Grace Cathedral - On the Crocker Ruins
Photo: Photo: Mr. Kjetil Ree., CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
A stop on San Francisco, District by District, a free self-guided tour.
Cross Huntington Park, once the site of a mansion owned by railroad baron Collis Huntington, to Grace Cathedral, which stands where Charles Crocker's mansion burned in 1906. The Crocker family gave the ruined lot to the Episcopal Church, and the cathedral rose in stages from 1928 until its consecration in 1964, built of reinforced concrete to look like a Gothic cathedral of stone.
The great bronze doors are casts of Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise from the baptistery in Florence. Inside and in the outdoor plaza are labyrinths patterned on the one in the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France, open to anyone who wants to walk them.
The outdoor labyrinth is always open; check the cathedral's website for hours inside.
More on Wikipedia: Grace Cathedral, San Francisco · Huntington Park · Charles Crocker
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