The majestic federal and municipal buildings of Civic Center , squashed between the Tenderloin and SoMa, can't help but look strangely out of sync, both with their immediate neighbors and with San Francisco as a whole. Their grand Beaux Arts style is at odds with the quirky wooden architecture of the rest of the city. At night, when the ritzy War Memorial Opera House , 301 Van Ness Ave, and the aquarium-like Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall , Grove Street at Van Ness Avenue, swarm with well-heeled patrons of the ballet, opera and symphony, it all looks distinctly more impressive than by day.
It was at the huge, green-domed City Hall , on the northern edge of the dismal United Nations Plaza , that Mayor George Moscone and gay Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated in 1978. The recently restored gold plate dome is an impressive relic of Gold Rush-era largess.
Formerly one of San Francisco's least desirable neighborhoods, SoMa , the district South of Market, has been enjoying a renaissance since the 1980s. It's reminiscent in a way of New York's SoHo several years ago: many of its abandoned warehouses have been converted into studio spaces and art galleries, and the neighborhood is now home to artists, musicians, hep-cat entertainers and trendy restaurants. This may well be short-lived however: SoMa is a prime piece of central real estate, and during the dot.com heyday, the bulldozers moved in and many artists were squeezed out. It remains to be seen which direction the district will go as the dot.com revolution grinds to a halt. Still, the new home of the SF Museum of Modern Art , 151 Third St ($10, free first Tues of month; Mon, Tues & Fri-Sun 11am-6pm, Thurs 11am-9pm, open an hour earlier May-Sept), opened here in January 1995. Major works include paintings by Jackson Pollock, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. The temporary exhibitions are the museum's strongest suit; with newly acquired financial muscle it can snap up the better touring works. However, the allegation that the building, designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta, is far more beautiful than anything inside, is pretty hard to dispute - flooded with natural light from a soaring, truncated, cylindrical skylight, it's a sight to behold.
Opposite the museum is the other totem of civic pride, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts ($6, free first Tues of month; daily except Mon 11am-6pm, Thurs-Fri 11am-8pm), bounded by Third and Fourth streets, Mission and Folsom. A spectacular $44 million project featuring a theater and three galleries, the center's best feature is its parklike setting - five and a half acres of lovely gardens with a 50ft Sierra granite waterfall memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. Dominating the Gardens' south side is the Sony Metreon , a combination movie theater and multimedia entertainment mall.
An incredible addition to the city's waterfront is Pac Bell Park , down Third Street at King, home to the San Francisco Giants . The faux-old brick building offers superb views of the bay beyond the outfield fences, some of the finest food to ever grace a ballpark, as well as the chance to see the odd home run splash into the bay.
Above all, SoMa is the nucleus of clubland , where the city's wildlife is at its best. Folsom Street was until recently a major gay strip, the center for much lewder goings-on than the Castro; in recent years the mix has become pretty diverse, though never tame.
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