Fred Brandt

“ Here is San Francisco's Little Coney Island, where the multitude comes on Sundays by motor car and trolley, with lunch baskets and children, to frolic or rest on the sands that front the sea.
Gay booths and kiosks skirt the Esplanade, where vendors are kept busy supplying their wares and where everyone appears as carefree as the gulls wheeling above the white breakers.
As you continue south along the beach you pass the chalet of the Olympic Club, whose members sally forth on New Year's Day for their dip in the surf. ”

“ Surface impressions of San Francisco assail the visitor like colors in a gypsy's scarf lustrous and salient. There is so much vivacity in the streets downtown, so much to see in the haunts talked about, that one is apt to overlook in a brief sojourn an outstanding characteristic of the city—its many distinctive homes. ”

“ Suavities of outline accent the horizons of San Francisco, where the skyscrapers take on fantasy as they pile up on hills and recede into vales. Most visitors cross the Bay and arrive at the city by way of the Ferry Building, the gala tower of which has a clock at each point of the compass. Travelers also arrive at the Third and Townsend street railroad station, or, if they come by sea through the Golden Gate, at the piers along the waterfront. ”

“ San Francisco is essentially an out-of-door city, with three hundred odd days of clement weather, made for the display of light raiment, whether it be organdie dresses, sports togs or afternoon frocks. Women of the city insist on being modish, however, so they wear furs with the airiest of apparel on the warmest days, contradictory but vivacious apparitions. Even the Chinese girls ape their Western sisters and appear in brocaded mandarins with fur neck pieces.
The dash of San Francisco women on the street, as well as in the hotels and cafes, is not a legend. ”

“ You may motor there, walk or take a street car to the foot of this city mountain, the ascent either way being easy. You may scale Twin Peaks from the flank within view of Market street, climbing along the side and over the shoulder by way of the boulevard. Or if you prefer, you may climb up from Sloat Boulevard via Portola Drive through one of the city's restricted residence sections. On the summit of Twin Peaks you feel at the top of the world, and you see San Francisco spread out below you as multicolored as a rug of Kermanshah. ”

“ The Richmond, Mission, Sunset and other out lying districts have their own sub-centers, each crowded six days in the week with shoppers. Otherwise the downtown streets would be congested.
Flower stands splash the street corners with color in the downtown shopping district, and the wares glow in the show windows like exotic blooms under glass.
San Francisco shows a market as complete and original in styles as any city in the country. The excessive seasonal changes demanded in the East are not needed here. ”

“ Street population spells buying power, and San Francisco has larger shopping crowds every day of the year than any other city west of New York. Every day but Sunday is a shopping day.
Constant shopping by San Francisco women gives stimulus to the city's retailers to comb world markets for the newest and most attractive offerings. Buyers are sent by the larger establishments not only to Paris and other style centers, but to all of the larger international trade fairs. Stocks in the shops reflect the enterprise of the retailers, who not only display the latest modes, but frequently create them. ”

“ You are diverted by the bizarre on all sides, Grant avenue, the main artery of Chinatown, stretching before you in a many-hued arabesque of shop fronts, no two quite alike in tone or in the stuff they have to sell. ”

“ When you think of eating in San Francisco you think of bright lights and dancing. In addition to the hotels, you may dance at innumerable cafes. Influences of Old Spain dowered San Francisco with an infatuation for the fiesta. The city has always been dance-minded. Art Hickman, virtuoso of jazz orchestration, was called to New York to have the Follies on The Roof dance to the exuberant strains he had evolved in San Francisco. ”

“ The sea glamour is upon the dining places of San Francisco. Any impression of them would be lacking without some reference to sea food. Every variety of fish is sold fresh in the markets daily. A number of so-called fish grottos specialize in fish caught the same morning, keeping them swimming in illuminated window-tanks. Crabs, shrimps, oysters, clams and other varieties of shell fish, including the abalone with its rainbow-tinted shell, together with sanddabs, pompano and rex sole, serve to remind one that San Francisco is washed on three sides by tides of the Pacific. ”

“ There's a diversity to the restaurants of San Francisco that makes it difficult to single out any one type. French and Italian restaurants appear to predominate, but the number of other places, including Spanish, Greek, Mexican, Hungarian and Slavonic—not to mention Chinese—makes the array a long and polyglot one. In the vicinity of Broadway, Kearny and Columbus avenue, streets that penetrate the heart of the Latin Quarter, and along upper Montgomery street, there are sufficient individual cafes to keep any explorer after atmospheric epicurism busy for many days. ”

“ Wives and daughters of the men who awoke to find themselves millionaires in the days of the Argonauts came to San Francisco to explore the social thrills of the newly rich. It is easy to understand why the hotels became the scenes of elaborate gaiety unmatched even in New York, Boston or the older communities. ”

“ The Symphony Orchestra of San Francisco is one of the ranking musical bodies of the United States. No better symphonic music is played anywhere. The concerts of this orchestra fill the Civic Auditorium to overflowing. Close to fifty per cent of the audiences are people attracted from surrounding cities.
The Chamber Music Society has toured the United States and added to the musical prestige of the city.
The Concerts of the Bohemian Club, the Pacific Musical Society, the San Francisco Musical Society and the Loring Club have definite places in the musical life of the community. ”

“ Landing trout or bringing down ducks or a buck can be accomplished within tramping distance of city homes. Three polo fields are on the peninsula. Fly-casting on Stow lake in Golden Gate Park, regattas off the Aquatic Park and the Marina, trap shooting, hiking, mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada range, and a diversity of other activities are directed by clubs and organized groups. Horse racing has been revived at Tanforan and attracts big crowds. The motor roads in and out of San Francisco are among the finest in the country. ”

“ The art shops and the book shops of San Francisco evoke the admiration of every visitor. The art shops, on Post, Sutter and adjacent streets, close to Union Square, with their own galleries of paintings, bronzes and marbles, have showrooms that are more like museums than commercial establishments. The book shops are in this same neighborhood. They are well worth visiting, several of the dealers being publishers of the works of California authors. ”

“ A scenic boulevard, which may be traversed by motor or afoot, winds over it, affording a sweeping panorama of the city and Bay. Running beneath the mountain is a tunnel carrying a double track street railway line. This tunnel is the longest and deepest municipal bore in the world. It cost $4,000,000. The tunnel is two and one-fourth miles in length and was built to get rapid transit to residence districts. [By "K" tunnel car on Market street, or by taxi or auto.]
Golf—Sports: San Francisco has seven golf courses reached quickly by motor cars and street railway lines. ”

“ The Latin Quarter, the Spanish and Mexican districts out toward the end of Powell street at the Bay, the Japanese streets east of Fillmore, and the Greek settlement centering around Third and Folsom are all, however, highly expressive of their habitants.
With its pagoda-like roofs, its bazaars, its restaurants of amazing orchestration and stranger East-West decoration, it is easy to. understand why Chinatown sways the imagination of wayfarers in San Francisco. Every street and alley in it is obviously exotic. ”

“ If you want fare of the realm the dining rooms and grills of the hotels are at your service, as are the restaurants along Market, Powell and other streets. The cafeteria has come northward and the tea-room and the Southern inn westward by way of New York. The typical San Francisco restaurant, however, is an institution as firmly imbedded in the life of the people as is Mile Rock in the current of the Golden Gate. ”

“ Drifting along the cliff highway, which runs back of the fortifications that defend the port of San Francisco, you drop down past the dirigible hangar of the United States Army Flying Corps. You rise through Sea Cliff, a residence section like a hanging garden over the ocean, and come to Lincoln Park, where the flagstaff that marks the terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the end of a transcontinental trail, is set. ”

“ Building bridges of understanding across the seas, students attending the universities and other institutions in the San Francisco Bay region are playing roles in international relations that are just beginning to be realized. ”

“ Industrial Activity: San Francisco leads the cities of the Pacific Coast in the value of manufactured products, the total annual volume of which is $500,000,000.
Labor Efficiency: Owing to equable climate, labor efficiency is higher than in any other large center in the country, the per capita output for San Francisco being $6,804.75.
Money Market of Pacific: San Francisco ranks fifth in bank clearings in the United States. ”

“ The shops of the jewelers, who perform miracles of craftsmanship in gold fliagree and in jade, are especially interesting, the sensitive-fingered artisans working at benches set in the windows in full view of passersby. ”

“ Hardly a month passes that is not marked by pages of appreciation in national architectural journals about the creative originality shown in the landscape gardening and in the structural conceptions achieved in the residence parks of San Francisco. ”

“ Many of the writers and painters of San Francisco have their homes here. There are also fine apartments, terraced gardens and compensating walks, unfolding views of the Bay and distant hills. [By cars on Stockton and Union streets, or by taxi, auto or sightseeing bus.] ”

“ The district west of Twin Peaks, which may be reached either by the Municipal street cars that go out Market street or by automobile, has restricted residential areas that are reminiscent of the illustrations on the satiny pages of de luxe architectural folios.
Rapid transit has brought country life to city dwellers in San Francisco, Third and Market streets being only twenty minutes away from St. ”

“ The downtown shopping district spreads from Market to all the streets that radiate from it, from Kearny westward, well above Powell. Market street itself is a continuous stretch of display windows. Grant avenue, Stockton, Powell, O'Farrell, Geary, Post and Sutter streets are lined with department stores and intimate shops. ”

“ From its beginning as a Spanish trading post to the present time there has always been something essentially foreign about San Francisco. Always there have been foreign elements, with well-marked colonies, districts or haunts. ”