Welcome to my morning commute through the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.  I took my camera with me the other day to photograph the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay and thought it'd be fun to take some pictures of my neighborhood so you can all see what I see when I walk into work every morning.  The route is down Grant Street through North Beach and then onto Columbus Street that separates Chinatown from North Beach (Little Italy) which then runs into the Financial District where I work.

Enjoy!

Above: me all dressed up for work heading south (into the sun!) on a beautiful April morning.  Notice the San Francisco Bay behind me and Marin County across the water.  It's not a bad sight to see first thing in the morning!

Looking down Greenwich Street from Grant Street, the view of Russian Hill - a posh neighborhood in northern San Francisco.

View of the Top of the Mark/InterContinental and Fairmont Hotels in Nob Hill to the right in the background and North Beach architecture in the foreground on Grant Street.

Saints Peter and Paul Church at 666 and 1/2 Filbert Street (the actual address!) as seen from Grant and Filbert Streets on my way south.  Washington Square Park is in front of the church.

The Italian-French Bakery on the corner of Grant and Union Streets run by a crotchety old Sicilian woman who's missing a couple teeth but who bakes a mean loaf of bread.

The corner of Grant and Green Streets, which look rather sedate during the daytime but are quite hopping at night and especially on the weekends.  Grant Street is lined with bars and Green Street has tons of restaurants and late night pizza joints to feel the local intoxicated partying populations.

My beloved local organic grocery store on Grant Street that I LOVE LOVE LOVE.  The owner is super nice and the employees are cool, and they have really great produce and all natural foods.  Mo's Burgers is in the background, a place I've never eaten at, but one of these days I may consider throwing my dietary standards out the window and stopping in for a bite.

Local dry cleaners and coin-op Laundromat.  My new apartment building has its own facilities so I no longer have to carry my laundry baskets around North Beach finding a place to wash my stuff.  Phew!

Church and Chinese

Caffe Trieste at Vallejo and Grant Streets where The Godfather was apparently written.

I really don't know the name of this bar, near the intersection of Grant and Columbus Streets, but it is quite possibly the skankiest dive in the area.  The requirements for entrance are: 1) you must be a meth user - and preferably a homeless addict, 2) you need to be an incurable drunk, 3) you need to like hanging outside the front door blowing your alcohol laden smoke in everyone's face and being generally foul, and 4) ideally you would have a boombox stereo propped on your shoulder so everyone around you can hear your music instead of the already-loud music blasting outside from within.

Other than that, it's a pretty pleasant establishment!

Little Darlings strip club at Columbus and Broadway Streets, where I think I've managed to train the doormen not to ask me if I want to come inside!  ;-}  It's fun to watch male tourists walk by the rear-end advertisement with their wives tho.  Talk about rubber-neckin'-it!  In any case, I might just have to go inside one day just to see what sort of debauchery goes on behind those closed doors.  Only if someone else pays my way in!

An interestingly painted building on the Chinatown side of Columbus and Broadway Streets.  My side of the street is technically still North Beach - Little Italy.

Broadway and Columbus Streets: a rather large intersection by San Francisco standards... and especially by the standards of my neighborhood which generally only has narrow streets.  Broadway Street is the main entry way into Chinatown from the Embarcadero waterfront along the bay.  Note the Broadway Tunnel in the background: I used to live right on the other side of it when I first moved to San Francisco in 2005.  I used to get so much soot from that tunnel on my window sills!

My favorite local bar Vesuvius - a two floored joint with lots of interesting stuff to look at inside.

A Chinese designed building on the Chinatown side of Columbus Street with the Bank of America high rise in the background.

The intersection of Kearny (pronounced: ker-nee and not keer-nee!) and Columbus Streets with the TransAmerica Tower in the background.  Quite a dramatic sight every morning.

A shot looking down Kearny Street toward downtown.

Is it just me, or does the TransAmerica Pyramid look a little bit like a plastic Frenchie's yellow mustard bottle?!

I really like this picture for some reason: there's so much going on in it!

Pickles, famous people and a pyramid.  You don't see THAT every day, now do ya?!!

The intersection of Columbus and Montgomery Streets, where Columbus ends and where Montgomery begins.  It's also the location of the San Francisco chapter of Scientology and every morning when I walk by I always make sure to look in the building's windows to see if I can see Tom Cruise running around inside.  Haven't seen him yet!

The Church of Scientology

Looking down the concrete canyon of Montgomery Street, the closest thing San Francisco has to a Manhattan.  The base of the TransAmerica Pyramid is on the left.  If there's ever a terrorist attack in San Francisco, I'm pretty sure this is where it's going to be because the Israeli Consulate is right on the next block.  It's where all the pro-Hammas/pro-Hizbullah rallies take place on Friday afternoons. 

As long as the TransAmerica Pyramid doesn't fall over on my building, I'll be fine.  ;-}

The TransAmerica Pyramid illuminated in the beautiful San Francisco morning sun - one of the last things I see before I duck into my office building.

I hope you enjoyed walking to work with me!

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