. Simpson.
more

Gavin Christopher Newsom is an American politician who is the 49th and current Lieutenant Governor of California. Previously, he was the 42nd Mayor... of San Francisco, and was elected in 2003 to succeed Willie Brown, becoming San Francisco's youngest mayor in 100 years. Newsom was re-elected in 2007 with 72 percent of the vote. In 2010, Samepoint released a study that measured the social media influence of mayors around the country, and ranking the top 100 most social mayors. San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom was named the Most Social Mayor in America according to the Samepoint study. Newsom graduated from Redwood High School in Larkspur, California, in 1985, and in 1989 from Santa Clara University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. His PlumpJack Wine Shop, founded in 1992, grew into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, and now includes bars, restaurants, and a Lake Tahoe hotel called Squaw Valley Inn. He was first appointed by Willie Brown to serve on San Francisco's Parking and Traffic Commission in 1996, and was appointed the following year as Supervisor.
more

Patricia Campbell Hearst , now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and... convicted bank robber. She is said to be one of the first known cases of Stockholm Syndrome. The granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst and great-granddaughter of millionaire George Hearst, she gained notoriety in 1974 when, following her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army , she ultimately joined her captors in furthering their cause. Apprehended after having taken part in a bank robbery with other SLA members, Hearst was imprisoned for almost two years before her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter. She was later granted a presidential pardon by President Bill Clinton in his last official act before leaving office. Hearst was born in San Francisco, California, the third of five daughters of Randolph Apperson Hearst and Catherine Wood Campbell. She grew up primarily in the wealthy San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Hillsborough. She attended Crystal Springs School for Girls in Hillsborough and the Santa Catalina School in Monterey.
more

Jon Wallace Miller is an American sportscaster, known primarily for his broadcasts of Major League Baseball. He is currently employed as a... play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco Giants. He was also a baseball announcer on ESPN until the network chose not to renew his contract following the 2010 season. Miller received the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010. Jon Miller grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. After graduating from Hayward High School in 1969, Miller commuted across the bay to take broadcasting classes at the College of San Mateo. He began his broadcasting career at the college's FM radio station and UHF/PBS TV station , which reached much of the Bay Area. His first over the air baseball broadcasts were from CSM games. Miller later worked as sports director for KFTY television in Santa Rosa. In 1974, he landed his first baseball play-by play job, calling that year's World Series champion Oakland Athletics. For a brief period in the 1970s, Miller broadcast for the California Golden Seals of the National Hockey League.
more

Victoria Vetri is an American model and actress. Vetri was born in San Francisco, California to parents who were immigrants from Italy. She attended... Hollywood High School in Hollywood, California between 1959 and 1963 and later studied art at Los Angeles City College. She began acting and modelling in her teens. Vetri is a singer and dancer who once turned down the voice dub for Natalie Wood in West Side Story . Of this she remarked "I did not want to be known as a standby." She also auditioned for the title role in the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of Lolita but lost the role to Sue Lyon. She also writes poetry and plays guitar. Using the name Angela Dorian, she was chosen as Playboy's Playmate of the Month for the September 1967 issue and subsequently was the 1968 Playmate of the Year. Her centerfold was photographed by Carl Gunther. Vetri won $20,000 in prizes when she was selected Playmate of the Year. Among these were a new car , gold watch, skis and a ski outfit, a complete wardrobe, a movie camera, a typewriter, a tape recorder, a stereo, and a guitar.
more

June Blair is an American model and actress. She is best known for being Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for its January 1957 issue. Her... centerfold was photographed by Hal Adams. Blair made her first television appearance in 1954. Through the rest of the decade, she took supporting roles in feature films and guest-starred in series television, including two episodes, "Performance Under Fire" and "The Dead Ringer" of the 1960-1961 syndicated western series Two Faces West. She was engaged to the singer Nino Tempo in 1957. Blair was the inspiration for his song "Looney over Juney". The next year, she broke off her engagement with Tempo and started dating Lindsay Crosby, Bing Crosby's son. Through the late 1950s, she also dated Dick Sargent, Barry Coe, Mickey Callan, and Bill Holmes, as well as other Hollywood actors. On May 21, 1961, Blair married David Nelson and joined the cast of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Ricky Nelson was the best man. She had two sons with David: Daniel Blair Nelson in 1962 and Jamie Eric Nelson in 1966. They were divorced in 1975.
more