Elevated freight railway turned wildly successful urban park.

A modern zoetrope on the New York City subway.

This exemplar of modernist architecture is meant to captivate and inspire students of the Cooper Union.

An artist's cute bronze subway sculptures belie his violent artistic past.

A shape-shifting buy-sell-trade bookstore, born to Beatnik Era spirit.

An vast warehouse of everyday treasures in Berkeley, CA.

Oakland's beautiful monumental cemetery.

Julia Morgan's Moorish-Gothic labyrinth of fountains, trees, natural light and Oakland's notable dead.

One of the best absinthe distilleries in the United States.

This mysterious series of teeny guerrilla installations sheds a whimsical light on street art in Oakland.

Dive bar built out of the remains of a whaling ship.

A massive ultra-modern church presents a science-fiction view of Catholicism's inclusive future.

Bonsai garden in Oakland is curated by the first non-Japanese female bonsai master in the United States.

The Flatiron Building's storied West Coast cousin is a lot more into religion.

The newsstand that never closes its doors—well, almost never.

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

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.

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

An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

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

Only hotel where you can legally launder money.

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

A library built during San Francisco's pioneer times is a student's retreat, bibliophile's sanctuary, and chess player's delight.

Furniture tries to escape an abandoned building in San Francisco.