North East

Here can be found the soul as well as the vital organs of the city its principal market places, biggest employers, seats of government (state, federal, regional and local), terminals, skyscrapers, leading entertainment houses, best restaurants, and a disproportionate share or its historical sites, beauty and ugliness. Within its boundaries are the shopping and hotel areas, South of Market, the Financial District, Chinatown, North Beach, Nob Hill, the Tenderloin and Fisherman's Wharf.

Boundaries: the Central Freeway and Division Street at the south, Van Ness Avenue at the west and the bay.

8A - Union Square - This is the town focal point for both tourists and residents. The park is as close to a city crossroads as one finds here. The garage beneath parks cars for shoppers, as well as those who frequent hotels, theaters and nearby medical buildings. Public transportation is nearby, and on a warm day this is where brown baggers work on summer tans.

Boundaries: Powell, Stockton, Post and Geary Streets.

8B - Financial District - Includes Montgomery, the so called Wall Street of the West, the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange, several corporate headquarters, some examples of the city's best commercial architecture, both traditional and contemporary. It extends south of Market.

Boundaries: Folsom, Third, Kearny, Clay, Embarcadero.

8B - Jackson Square (Financial South) - Five or more blocks comprising the largest section of mid nineteenth century buildings still standing here. So vital to traces of local heritage are they to a city that was mostly destroyed by the 1906 fire that they have been designated an official historic district with architectural and sign control. Many textile and interior design shops here as well as some advertising agencies.

Boundaries: Washington Street, Columbus Avenue, Nottingham Place and Sansome Street.

8B - Barbary Coast (Financial District) - Scarcely more than memory remains of this notorious neighborhood where, legend has it, they first invented the word "Shanghai" to describe what happened to a man who was drugged and involuntarily shipped out as crew. The watering holes became such a police problem that the Barbary Coast was shut down more than once over the years. Today, the last vestige is a block used for decorating showrooms, fancy offices. a restaurants and a small theater.

Boundaries: Pacific Street between Kearny and Montgomery.

8B - Golden Gateway/Embarcadero Center - Urban renewal, with federal aid, created this attractive combination of high rise offices and residences centered around some elaborately landscaped plazas.

Boundaries: Battery, Davis, Sacramento, Pacific Streets.

8BC - Chinatown - Today, the Chinese community extends beyond the tourist concepts to the farthest Richmond and Sunset Districts. But its heart is still the area where suburban Chinese Americans go to shop and dine. Food shops are as much an attraction as the curio bazaars for they include the sight of fish swimming in tanks, still crawling crabs, hanging ducks and exotic greens.

Boundaries: Tourist Chinatown stops at Stockton, Kearny, Bush and Broadway but outer Chinatown extends to include Sacramento and Chestnut Streets at the north and south, Polk Street at the west and a line extending along Kearny, Broadway and Sansome Street as far as Green along its eastern perimeter.

8C - Nob Hill - Mansions of the nabobs were not rebuilt after the 1906 fire, but the rich still find shelter at its summit in hotels and apartments. Incomes drop as you descend the slopes where apartments are occupied by working single people. The west and north sides, are part of Greater Chinatown. Attractions include the Episcopalian Grace Cathedral, Masonic Auditorium, two of our better known rooftop cocktail lounges and the cable car barn.

Boundaries: Bush, Larkin, Pacific and Stockton Streets.

8CEF - Polk Gulch - Atop an underground river rests this valley that coincides with one of the more interesting shopping and dining out areas of the city. From Filbert to Broadway it's a row of restaurants. From Broadway south, it's a mixture of more restaurants (fish. Italian, Mexican, organic, boutiques, tea coffee store and some gay bars, all amid an apartment city.

Boundaries: Van Ness Avenue, Larkin, Filbert, Geary Streets.

8D - North Beach - Despite the crush of skin shows and jumping real estate prices, the old ingredients that made this a favorite neighborhood somehow survive: book shops other than the so called adult variety, espresso bars, character bars, bars with juke boxes that play operatic arias, jug wine emporiums, sausage and cheese shops, Basque restaurants. Italian restaurants, ravioli factories and remnants of the sorts of Bohemians who made this the birthplace of the Beat Generation. Includes Telegraph Hill and parts of Russian Hill, the old Barbary Coast and the tourist meccas that line the North Waterfront.

Boundaries: Pacific and Mason Streets and the bay.

8D - Latin Quarter (North Beach) - Another name for North Beach's innermost enclave of restaurants and night clubs.

Boundaries: Kearny Street, Stockton, Pacific and Union Streets.

8E - Russian Hill - Here you rind some of the city's steeper hills, better views, quainter alleys, taller apartment houses, more unusually shaped (because of hillside configurations of the land) dwellings. What little commerce exists includes a good ice cream cone parlor, a purveyor or French pate and corner groceries that supply varietal wines and shallots.

Boundaries: Pacific to Bay, Polk to Mason Streets.

8F - Civic Center - A few apartments around the perimeter of this Beaux Arts style plaza take the name of their neighborhood from the governmental headquarters and cultural headquarters here.

Boundaries: Franklin, Turk, Hyde and Hayes Streets.

8G - Telegraph Hill - Coit Tower is still its prime attraction; but visitors often miss out on the friendly neighborhood bus that connects it with Washington Square, as well as the subtler attractions: rickety cliffside houses and the steep thoroughfares of Vallejo, Filbert, Greenwich Streets and Darrell Place.

Boundaries: Broadway, Grant Avenue, Stockton, Francisco and Sansome Streets.

8G - Alcatraz Heights - The residential enclave on the north slope of Telegraph Hill that’s home to Asians, Italians and upper income relatively sophisticated folk who like this corner of North Beach. The name is of recent coinage.

Boundaries: Coit Tower, the Embarcadero, Columbus Avenue, Greenwich to Bay Streets.

8H - North Waterfront - A wide strip of land, extending from the Ferry Building north to Fisherman's Wharf and including some of the most expensive earth to be found in San Francisco. So expensive as well as crucial to bay vistas is the North Waterfront that city interests have never been able to agree on how it should be developed, except for an occasional apartment complex or low rise office building. Among the area's draws are a series of antique shops housed in warehouses and the Ice House, a center for the wholesale marketing of decorator grade furniture along the Sansome Battery corridor.

Boundaries: Embarcadero, Broadway, Sansome, base of Telegraph Hill, Montgomery, North Point, Mason Streets.

8H - Fisherman's Wharf - A few crab pots still boil during the season. You can still rind real fishing boats, fishermen and fish restaurants not quite overwhelmed by hofbraus, souvenir stands, pizza stands and motels. There's also an old sailing ship, the Baclutha, and harbor tours.

Boundaries: Leavenworth and, Beach Streets and the Embarcadero.