Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.

Faceless white figures loom over the city from the rooftop.

Noble beasts perhaps, but not the Emperor's dogs.

Gold Rush ship-turned-hotel buried underneath San Francisco's financial district.

A Barbary Coast watering hole built into a Gold Rush shipwreck.

A mysterious painting of the self-declared Emperor of the United States watches over a local hof-brau.

Deco Modern sculptures of the people of the Pacific, cast for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition.

Art from the latest counter-culture; kids who dye their hair blue and believe the future will be a post-apocalyptic water world.

San Francisco's oldest surviving monument and meeting place for 1906 survivors.

Since 1973, this block has been home to the most concentrated collection of murals in San Francisco.

Bring your own cardboard to the slippery slopes of concrete hidden in a neighborhood park.

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

The miraculous hydrant that saved the Mission District in 1906.

A nondescript building that's been functioning as a speakeasy for nearly a century and a half.

Furniture tries to escape an abandoned building in San Francisco.

The oldest burial ground in the city, final resting place of city founders, Ohlone natives and murderers alike.

A still functioning vaudeville carousel that has operated for over a century boasts a colorful menagerie and past.