Appropriation-friendly collection of books, periodicals, and more.

Alleyway plaque commemorating the death of a fictional character in The Maltese Falcon, not far from the author's home.

A garden oasis filled with flowers mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare.

A man-made island in scenic San Francisco Bay.

San Francisco's oldest operating hotel, with a Victorian atmosphere and a "haunted" fourth floor.

One of the oldest producers of hand-folded fortune cookies still uses its original secret recipe.

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

The stones that traveled from Spain to eventually become a holy place for San Francisco's nature worshippers.

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

The giant pair of sexy legs sticking out the window of this costume store have become its main draw.

This turn of the century masterpiece has a mysterious goaty interloper.

The restored and active Victorian-era final resting place of San Francisco.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

Big gun installations, built over a massive cemetery, now abandoned & hidden in trees.

Visible below the waves are memorials to the city's Gold Rush dead.

The tea room that pushed the boundaries of adorable straight into...we can't find the words.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

The one-time watch house for incoming ships at the Golden Gate now stands abandoned and hidden in trees.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

A walk-in working camera obscura produces 360-degree live images of the San Francisco coast.