Ferry Building and the Embarcadero - Where the City Met the World
Photo: Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
A stop on San Francisco, District by District, a free self-guided tour.
You are standing where San Francisco met the world. When the Ferry Building opened in 1898, nearly everyone arriving from the East Bay or Marin stepped off a boat here, and until the bridges opened in the 1930s it was one of the busiest transit terminals on earth. Even the ground is man-made: the Gold Rush cove that once reached Montgomery Street was filled in, and a seawall built from the 1870s into the 1920s pushed the city's edge out to where you stand.
The Embarcadero was also a workplace. Thousands of longshoremen loaded ships along these piers, and in 1934 their strike shut down every West Coast port and led to a citywide general strike. For three decades a double-deck freeway cut the waterfront off from downtown, until the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged it and the city tore it down.
This district's mini tour is on foot along the Embarcadero and Steuart Street and takes about 45 minutes. Use the details arrow to walk it.
Getting here: The Ferry Building stands where Market Street meets the Embarcadero. BART and Muni Metro stop at Embarcadero Station two blocks west, and the F-line historic streetcars stop out front.
Did you know?: The clock tower is 245 feet tall, and each of its four clock faces is 22 feet across.
Photo op: Cross the Embarcadero to Harry Bridges Plaza and frame the whole clock tower at the foot of Market Street, or walk out behind the building for the Bay Bridge.
More on Wikipedia: San Francisco Ferry Building · Embarcadero · 1934 West Coast waterfront strike · California State Route 480
Stops on this tour
- Ferry Building and the Embarcadero - Where the City Met the World
- Financial District and Jackson Square - Gold Rush on the Old Shoreline
- Chinatown - The Neighborhood That Refused to Move
- North Beach and Telegraph Hill - Little Italy and the Beats
- Fisherman's Wharf - Italian Boats and Old Ships
- Nob Hill and Russian Hill - Cable Cars, Mansions and the Great Fire
- The Presidio - Two Centuries Guarding the Golden Gate
- Japantown and the Fillmore - Two Communities, One Neighborhood
- Haight-Ashbury - From Victorian Suburb to Summer of Love
- Golden Gate Park - Sand Dunes Turned Into a Park
- The Castro - A Neighborhood That Became a Movement
- The Mission - Where San Francisco Began
- Civic Center - Domes, Charters and Protest
- South of Market - From Rincon Hill to the Tech Boom