What to do in the Bay Area

[gordonzola]

After the horrific Beach Blanket Babylon episode and crosley_bendix’s comment, I got to thinking about tourism. It is San Francisco’s only industry after all. BBB is definitely part of the official tourist world that I wouldn’t think of recommending to friends

The genius who designed Fisherman’s Wharf deserves a medal. It’s a holding pen where visitors can feel like they’re visiting SF when they’re really just hanging out with other tourists. There’s little reason for locals to go there, though I have known a couple of people who lived on boats at Pier 39. This section of town manages to separate tourists from their money without inflicting too much annoyance on anyone else, except for those who work there of course.

Which is why it was such a tragedy when the Musee Mecanique moved there from the Cliff House. It was my favorite place in San Francisco: overlooking the Ocean, cold, drippy, surrounded by cracked concrete and a few sullen teenagers smoking pot. Perfect. That says San Francisco to me.. I haven’t been since the relocation, it just makes me sad. There are a couple of things to do in that part of town though. Seeing the seals at their reclaimed home at Pier 39 is great. Alcatraz was interesting too, though it’s been nearly 20 years since the last time I went.

In Chicago, the one must-see thing that I did was to visit the Haymarket Memorial and Emma Goldman’s grave. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring any offerings and all I had with me were "Cheese Pride" and "I’m on a date with my Feelings" buttons. They had to do.

But that’s the kind of tourism I like. Something meaningful, only available in the place I’m visiting, and hopefully not very crowded. In the Bay Area the things I’d recommend would be the Albany Landfill, the F Market (especially if it’s one of the three days a year the open-air gondola is running), the Wave Organ, Zeitgeist in the middle of the day, and Tire Beach.

Tell me what not-usually-touristed things I should visit in your town. Or add some good things to the Bay Area list I started above.

Comments

Ride the 7 train

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

• Don't go to Chinatown. Visit Flushing instead.
• And why bother with Central Park, when there's Flushing Meadows?
• The Museum of African Art's been feeling pretty lonely, ever since they moved out to Queens.
• Somewhere between these, see if you can find a cricket game going on in a park in Jackson Heights.

Re: Ride the 7 train

[jactitation.livejournal.com]

BTW, the corellary to #1 in SF is go to Clement St between Anza and 12th, not Chinatown near Union Square.

But dude, Prospect Park in Brooklyn all the way!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

and Atomic Books of course!

I wish I had this list the last time I was in Baltimore. Of course, I didn't know you back then.

[defenestr8r.livejournal.com]

I think Clement Street is a great place to take tourists to see real Asian markets in use, great cheap food, and of course book shopping.

There are also the Mission murals which many people don't see because they are off the beaten path.

I haven't had enough visitors here in New Orleans yet to really get into a tourist routine like I had in San Francisco. Much like SF, tourists here are kept in their own pen, the French Quarter. The difference being that there are actually bars that locals go to in the Quarter as well. My few visitors have been dragged to other parts of town which feel more authentic (whatever that means) to me. Come on down, I'll take you to my favorite cafe which is all fair-trade. It's where I found the food co-op shirt. There is also a great bar with kitschy dinette sets for seating and a real rockin' jukebox, and most importantly a photo booth!

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

Right, because it's not hard enough to walk down Clement Street already. Please bring people to gawk. Thank you so much for improving my life.

[halfjack.livejournal.com]

While in Vancouver you will want to visit the UBC Museum of Anthropology (http://www.moa.ubc.ca/). Besides being a wonderful museum, it is also an open store of artifacts for research, so it is littered with huge filing cabinets full of undisplayed artifacts handily indexed for your geekly pleasure.

My tour guide work in Vancouver is mostly a matter of taking friends to restaurants. Specifically Vij's (www.vijs.ca) and, more casually, The Eatery on Broadway near Alma, which is run by a post-punk club hopper from my own years, which means the place if usually throbbing with mid-80s alternate music and Japanese animation is playing on a big screen near the front. That one's walking distance from home, so it's a frequent stop for sushi and beer.

The best of Vancouver, however, is seen by walking or riding a bike and though it probably doesn't qualify as "not-usually-touristed", neither does it qualify as "touristy and therefore avoidable". It would be a mistake for anyone, and a local in particular, to avoid the astounding and regularly available sights, smells, and textures of the seawall around Stanley Park.

Finally, head out of Vancouver to the far tip of Richmond (an hour or two by bus) and into the little fishing community of Steveston for wonderful second hand shops and sushi cut right at the dock as the fishing boats come in. Stay late and start a fire on the beach and watch some of the best sunsets in the world.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

next time I come to Vancouver we're going to Stevenston. as a bonus, it's likely I'll have a car.

many of these are touristy but in a low-key way, and really worth it

[chitinous.livejournal.com]

--The LaBrea Tar Pits and adjoining George C. Page museum
--Forest Lawn and/or Hollywood Forever Cemetaries
--Mulholland Drive
--Jerry's Deli in Studio City (okay, okay, Canter's on Fairfax too)
--The Red Lion Tavern
--Little Tehran area
--The "6 Feet Under" house
--haven't been there yet, but the Museum of Jurassic Technology
--ditto Crystal Cathedral (a must-do on Xmas or Easter)
--my secret Koreatown sushi spot that I will only tell you about when you visit

Re: many of these are touristy but in a low-key way, and really worth it

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I've been to the tar pits and Canter's but not the others. I really should come down soon. maybe after the conference in september.

[amnesiascope.livejournal.com]

if you'd had more time in Milwaukee, and if i hadn't been either in or on my way back from Madison most of the time you were in town, I would have taken you to St. Stanislaus Church and the Bayview Massacre Memorial; and also <a href="http://www.wisconsinlaborhistory.org/memorial.html>The Wisconsin Workers' Memorial</a> in Zeidler / Union Square Park.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I'll have to take a labor martyr tour of the midwest!

Musee

[(Anonymous)]

I went recently, and actually it wasn't too bad. There was nothing I liked better than spending a rainy, idle afternoon there gazing out at the ocean, but at least now more people will be able to see and (hopefully) appreciate it. And they told me they have more room for the exhibits too, so they can bring out things they couldn't at the Cliff House. At least it didn't vanish, like so many other great things in the City tend to over time.

And taking the La Prectia Mural tour is also something I can do again and again in SF (http://www.precitaeyes.org/).

katherine

Re: Musee

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

yes, the mural tour is great too. Not that I've ever actually gone on it. but I love the idea. I still mourn the missing mural at 17th and Harrison with the one spot of paint left.

Do I know you? which Katherine are you if I do?

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

kenilworth marsh (http://www.nps.gov/nace/keaq/), the last 40 acres of the original bog on which this planned utopian city (d.c.) was built.

and, the grave (http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/l-enfant.htm) of the man who built it, overlooking the city from arlington nat'l cemetary. scroll down for pic.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

aren't most (modern) cities planned as utopias?

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

Tourists in SF should all be brought to Crissy Fields where they will be taught by me how to walk down a fucking street because apparently none of them ever have before. Also I will provide them with adequate clothing.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

the wonderful thing about you, Common Reader, is that I knew you would respond to this post, but I had absolutely no idea what you would say.

I assume adequate clothing means that you will also not allow them to dress like twins. unless they are twins, of course.

in philly

[plee.livejournal.com]

Definitely visit the Mutter Museum -- a tiny museum of medical oddities. It was started at a time when physicians believed that medical defects had physiological origins so they tried to catalog every physiological difference in human society. There's a huge wall of human skulls of different shapes and sizes with little captions next to them indicating only their sex, occupation, and sometimes religion.

Re: in philly

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

yes yes yes. I can't believe I've never been. I've wanted to go for years.

Come to Oakland!

[gwenzilla.livejournal.com]

my comment got rejected, it was too long. it's here.
http://www.ofrenda.org/rawr/calacas/0408231258_things_to_.php

Re: Come to Oakland!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

Oakland? never heard of it.

[rootlesscosmo.livejournal.com]

In San Francisco: besides the Mission Murals (Balmy Alley in particular) there are the Anton Refregier murals in the old Rincon Annex Post Office building, Mission and Spear. Across the street is the 1934 General Strike memorial to Sperry and Bordoise, the workers killed on Bloody Thursday.

Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park. Just walk around.

The "Vertigo" locations tour: Mission Dolores cemetery, Muir Woods, Fort Point below the Golden Gate Bridge. (The Union Square area is unrecognizable from the movie... Ransohoff's Furs, Podesta Baldocchi, where are you now? And Ernie's Restaurant is long gone, red flocked wallpaper and all, and I can't say I regret it.)

Swan Oyster Depot on Polk Street. Mitchell's Ice Cream on San Jose Avenue. The Castro Theater.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

all good suggestions. but I have an art question for you. what do you think of the General Strike monument? I really want to like it more than I do. It's just never grabbed me emotionally even though accounts and pictures from that time do. just wondering.

Portland

[thetathrees.livejournal.com]

Chuck Palahniuk did a pretty good job of detailing what you should visit, but he forgot the Woodstock Mystery Hole, Just Two Miles West Off of I-205™. You have to have an "In," though, and it's mostly closed from late October thru April/May-ish, so let me know when you come visit. :-)

Re: Portland

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

oh, we're going. maybe early october.

[daisygrl.livejournal.com]

I loved going to The Cliff House and hanging out playing machines at the Musee M. when I lived there. I was so bummed when I heard it moved. I really liked going to the pipes in Berkely, as we called it, at Lawrence Livermore Labs, I think it was called, where the science museum is. You get a great view and it is fun to sit at the foot of the pipes, like big flutes, on a windy day. Beautiful!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

good one!

[lapsed.livejournal.com]

Visit the Albany Landfill before it's gone. Sniff have given up on it, and some day soon the Parks people will be converting it into a flat expanse of grass and soccer fields.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

is the fight really all over? I thought things were still being contested. that would be so sad.

Philadelphia

[corvus.livejournal.com]

Philly is a great place for a bike ride.

In North Philly you have old industrial sightseeing.

In South Philly you have the Italian Market and crazy murals and tasty, tasty food.

In Center City there's Reading Terminal Market, the Mutter Museum, all sorts of strange old buildings, and a small collection of small, out of the way museums.

In West Philly you have The Kids, an abandoned oil refinery with one of the most amazing views of the city ever, rock n' roll, wonderful Ethiopian restaurants, and a whole slew of other stuff.

Oh, and there's also Fairmount Park, which is the largest park within a city's limits in the USA.

Re: Philadelphia

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

cool! I haven't been to Philly since 1988 I think.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

We'll assume that "my town" is Tallahassee for this exercise.

The Indian Mounds state Park. I don't know the actual name of it, but it's off US 27 on the north edge of town. It's just this one bit of undisturbed semi-tropical jungle that has a big grassy area in the middle that has some old native burial mounds. Authentic old north Florida: peaceful, but a bit creepy even on the brightest, hottest days.

The Railroad Square/All Saints district. No doubt the area is far too small to be a district by most cities' standards, it is the decaying remains of the era of railroads. Lots of old warehouses and stuff that often served as struggling punk clubs, artists lofts (often squats), and strange little boutiques and restaurants or coffee houses when I was growing up. The inevitable growth of FSU and FAMU (it lies between the two) is starting to gentrify it a bit. The coffee houses and such are still quirky and bohemian, but nicer than they used to be. In ten years it'll probably be nothing but chain stores so if you're ever gonna be in Tallahassee, visit it before it's gone.

San Luis Mission is the now mostly restored site of an old Spanish colonial mission. It's a pretty neat archeological site. Across town a bit, there used to be an archeological site that was where it is believed that De Soto(?) spent the first christmas in north America in the 1530s.

Walk, bike, or drive down a canopy road.

The rest of it would actually be outside of the city in the springs, sink holes, and rivers of the eastern panhandle. I would definitely want you to spend an evening at Posey's oyster bar in Panacea.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

that actually all sounds attractive. If only the chese conference would go to Tallahassee!

More Philly

[ericaceous.livejournal.com]

If you came to visit me, I wouldn't have enough bikes for everyone, so we would take the 23 bus from deep south philly. First stop: the lovely Italian Market and the great asian SUPERmarket where my buddy deino bought a nasty, stinky durian.

This bus used to be a trolley, and local legend has it that it is/was the longest (in miles) trolley line in the country. It certainly does take a long time from one end to the other, but there's plenty to look at.
The bus goes through some parts of north philly that were completely leveled to build townhouses as small (if with more space between them) as the old rowhouses that used to be there. There are some really great murals on the older walls still there.

There's tons of historic crap too a little further northwest in Germantown, like some buildings that are somehow important to the revolutionary war and a famous stop on the Underground Railroad.

The Mermaid Inn is a fabulous, if decrepit, bar with live mostly country music every night. This is at the bottom of Chestnut Hill, just before it becomes so yuppie I get the urge to rend my garments and tear my hair. Then again, there's a famous vegetarian cafe there so we might have to climb the hill.

There's some stuff in center city that is pretty interesting (like the Mutter museum others have praised), but the 23 bus should be the tour people go on instead of those silly tour bus tours.

Re: More Philly

[susannochka.livejournal.com]

heh. two of my great-uncles were trolley conductors on that line for over 40 years. my grandmother used to tell me that when she was a little girl (probably around 1914-1918, I think), her mom would take her and some of her many siblings into Philly with the horse and cart- the kids would sit on the stoop of their aunt Ida's house waaay up in North Philly and wait for their brothers to come by on the trolley so they could wave.
no idea why I needed to share that here, but there it is.

[sanmiguelmalo.livejournal.com]

oh man, i didn't know about half the locations you or other people mentioned in sf or the bay area in general. i knew rincon annex and the memorial... and... that's it.

of course this is because i'm a fake-san franciscan! taking a deep breath and recognizing this, here is my list of things to do in my real hometown, rodeo.

• visit tosco refinery, or at least stand in a nearby field where cows graze resplendently while breathing in the sweet, sweet, oil refined air.
  
• leave
  

tada!

okay, but if i am dragging people around sf pretending like i'm a real san francisco person, i just drag them to places that have personal significance to me, ie lyon street stairs, bus stop nearby fisherman's wharf where i was stabbed, current site of the world trade club which used its port authority connections to buy out the restaurant i grew up in so we can spit at it or piss on the walls, etc. i don't think this answers your question AT ALL!

also, i don't know shit about where to go in boston. i have no town! ::weeps::

also a buddy and i used to go to fisherman's wharf to play arcade gamez, just because it was close to the aforementioned restaurant.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

mmmmmmmmmm, fresh Tosco air .... Too bad the restaraunt's gone.

[beer-retard.livejournal.com]

I like making people do a forced march from Cole Valley up to Tank Hill. It's often too windy to stay for long and if there's more than 2-3 people there it feels crowded. But if you get up there on a clear day, the view's probably the best in SF.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

yes yes yes

Best white-knuckler:

[anarqueso.livejournal.com]

Let ilipodscrill drive you down Vermont Street. He barely uses the brakes at all.

[freshwater-pr0n.livejournal.com]

I always liked to take people to the Secret Slides in the Castro. Their exact location escapes me at the moment, but they're these two long, totally un-kidsafe concrete slides nestled in their own tiny postage stamp of a park. My passive-aggressive side enjoys taking people up the Greenwich Steps. Scenic, and a bitch on your knees if you're not in good shape.

Austin has its own charms. On weekends, they close down the nightclub district to car traffic, and you can watch drunken sorority girls interact with their frat-boy counterparts. You can crash a frat party, which is only interesting once, and only if you went to a college without a greek system.

We have far fewer murals in Austin, but (Balmy Alley excluded) the overall quality is higher. That's Austin vs SF in a nutshell, though. We don't have more good art, we just have less terrible art. It's easy to confuse the two.

secret slides

[(Anonymous)]

hey! there used to be 2 secret slides on bernal heights - they were steel and REALLY fast! i went down them on acid one time - yikes! i'd love to know where the ones in the castro are - anyone?

[wouldprefernot2.livejournal.com]

Two places I've yet to visit, one of which may or may not exist.

1) The Clover Adams Memorial in Rock Creek Cemetery. Gore Vidal's gravestone (though not yet Gore Vidal) is here also.

2) Each metro station has a map showing the surrounding streets, prominent landmarks, schools, churches, etc. As of a year and a half ago, the map at the Fort Totten station has a little church symbol, on a block in a residential neighborhood just off Georgia Avenue, that is labeled "Apocalypse Megadeath Congregation". (Actually, my memory is bad, and I think the first word was something more discongruent.)

I'm about 2/3 sure that this was some underpaid graphic artist at Metro (or at some WMATA subcontractor) having a bit of fun. But just in case, I really need to go back there (I haven't commuted by train since my last move), find the exact street location, and check it out.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

cool. I didn't know Gore Vidal was that prepared. I love the subway map thing.

sf things to do

[(Anonymous)]

i always like riding around the houseboats off of fourth street. it's getting really fancy down there now though. there used to be open semi truck trailers with people living in them before. and you could go in the garden that the houseboat people have. but not anymore. the other day i rode around with my neighbor kids there and we rode down a little hill that has been built as part of the new "open space" that will inevitably be full of yuppies soon.

gordon - thanks for giving emma the feelings on a grid buttons! does that mean we're anarchists?

Re: sf things to do

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

awwwww c'mon. admit it. heh heh heh.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

excuse the off thread, but may i folo up on an old question? you said fattest is represented in the girl zine book? i just got it and am looking forward to reading her piece. which would be.....


ps. great cheese story in last week's new yorker.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

Hers is "The Fat Truth". and I got that New Yorker but haven't had a chance to read it yet. I love Murray's. It's a great store.