Friday, October 28, 2011

San Francisco! Days 2 and 3, in Photos

SAN FRANCISCO—

Oh hey, it's Sun Yat-sen!

More Vertigo-related sightseeing! Here are the Brockleback Apartments, where Scottie Ferguson begins tailing Madeleine Elster early on in the film.

On Wednesday, I took a Caltrain down to Palo Alto, Calif., to not only meet up (or, more accurately, "tweet up") with friends/acquaintances, but to visit the lovely Stanford Theatre to see Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd for the first time. The company was marvelous, the film even more so.

On Jack Kerouac Alley, one of many alleyways in the Chinatown/North Beach part of San Francisco that has a rich history. Once I passed through that alley, I turned left on Columbus Ave. and encountered...

...this famous bookstore, known as the beating heart of the Beat Movement. It is there that I picked up...

Yeah, I couldn't resist picking up a copy of Allen Ginsberg's famously controversial poem Howl in San Francisco? Fitting, right? I actually read the first section of it, and already find its imagery thrillingly urgent, impassioned and devastating (no, I had never read it before). I read it, by the way, at...

...the Caffe Trieste, which, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook I've been consulting, is where Francis Ford Coppola drafted his screenplay for The Godfather.

This is the Coit Tower, located in Telegraph Hill, and named after its benefactor, Lille Hitchcock Coit (1843-1929), who was apparently a female firefighter back in the day. The top of this building is where I captured...

...this view of the Bay Area.

Fitting to find a memorial erected to Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio, in Telegraph Hill.

This shot was taken in Russian Hill, which took yet another hike to climb. (All these hills in San Francisco sure giving me some exercise even on vacation!) I believe that's Alcatraz in the distance, right? I was considering visiting, but may not have the time. We shall see.

The Dragon Gate—which I guess I considered the entrance into Chinatown. (Taiwan, also according to Lonely Planet, was donated this structure in 1970.)

Covering all the bases: state, country and city, from left to right.

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