What city built on hills has not been exalted in song and legend? San
Francisco, like Athens, Jerusalem, Rome and Naples, has the spell that
comes from setting one's house on a high place. Those who can look out
over the world are those who dominate it.
History shows that every three hundred years a great city arises at some
very necessary and strategic point on the international highway. Such an
inevitable world city is San Francisco. Whether it is the ragged slope
of Telegraph Hill, the heights of Twin Peaks, the rolling green-brown
softness of the Potrero bluffs, or the contours of any of the other high
places that confront the visitor approaching from the Bay, the hills of
San Francisco arrest the eye and intrigue the imagination.
To the visitor who would comprehend almost at a glance the cycloramic
setting of San Francisco the way is easy of access to half a dozen
peaks. There are good automobile roads to all of them.
Let him for a start go to Nob Hill, crossed by California street, where
the Fairmont Hotel, the Pacific Union Club, Grace Cathedral and many
distinctive residences and apartments will engage his attention when it
is not occupied with the shipping in the harbor, Goat and Alcatraz
islands, and the animated perspectives inside the Golden Gate.
Russian Hill, of which Nob Hill is a southward shoulder, is the habitat
of many of the writer and painter folk of San Francisco. It affords
superb panoramas of the city and bay. So does Telegraph Hill, whose
sides have been scarred to provide rock for the sea wall along which the
modern argosies of commerce discharge their cargoes. Views northwesterly
from these hilltops suggest the Bay of Naples.
The most comprehensive close-up of the city is probably obtained from
the crest of Buena Vista Park, which is not the highest of the fourteen
good-sized hills in San Francisco but the one from which the most
unobstructed views are to be obtained. Tourists and other visitors to
San Francisco who enjoy walking will find, rambling over this height
most interesting.
Street cars, Nos. 6 or 7, will take you to Haight and Broderick streets,
from which point many paths lead to the top of the hill. At every turn
there is an effective view. Through a tunnel-like alley of shrubbery the
towers of St. Ignatius, with crosses pointing to the sky, loom like
spires from one of the cathedral towns of France. As you swing 'round
you obtain glimpses from different angles of the skyscrapers of San
Francisco, with every now and then a stretch of glistening water. From
the summit of Buena Vista you see, on three sides, expanses of ocean and
bay. To the left is the diamond of Lake Merced in its setting of
bluegreen eucalyptus and its surrounding waves of sand, ribboned with
roads extending to the ocean beach. Beyond is the emerald stretch of
Golden Gate Park, with buildings in demi-outline through the changing
tones of foliage. Above and beyond are the rolling hills of the
Presidio, and in the distance Tamalpais rears its friendly bulk, a dark
blue shadow against a cerulean mantle, crowned at times with filmy
gonfalons of cloud like a color print by Hokusai. Lone Mountain and its
cross, visible far out at sea, is here in conspicuous range.
To see San Francisco in a series of highly colored pictures suggestive
of Maxfield Parrish or Dulac go to the scenic boulevard that winds over
Twin Peaks. You may motor there, walk or take a street car to the foot
of this city mountain, the ascent either way being easy. You may scale
Twin Peaks from the flank within view of Market street, climbing along
the side and over the shoulder by way of the boulevard. Or if you
prefer, you may climb up from Sloat Boulevard via Portola Drive through
one of the city's restricted residence sections. On the summit of Twin
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.