People & Places >>

• Best Urban Camping
  Angel Island
  At night, the scrubby pile of rocks in the center of the bay becomes a magical place. Everything gets silent and peaceful, and you find yourself smack dab in the middle of a major metropolitan city and in the wilderness at the same time. Even in the foggy summertime — when camping... More >>
• Readers' Poll
  Best Comedian Robin Williams Best Designer Sunhee Moon Best Writer Dave Eggers Best San Francisco Icon Golden Gate Bridge Best Cartoonist Don Asmussen Best Place for a First Date Golden Gate Park Best Place to Propose Golden Gate Bridge Best View Twin Peaks Best Historic Spot... More >>
• Best Place to See a Man Masturbating in the Street
  Folsom Street Fair
  With an estimated 400,000 visitors, the annual Folsom Street Fair (taking place this year on Sept. 24) is not only an epicenter of the leather lifestyle, but it's also the third-largest parade in the state, right behind the Rose Parade and S.F. Pride. Most important, though, is that it's the... More >>
• Best Provocateur
  Eugene Robinson
  Eugene Robinson should have a phobia named after him: fear of hulking bodybuilders trained in mixed martial arts fighting with a thing for exhibitionism who front bands that play savage, jet engine-loud pummel-core and also dabble in porn and journalism. Unlike your night terrors, though,... More >>
• Best Way to Unleash Your Inner Racist/Homophobe/Sexist/Anti-Semite
  Craigslist's Rants and Raves
  Although San Francisco is known for its left-leaning politics and tolerant attitude toward diversity, its seedy little underbelly of racism, homophobia, sexism, and other undesirable traits can be found in all of its ungrammatical glory on Craigslist's Rants and Raves message boards. Created to... More >>
• Best Place to Hike After a Rain
  Mount Sutro
  This is a lovely, out-of-the-way place to stroll anytime, but it transforms with a little weather. Why? It's the eucalyptus trees. Just find a spot to park on Belgrave Avenue (a short road on top of the hill behind UCSF Medical Center) and take your choice among the several intersecting trails... More >>
• Best Cult
  Church of Scientology
  Although it may be unfair to argue that L. Ron Hubbard's controversial Church of Scientology was the lubricant that allowed Tom Cruise to famously jump up and down like a 5-year-old on Oprah Winfrey's couch, that act doesn't help its case. Started in 1953, the religious movement is yet another... More >>
• Best Surreptitious Drink With a View
  San Francisco Art Institute's roof/patio
  If you're looking for the perfect cheap, arty date, sneak into SFAI's gorgeous campus one clear evening with a sweetheart and a bottle of wine. If anyone looks at you funny, just act like you're preoccupied with conceptual hoo-ha on the way to your studio in the basement. You can admire the art... More >>
• Best Emergency Bathroom Break
  Five-star hotels
  So you're downtown shopping, or you're hitting the bars after work, or perhaps you live in one of those burgeoning high-rise communities — several floors up. Then nature calls. You could make a move for one of the few public toilets-cum-drug dens that line Market Street, or throw down a few... More >>
• Best Newspaper Columnist
  Mark Morford, the San Francisco Chronicle
  The lefty dogma Morford preaches can sometimes descend into shrillness, and for readers with delicate Quaker sensibilities, his jokes may cause fainting spells. But Morford offers enough ideas, humor, and adrenalized writing to make us more than happy to plunk down our 46 cents plus tax every... More >>
• Best Gay Archive
  James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center
  Named for the Hormel meat-packing heir who donated $500,000 to help establish the center when the new main branch of the San Francisco Public Library was built, the archive, on the building's third floor, is widely regarded as among the best of its kind in the nation. Its archives and exhibits... More >>
• Best Place to Find Asian Candy
  Clement Street
  Among San Franciscans who have a strange fascination with the semi-fetishistic world of Asian-exported candy and packaged food, Clement from about Arguello to Park Presidio is ground zero. Patrons wander through a succession of stores like Super Tokio and Genki Crepes & Mini-Mart, browsing for... More >>
• Best Park for Just the Two of You
  Jack Early Park
  Finding Jack Early Park can be tricky, because on this perilously steep block of Grant Avenue one might get sidetracked looking for something obvious to indicate its presence. But all Jack Early offers is a stairway, which is easy to mistake for a private entry, despite the unassuming plaque set... More >>
• Best Nocturnal Illuminations
  Ocean Beach bonfires
  There's something primal and pyrotechnically mesmerizing about the bonfires that light up Ocean Beach most every weekend night. Like a string of flickering lights, they stretch along the coast, illuminating the sky and the sand and acting as leaping, smoky beacons to the great wet beyond.... More >>
• Best Place to Find a Sugar Daddy (3 Comments)
  Top of the Mark
  Everyone knows the Top of the Mark for great views, smooth jazz, and overpriced cocktails. But this, the granddaddy of San Francisco hotel bars (which famously refused service to Charles Mingus because he was black), is the perfect place for a single lass to make the acquaintance of an older... More >>
• Best Street Name
  Vernon Alley
  Bassist Vernon Alley was not only San Francisco's premier jazz musician, but he was also a rockin' repository of the form's great traditions and one of the city's leading exponents of civil rights. Alley made his name in the Fillmore jazz joints of the 1930s, and despite touring and recording... More >>
• Best Jewelry Designer
  Rebecca Vandersteen
  Rebecca Vandersteen has already contributed plenty to the local fashion climate by opening the widely adored Venus Superstar boutique and stocking it with rad offerings from lots of local designers, including herself. Her jewelry line, Venus Envy, is the icing on her professional cake, and it... More >>
• Best Free View
  Atop the new de Young
  When you climb to the top of the 144-foot tower of the new de Young Museum and make your way around its panoramas of the bay, the Pacific Ocean, Twin Peaks, Mount Sutro, and Downtown, it's useful to think of this stunning view of San Francisco as the one that almost got away. Years of fighting... More >>
• Best Starring Role by a Nonhuman
  The pets on Animal Cops: San Francisco
  Not surprisingly, the folks who give out Emmy Awards don't offer a trophy for best acting in a reality show, since there shouldn't be any acting in a reality show. That said, the wayward dogs, slithering snakes, and preening cockatoos on Animal Planet's Animal Cops: San Francisco deserve some... More >>
• Best Conceptual Public Commentary
  Balmy Alley
  The art of the mural flourishes throughout the Mission District, but nowhere more so than in this narrow, undeniably temperate passageway. Back in the early '70s, with (CIA-sponsored) violence and tyranny in Central America in full bloom, artists and activists and other community-minded folk... More >>
• Best Alleyway
  Belden Place
  Encompassed by skyscrapers and mobs of anxious commodities brokers, Belden Place is an oasis of cheerful Euro savoir-faire in the gray and greedy Financial District jungle. Although the Russ Building, the Bank of America, and other towering landmarks surround it, an abundance of sunlight filters... More >>
• Best Residential Block
  Belden Place
  The 1000 block of Vallejo isn't just a lovely cul-de-sac lined with trees, lawns, and balustrades; it's a virtual miniretrospective of architect Willis Polk's career. Polk, who designed so many buildings after the 1906 earthquake he was dubbed "the man who rebuilt San Francisco," is best known... More >>
• Best Place to See a Coyote
  Coyote Gulch in the Presidio
  Once upon a time the Presidio was an untamed place of dune scrub and wetlands where grizzly, elk, and mountain lion flourished. Two centuries of hunting rifles, urban sprawl, and toxic dumping later, only skunks, squirrels, and other diminutive mammalia remain. A new arrival is Canis latrans,... More >>
• Best One-Block Workout
  Filbert from Leavenworth to Hyde
  Why blow your dough on an overpriced, yuppie-infested gym when the hills of San Francisco offer stamina-building opportunities free of charge? If time is of the essence you can even confine your workout to one city block, the steepest and most challenging of them all: Filbert's stretch of... More >>
• Best Place to Fly a Kite
  Twin Peaks
  Twin Peaks was created, according to legend, when a fed-up Great Spirit split up a mountainous married couple who wouldn't stop fighting. Later on, poetic conquistadores named the peaks the Breasts of the Indian Maiden. Nowadays the second and third highest points in the city (900-plus feet... More >>
• Best Sports History
  Willie "Woo Woo" Wong Playground
  Back in the mid-'40s, the San Francisco Examiner called Willie "Woo Woo" Wong "the biggest little man in basketball." Standing only 5 feet 5 inches tall, the Chinatown resident played far above his height, starring for Lowell and Poly High before helping the San Francisco Saints win a pair of... More >>
• Best Park With a View
  Sutro Heights Park
  Of course, Golden Gate Park is our fair city's grandest chunk of green space; that's a no-brainer. And Stern Grove, with its descending trails and massive dog park, is pretty darn sweet as well. (Wouldn't it have been cool to have caught the Jefferson Airplane live in the grove back in those... More >>
• Best Dog-Watching for Non-Dog Owners
  Fort Funston
  If, like us, you never recovered from the death of your childhood dog, for therapy you can drive down to Fort Funston, which is home to the largest, most helter-skelter dog park we've ever had the pleasure to survey. Among more than 200 dogs counted during one trip, we encountered an Afghan... More >>
• Best Underappreciated Neighborhood
  Ocean Beach
  A real neighborhood is starting to take root out at Ocean Beach. In a little over a year, the 'hood's anchors (Sea Breeze Cafe, Other Avenues, Thanh Long, and Java Beach) have been joined by a juice shop, Judahlicious; a tiny dining spot with great homemade cheesecake, Mango Medley; a surf shop... More >>
• Best Skyscraper
  Russ Building
  The Russ Building is a sprawling, towering, beautifully austere skyscraper in the grand Daily Planet tradition, all sleek lines and proportioned elevation and washed-beige splendor. Architect George W. Kelham, whose predilection for Roman temples and Gothic cathedrals can be detected in his... More >>
• Best Civil Disobedience
  Critical Mass
  Good luck getting across Downtown on the last Friday of the month, when what cab drivers ruefully call "Critical Mess" — equal parts political protest, bike ride, and rolling party — joyfully locks up San Francisco's streets. You have to ride in one to understand the euphoria of the... More >>
• Best Weekend Getaway
  Mar Vista Cottages at Anchor Bay
  It's not just the immaculately restored 1930s cottages and dramatic coastline that make Mar Vista an idyllic getaway destination. From the moment you pull into the former fishing village about a three-hour drive north of San Francisco, it's obvious that the prattle of everyday life can't touch... More >>
• Best Neglected Landmark
  Nimitz House
  Officially, it was called Quarters One, built about 1900 as the Commandant's residence for what later became the Treasure Island Naval Air Station. But for 50 years, the elegant Classical Revival–style house has been known for its most famous occupant: the legendary Admiral Chester Nimitz,... More >>
• Best Tireless Performer of Thankless and Payless Tasks
  Shani Heckman
  OK, so a lot of people fit into this category. We know there are hordes of you out there busting your butts for zero bucks, for the sake of art and/or justice. Kudos to all! The reason event coordinator and independent publicist Shani Heckman stands out is partly longevity: Before moving here... More >>
• Best New Addition
  Condo High-Rises in SOMA and Rincon Hill
  For nine years our political columnist has been haranguing city residents to build more places for people to live. In return, readers have turned the page. Somehow, though, during the past few years, the slow, creaking grist mill that is San Francisco's permitting process has allowed a new... More >>
• Best City Amenity
  The evolving bike lane network
  You still can't venture north from South of Market to the McAllister Street bike lane without battling a multilane automobile slalom. A momentarily safe ride along Market Street is interrupted with an unsettling gap between Van Ness Avenue and Octavia Street. And Fell and Oak streets remain... More >>
• Best Road Trip
  Denny Ranch
  As any cloth grocery bag–toting San Franciscan knows, there are myriad paths to planetary salvation. None is quite so satisfying, however, as buying land outright. The Nature Conservancy dedicates itself to doing just that, in the form of purchasing conservation easements and prohibiting... More >>
• Best Street Mural Commentary
  Connecticut & 17th Street
  This marvelous (though heavily faded) street mural on the side of a furniture warehouse, executed in the late 1980s to celebrate the rich history of Potrero Hill, is one of two murals in O.J. Simpson's old neighborhood that reflects his pre-murder-trial legacy. As a poor kid from the projects,... More >>
• Best Overlooked Historic Site
  Fort Point
  From the old cannon batteries along its 8-foot-thick walls, Fort Point offers some of the best and (judging from the ordinarily small crowds) most underappreciated views of the bay and the city waterfront. But the real reason to go to this gem of a National Historic Site at the tip of the... More >>
• Best Floating Movie Prop
  Balclutha
  Despite its bit role in the 1935 movie classic Mutiny on the Bounty, the Balclutha was never a pirate ship. Yet the image has been a long time fading. Indeed, the famed windjammer's brush with Hollywood is an undeniably alluring component of its colorful history. As any local fifth-grader can... More >>
• Best Muni Station in Which to Hear Music
  Civic Center, Montgomery (tie)
  There's the middle-aged bearded man who strums his guitar and croons country-western songs. There's the wispy Asian man who sits straight as a pillar as he plucks at his ehru, a Chinese violin. There's the elderly black man, wearing a suit and tie, whose clarinet bobs and weaves as he blows jazz... More >>
• Best Comeback by a Socialite
  Pat Montandon
  Sure, the tirelessly blond Dede Wilsey made headlines over the past year: Her fundraising helped open San Francisco's ode to a rusty nail, the de Young Museum, and she appeared in many dull society pages and graced the cover of a particularly Vanity Fair-esque cover of 7x7, for, well, being... More >>
• Best Job for Teens
  Exploratorium Explainer Program
  Some people spend the rest of their lives trying to recreate the perfect work atmosphere they enjoyed as a teen in the Exploratorium Explainer Program. While most of us have memories of demeaning service jobs to look back on, former Explainers get a happy, nostalgic look in their eyes when they... More >>
• Best Computer Programmer-Turned-Independent Washer/Dryer Repairman
  Josh Scholar
  Josh Scholar (yes, that's his real name) may not be the most experienced washer/dryer repairman in town, but he gets the job done well, and he has a pretty interesting backstory. He spent years toiling from project to project as a video game programmer for the likes of Electronic Arts, then... More >>
• Best Flat Full of Underground Musicians
  The Home of Axolotl and the Skaters
  Underground musicians live together because they're slobs who make noise, and only slobs who make noise can live together. It's that simple. And having said that, we insist that the San Francisco flat housing the best collection of "out there" musicians is a pad not far from that hip Mission... More >>
• Best Little-Known Vistas
  Broadway between Jones and Taylor
  Lovers of the big picture embrace those Twin Peaks panoramas, but the view from this particular Russian Hill roost is a perfect cameo, an essential snapshot of San Francisco's urban elegance. It's the sort of prospect the characters in S.F.–set movies have out of their apartment windows:... More >>
• Best Little-Known Vistas
  Corona Heights
  Imagine sipping a martini at the Twin Peaks at Castro and Market, and then one (undeniably vigorous) 10-minute hike later perching among wild foxglove and geologic outcroppings 510 feet above sea level, drinking in one of the city's finest 360-degree panoramas. Ascending Corona Heights is a... More >>
• Best Little-Known Vistas
  Grand View Park
  Geologists tell us that if it wasn't for all that ocean sand filling in its valleys and crevasses, the Avenues would be every bit as hilly as eastern S.F. The little-known anomaly that is Grand View Park is a case in point: It's the highest sand dune in the city at 400 feet above sea level, with... More >>
• Best Little-Known Vistas
  Strawberry Hill
  Among the many pleasures of Golden Gate Park is this manmade island rising 412 feet out of Stow Lake. A hundred years ago, its plateaued crest was the site of a pleasure resort with a dance pavilion, a decorative pond, and a windmill-powered reservoir that pumped water over Huntington Falls and... More >>