In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

Faceless white figures loom over the city from the rooftop.

The oldest dim sum restaurant in the United States is a nostalgic jewel.

San Francisco's most expensive hotel suite includes a secret passageway rumored to have been used by JFK.

One of the oldest producers of hand-folded fortune cookies still uses its original secret recipe.

The first AIDS memorial chapel in San Francisco and one of only a few in the U.S.

One of the last remnants of the city's Chinese nightclub scene is now a dive bar selling killer mai tais.

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

The largest whiskey stash on the West Coast survived the 1906 fires--but not without heroic effort.

An art supply shop holds the secrets of this quiet neighborhood's raucous Barbary Coast past.

A whimsical antique shop with a strong air of mystery, filled with items from ages, and what feels like worlds, past.

This teeny-tiny park built by a San Francisco man in 1962 is mostly stairs.

America's oldest Italian restaurant is a San Francisco institution.

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

The rustic cabin-like decor of this Arts and Crafts-style church reflects the love of nature central to its little-known theology.

Join the circus for a few lessons to learn clowning, acrobatics, and Chinese contortion.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

An elaborate gift from Claus Spreckels is now a piece of San Francisco history.

San Francisco's first World's Fair, dedicated to the wonders of California.

Art in the form of a winding, man made crack in stone.

A hidden subterranean installation offers a view of the sky.

San Franciscans leave gifts and messages for the magical beings that live behind the tiny, mysterious door installed on a tree in Golden Gate Park.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

Thirteen trees representing the original thirteen colonies were planted with soil from historic Revolutionary battlefields.