BEGINNER’S Hunt Solutions and Explanations
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
Solution 1
On the north-west corner of Sansome and Green Streets, beside Aspen Graphics, is a plaque commemorating the laboratory where Philo Farnsworth invented television in 1927.
In a simple laboratory on this site, 202 Green Street, Philo Taylor Farnsworth, U.S. pioneer in electronics, invented and patented the first operational all-electronic ‘television system.’ On September 7,1927 the 21-year-old inventor and several dedicated assistants successfully transmitted the first all-electronic television image, the major breakthrough that brought the practical form of this invention to mankind. Further patents formulated here covered the basic concepts essential to modern television. The genius of Green Street, as he was known, died in 1971.
back to top
Solution 2
The California Street Cable Car line begins where Drumm Street meets California Street, beside the Hyatt Regency Hotel. A kiosk there contains historical information about the cable cars and lists other cities that began using cable cars after they were invented in San Francisco by Andrew Hallidie in 1873, including London, Paris and Sydney.
back to top
Solution 3
The Customs House located at Jackson Street (who is on the $20 bill) and Battery (which gives an electrical charge). The walkway in front of the Golden Gateway Apartments on the south-east corner is partially paved in cobblestones. A sculpture by Seymour Lipton, entitled Pacific Bird was commissioned by the Golden Gateway Center in 1962.
back to top
Solution 4
The house at 129 Jasper Alley has a colorful oval-shaped sign above its doorway featuring four sun and moon faces surrounding the word “Bienvenidos”
back to top
Solution 5
Broadway (south side) near Columbus – Garden of Eden neon sign with a snake; west on Broadway, left on Columbus, past Spec’s Bar at 12 Adler, Tosca (an opera by Giacomo Puccini) to Pacific Ave. West on Pacific, past a streetlight decorated in a Chinese motif, to the mural on the wall of the housing project, (entitled “Up Against the Wall”) featuring a crane and a tiger whose tail points to the west. The names of the muralists are located on the bottom right corner of the mural, 20 feet west of the tiger’s tail. One of the muralists was Grant Brayman.
back to top
Solution 6
The Ferry Building (rhymes with berry, cherry and merry – as in Christmas) was the point of debarkation for travelers arriving in San Francisco until the completion of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936. The historic F streetcar line stops in front of it. As part of a public art project, a square bronze plate in the ground at the streetcar stop is inscribed with the following excerpt from Two Tongues and Some Green Bananas by Victor Hernandez Cruz (the “A” is greatly enlarged):
“The A is a wet letter pointing to where it came from. It is a pyramid with a five running through it.”
back to top
Solution 7
“Ice man” is an anagram for “Cinema.” The only cinema within the hunt area is the Embarcadero Cinema located on the second floor of Embarcadero 1 (one of four buildings that make up the Embarcadero Center). A vacant store space on the ground floor below the cinema displays an art exhibit entitled “Trash to Treasures,” sculptures by Nemo Gould (www.nemomatic.com) constructed from recycled objects as part of the Artist in Residence program at SF Recycling & Disposal. One of the sculptures, “The Performer” is a robot-like figure with a light bulb shaped “magic eye” vacuum tube for a head.
back to top
Solution 8
Sutter & Grant; the old White House Department store building now houses Banana Republic. The entrance across Sutter Street from shops named Paul Frank and Torso is flanked by a brass plaque depicting the building as it once appeared. It mentions the buildings renowned architect, Albert Pissis.
back to top
Solution 9
Pont + I + AC = Pontiac (Alley), across Jackson Street from the Garden Bakery. Waling east on the south side of Jackson, you followed the photo trail to the south-west corner of Jackson St. and Ross Alley, where a Barbary Coast Trail marker bears the names “Jose E. & Ana Maria V. Hernandez – Share in our Loving Journey”
back to top
Solution 10
North on Front Street from California Street, past seven motorcycle parking spaces on the north-east corner, each marked with a numbered arrow, to Front Street Chiropractic at 222 Front (between California and Sacramento Streets), whose phone number, 392-BACK is prominently displayed beneath a display of the current time and temperature. The business across the street is Angela’s Nails. The date the building was constructed, 1987, is carved in stone to the north of the entryway, beneath a standpipe manufactured in Connecticut, abbreviated here as CONN.
back to top
Solution 11
Grant & Clay (rhymes with Delay, as in Tom Delay); the Eastern Treasure Gifts shop is across Grant Ave. from a shop named “Hollywood Too.” The letters above the Hollywood Too shop at the top of the building on the northwest corner of Grant and Clay are “SYBA” and “LFKA”
back to top
Solution 12
Homer’s Simpson’s boss is Montgomery Burns. From Montgomery and Bush Streets, you headed north a half-block, past an optometrist’s office, to 235 Montgomery Street (The Russ Building), where this gargoyle is located. The manhole cover in front of the building contains the words “high voltage” and the number 020844 to the left of “11-50”
back to top
Solution 13
Empire (State Building) + Park = Empire Park on Commercial Street between Montgomery and Kearny Streets. The CHIN in the word CHINATOWN on your map if just below Empire Park. The photograph was taken facing south from the north sidewalk in front of All Seasons Florist at 690 Commercial Street, next door to Good Steps Shoe Service. The cellar door in front of 690 Commercial bears markings stating that it was PATD January 24, 1905 by a firm whose name is obscured, located on San Pablo Ave.
The photograph depicts three buildings with very different styles of architecture: the brick building on the south side of Commercial Street; the postmodern 580 California Street skyscraper designed in 1984 by Phillip Johnson (Johnson & Burgee) features a row of face-less classical sculptures in front of its mansard roof; the Bank of America Building (1969, Skidmore, Owens & Merrill) is the dark monolith that dominates the downtown skyline.
back to top
Solution 14
Via Bufano (previously known as Grover), a block-long alley located off Columbus Ave. between Filbert and Greenwich Streets, is named for Benny Bufano (1898 – 1970), a famed San Francisco sculptor whose smooth granite and stainless steel creations have a distinctive look (and feel). They include the statue of Sun Yat Sen in St. Mary’s Square, the Madonna sculpture in upper Fort Mason, a statue of St. Francis made from melted guns located on Phelan Ave. in front of City College of San Francisco and numerous animal sculptures around the Bay Area. An avowed pacifist, Bufano reputedly cut off his trigger finger and mailed it to President Wilson to protest World War I.
A restaurant named Melt is located at one end, at 700 Columbus Ave. Its front window bears the telephone number for a former business, reading “Tel EX Brook…”
back to top
Solution 15
At Merchant and Montgomery Streets, where Merchant dead-ends at the Transamerica Pyramid Building, there is an historical plaque indicating that this was the western business headquarters of Russell, Majors & Waddell, founders, owners and operators of the Pony Express, 1860 – 1861.
back to top
Solution 16
The Sir Francis Drake Hotel on Powell and Sutter Streets, which has a doorman dressed in a London Beefeater’s costume. The restaurant next door has a painting on its exterior of a bottle of Ricard liqueur, which is 45° (45 proof), and manufactured in Marseille, next to a glass that is more than half-full.
back to top
Solution 17
Stark Alley, on Stockton Street between Pacific Ave. and Broadway is across the street from the New Moon Restaurant. A 2’ by 4’ sheet of plywood chained to a utility pole on the sidewalk nearby had a poster I created with photographs and text describing The Times Theater, a beloved North Beach repertory film house that operated at 1249 Stockton Street from 1949 until December 26, 1976. The poster included part of a poem by Robert Hershon entitled 1960, In Memoriam, the Times Theater, Stockton Street, Now a Chinese Market. It contains the line “and too late for Gabby Hayes to reach the ranch.”
back to top
