Peaks you feel at the top of the world, and you see San Francisco spread
out below you as multicolored as a rug of Kermanshah. No other city in
the two Americas, not excepting Quebec or Rio de Janeiro, so overwhelms
the beholder with its vistas--with its luminous enchantments. At night
the lights of the city zigzag in patterns of distracting loveliness, and
Market street reaches from the foot of the mountain to the Embarcadero
like the tail of some flaming comet athwart a sea of stars.



Parks and Open Spaces

Surmounted by a freighted galleon, with streaming pennant and
wind-filled sails, a granite pedestal "remembers" Robert Louis Stevenson
in Portsmouth Square, cradle of San Francisco's civic history. This
square, the Plaza of the early city, was the forerunner of a chain of
parks, children's playgrounds and open spaces that checkers San
Francisco with refreshing green.

Farther uptown is Union Square, in the center of the hotel and retail
district. Over on the other side toward North Beach, at the foot of
Telegraph Hill, is Washington Square, one of the recreation spots of the
Latin Quarter, with church spires outlined above its willows. A park
that will command the entire harbor is being built on top of Telegraph
Hill.

In the Western Addition, Richmond, Sunset and Mission districts are many
parks that provide resting places for mothers, their infants in
go-carts, and romping children.