All descriptions courtesy Wikipedia.org.
Alcatraz
Alcatraz Island, sometimes informally referred to as simply Alcatraz or by its pop-culture name, The Rock, is a small island located in the middle of the San Francisco Bay in California, United States. It served as a lighthouse, then a military fortification, then a military prison followed by a federal prison until 1963. It became a national recreation area in 1972 and received landmakring designations in 1976 and 1986. Today, the island is a historic site operated by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is open to tours. Visitors can reach the island by ferry ride from Pier 33, near Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.
Coit Tower
Coit Tower was built atop Telegraph Hill in 1933 at the bequest of Lillie Hitchcock Coit to beautify the City of San Francisco. Lille bequeathed one-third of her estate to the City of San Francisco "to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved."
Contrary to popular opinion, the tower was not designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle. This myth persists in part because of Lillie Hitchcock Coit's affinity with the San Francisco firefighers of the day, in particular with Knickerbocker Engine Company Number 5. Although the architects claimed to have no design precedent in mind, during this time Europe saw the construction of aesthetically designed power stations that could be claimed as prototypes (e.g.: Battersea Power Station).
The art deco tower, 210 feet (64 meters) of unpainted reinforced concrete, was designed by architects Arther Brown, Jr., and Henry Howard with murals by 26 different artists and numerous assistants.
The Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay onto the Pacific Ocean. As part of both US Highway 101 and California Route 1, it connects to the city of San Francisco on th enorthern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County.
The Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed in 1937 and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Since its completion, the span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges. It still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. in 2007, it was ranked fifth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of 1017 acres (4.1 square kilometers, 1.6 square miles) of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 174 acres (0.7 square kilometers, 0.27 square miles) larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. With 13 million visitors annually, Golden Gate is the third most visited city park in the United States (after Central Park and Lincoln Park in Chicago).
Fisherman's Wharf
It roughly encompasses the northern waterfront area of San Francisco from Ghiradelli Square or Van Ness Avenue east to Pier 35 or Kearny Street. It is best known for being the location of Pier 39, San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, the Cannery Shopping Center, Ghirardelli Square, a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, the Musee Mecanique, the Wax Museum at Fisherman's Whar, Forbes Island and restaurants and stands that serve fresh seafood, most notably dungeness crab and clam chowder served in a sourdough bread bowl. Some of the restaurants, like Pompeii's and Alioto's #8, go back for three generations of the same family ownership. Nearby Pier 45, there is a chapel in memory of the "Lost Fishermen" of San Francisco and Northern California though it might not always be open everyday. Once a year, the chapel has a service for the lost fishermen.
SF MOMA
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a major modern art museum and San Francisco landmark.
It opened in 1935 under founding director Dr. Grace Morley (Grace L. McCann Morley, Director from 1935-1958) as the San Francisco Museum of Art, the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art. For its first sixty years, the museum occupied upper floors of the War Memorial Veterans Building in the Civic Center. Under directory Henry T. Hopkins (1974-1986) the museum added "Modern" to its title in 1974, and established an international reputation.
In a major transformation and expansion, in 1995 the museum moved to its current location, 151 Third Street, adjacent to Yerba Buena Gardens in the SOMA district and its iconic architectural showpiece facility designed by Mario Botta. Inviting comparison to the preeminent MOMA in New York City, the museum re-branded itself "SFMOMA".
The museum has in its collection important works by Jackson Pollock, Richard Diebenkorn, Paul Klee, Marcel Duchamp and Ansel Adams, among others. The famous cinema series Art in Cinema was started at SFMOMA in 1946 by filmmaker Frank Stauffacher.
