The city

Gold and fog

In 1848 San Francisco was a small town of about 1,000 people. Then gold was found in the foothills, and by the end of 1849 some 25,000 lived there. The 1906 earthquake and fire left most of the city in ruins, and it was largely rebuilt by 1915.

“I'd pan for gold in the foothills, just once.”

The landmark

The orange bridge

When the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, its 1,280-metre main span was the longest in the world, a record it held until 1964. Its orange colour was picked to suit the green hills and to stand out to ships in the fog.

Neighbourhoods

San Francisco has more than 50 hills inside its city limits, and some neighbourhoods, such as Nob Hill and Russian Hill, are named after them. In the Mission District, the church of Mission Dolores, finished in 1791, is the oldest building in the city. Across from Alamo Square, a row of brightly painted Victorian houses on Steiner Street, built from 1892 to 1896, is known as the Painted Ladies. The city's cable cars still climb the hills. The first line opened on Clay Street in 1873, and the system is the last manually operated cable car system in the world.

The bay

San Francisco sits on the northern tip of a peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean to the west and San Francisco Bay to the east. The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened on 12 November 1936, six months before the Golden Gate Bridge. On the waterfront, the Ferry Building opened in 1898. Its clock tower, about 75 metres tall, was modelled on the Giralda tower in Seville, Spain.

The skyline

Coit Tower, a 64-metre concrete column on Telegraph Hill, was finished in 1933 with money left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit to make the city more beautiful. The Transamerica Pyramid opened in 1972 and was the city's tallest building until 2016. Today Salesforce Tower, finished in 2018, is the tallest at 326 metres.

When to see it

Summer is often cool and foggy, while September and October usually bring the warmest, clearest days. Stay until after dark. The top six floors of Salesforce Tower then light up with an artwork of 11,000 LEDs, showing scenes filmed around the city that day.

Two keepers

Who keeps the wish in San Francisco.

An Elite wakes first; the Boss guards the wish itself. Hit their weak points for a BONK!, land the last blow for a KO!, and each one grins and takes a bow.

The Elite
The Gripman

Rings the bell on every hill · Keeper of the cable cars

A gripman works the lever that grabs the moving cable under San Francisco's streets and pulls the car up the hills. Crews are famous for ringing their bells in rhythm, and the city has held a bell-ringing contest for them more than fifty times since 1949.

The crab tips its cap, grips the lever and rings the bell twice. The crab lurches, then tightens its grip on the lever. The crab sets the lever down and rings the bell once.

“I'd ask for a turn on the bell.”
The Boss
Monarch

The last king of the grizzlies · Keeper of the Golden State

Monarch was a huge California grizzly, captured in 1889 for a newspaper stunt and kept for years in Golden Gate Park. California's grizzlies were hunted out not long after. Many say he was the model for the bear on the state flag, but no one can prove it.

Monarch lifts his crowned head. Somewhere far off, the fog rolls back. Monarch rears up, growls and drops back onto all fours. Monarch lowers his crowned head and bows.

“I'd tell him he's still on the flag.”

Guards a relic: the Golden Gate Rivet. A rivet from the Golden Gate Bridge, guarded by Monarch in the fog. Like the bridge, it holds when you take one more knock.