Flower stands splash the street corners with color in the downtown
shopping district, and the wares glow in the show windows like exotic
blooms under glass.

San Francisco shows a market as complete and original in styles as any
city in the country. The excessive seasonal changes demanded in the East
are not needed here. San Francisco is essentially an out-of-door city,
with three hundred odd days of clement weather, made for the display of
light raiment, whether it be organdie dresses, sports togs or afternoon
frocks. Women of the city insist on being modish, however, so they wear
furs with the airiest of apparel on the warmest days, contradictory but
vivacious apparitions. Even the Chinese girls ape their Western sisters
and appear in brocaded mandarins with fur neck pieces.

The dash of San Francisco women on the street, as well as in the hotels
and cafes, is not a legend. You may read about it in Hergesheimer's
iridescent detail, but seeing is believing.

The art shops and the book shops of San Francisco evoke the admiration
of every visitor. The art shops, on Post, Sutter and adjacent streets,
close to Union Square, with their own galleries of paintings, bronzes
and marbles, have showrooms that are more like museums than commercial
establishments. The book shops are in this same neighborhood. They are
well worth visiting, several of the dealers being publishers of the
works of California authors.



Chinatown and Foreign Colonies