Comments (0) Best Place to Watch the Moonrise - 2000

Broadway between Jones and Taylor

The one factoid of importance we gleaned from four years of college was that the full moon always rises as the sun is setting. How convenient, to have the big yellow-orange (even blood-red!) sphere emerging from the east as dusk falls, the sky turns violet, and the lights come up across the skyline. Lovers of the big picture embrace Twin Peaks for the whole moonrise experience, but the panorama visible from this particular Russian Hill perch is a perfect cameo, an essential snapshot of San Francisco elegance: Telegraph Hill and the downtown skyscrapers frame the Bay Bridge's necklacelike sparkle, while North Beach glitters beneath and the big green cheese himself rises above it all; on certain crystal-clear nights, the illuminations seem to pulsate. The locale's one of those traffic-free, pedestrian-friendly dead ends conducive to quiet reflection, complete with a thick stone balustrade ideal for leg-dangling and lunar contemplation.