Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.

A Barbary Coast watering hole built into a Gold Rush shipwreck.

San Francisco's oldest surviving monument and meeting place for 1906 survivors.

A collection of memorabilia from the Beat era in the back of a San Francisco bookstore.

The giant pair of sexy legs sticking out the window of this costume store have become its main draw.

A still functioning vaudeville carousel that has operated for over a century boasts a colorful menagerie and past.

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.

This private residence was the template for one of the most beloved television homes of all time.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

The oldest burial ground in the city, final resting place of city founders, Ohlone natives and murderers alike.

The remains of a ruined mansion memorialize the 1906 earthquake.

San Francisco's urban bison herd has persisted in the face of extinction, development, and disease.

A 300-ship graveyard, with a few still visible at low tide.

The one-time watch house for incoming ships at the Golden Gate now stands abandoned and hidden in trees.

A nondescript building that's been functioning as a speakeasy for nearly a century and a half.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.

There is no trying to fall in love with this Star Wars fountain, you just do or do not.

A walk-in working camera obscura produces 360-degree live images of the San Francisco coast.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

A favorite haunt of dinosaur loving children and hallucinogen loving hippies alike.