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Announcer: Where you join us as we accept the world's invitation to visit.

[Cheering] Rosendo, voice-over: Today on "Travelscope," I explore San Francisco, California, and discover its heart and soul in the city's ever-changing neighborhoods.

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Rosendo, voice-over: San Francisco, that city by the bay which captures everyone's heart, is on most Top 10 destination lists.

Yet while its activities and attractions rank high with visitors, the soul of the city is in its many neighborhoods, from the little-known to the well-worn, like Fisherman's Wharf.

Where you may walk in a stranger... [People cheering] but leave as a friend.

San Francisco gets more than 16 million visitors a year, and of those, more than 2/3 are repeat visitors.

And everyone's been to Fisherman's Wharf.

I mean, it's the touristy heart of San Francisco.

Yet in even the most wildly popular and touristy areas, you can still find authentic and genuine experiences.

Richard Alioto is the third generation of Aliotos down here on Fisherman's Wharf.

Now, one thing I heard is that back in the early days, the fishermen who went out-- they took deckhands with them.

They'd pay them with fish.

Alioto: They would pay them with fish or crab.

When they took crabs off the boat--fishing boats, they'd put them into wooden crates, and then they would use them as tables, and they sold it to the public.

And now it evolved into what it is today.

How hard is it to clean a crab?

Very easy.

Rosendo, voice-over: It's great to experience firsthand a bit of the city's past.

But then, in San Francisco, history and tradition are never far away.

The Buena Vista Cafe has been serving powerful libations since 1916 and, tradition holds, served America's first Irish coffee in 1952.

Rosendo: How many of these do you serve in a day?

On a busy day, around 2,000 a day.

2,000?

2,000 all day and all night.

What's in your Irish coffee?

So it's sugar, coffee, Irish whiskey, and then heavy whipping cream right on top there.

Now, what's the proper way to drink an Irish coffee?

You want to drink it just like that.

You want to sip the hot coffee through the cool cream.

Rosendo, voice-over: It really doesn't matter what you do in San Francisco as long as you do it with a bit of flair.

[Applause] Long before there was Fisherman's Wharf, there was the Presidio of San Francisco.

Founded by the Spanish in 1776, it served as an American military base until 1994, when it became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Eric, it's said that El Presidio de San Francisco is the birthplace of San Francisco.

It was here before San Francisco.

It's given San Francisco its name.

And we also know that there were people here way before the Spanish for thousands of years in places just like this-- the El Polin springs right here on the Presidio.

Here, it's the Ohlone people.

They came for the water just like the birds do, because this is the only perennial freshwater water source, uh, you have in San Francisco.

You can look around the native plants, and you can see how they lived.

They're using the young shoots off that willow tree to create baskets so intricate they could transport water in these baskets.

The tule reeds.

These are reeds they used to make their canoes to get across the bay.

The plants that you see in front of you-- almost all of them have a medicinal use.

And the Spanish families who came here used the water, but they also used those plants.

They started learning about these plants from the native Ohlone people; tried to understand their healing powers.

And they lived just down the way here, along the water.

Now, their adobes are no longer there.

We found archaeological evidence of them, but if you want to actually stand in an old colonial adobe, I could take you up to the Officers' Club, and we can get inside.

Let's do that.

All right.

Eric: So once you get into this room, you know, you can really get the history of the Presidio in a bit of a microcosm.

Great.

And I'll walk you through it.

So we came into this room, and we started deconstructing it.

We're archaeologists.

We want to get down to these earlier layers, so we started with this 1960s drywall.

What we first find is this 1930s wall fabric with some really interesting stencil work.

We peeled that layer off.

We get down to this tongue and groove beadboard from the 1880s.

Then here we are with the adobe walls, and these are the ones that are put up by the, you know, the Spanish colonists and native Ohlone and Miwok peoples sometime in the late 1700s.

So this is the oldest building in San Francisco?

You know, it's either us or Mission Dolores.

There's no debate it's one of the two of us.

OK. You can see the cracks in the walls that tell you about the earthquakes it's survived.

Right.

So in the 19th century, you know, they create a whole new facade for this building, and this becomes the post headquarters, and they replace that earthen floor with this nice wood floor.

During the 20th century, it looks like it changed quite a bit again.

Oh, it sure did.

So, you know, this stops becoming the post headquarters, and this starts to become the Officers' Club.

This is the social hub of the post, you know.

This is where the bars are.

This is where the dancing is.

This is where dinner is every night if you're an officer.

And what they did is, they put a whole new facade in here that made it look Spanish Colonial again.

The U.S. Army starts to see themselves in this lineage of the Spanish before them and the Mexicans before them.

The glory that was Spain.

They want to put that little cloak on there.

Yeah, exactly.

Fabulous.

Rosendo, voice-over: Today, the Presidio hosts some of San Francisco's newest events and attractions.

The renovated Officers' Club holds art and multimedia exhibitions.

In former barracks, there's the Walt Disney Family Museum... and the sparkling new Social Club Restaurant and Bar.

Where bachelor officers once bunked, there's the elegant 22-room Inn at the Presidio.

And the former parade grounds has become a community gathering place which, every Sunday from April through October, presents an opportunity to go off the grid.

This is a wonderful event.

I mean, it looks like you got all of San Francisco here today.

Well, how can you do wrong with the biggest lawn in all of northern California and a beautiful view of the Golden Gate?

And so what we've done here is, we've created this great community space in the middle of the Presidio with some of the best restaurants in San Francisco.

You know, on our search through San Francisco, we'd find that they are restaurants that really are indicative and illustrative of that neighborhood.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Is that what you're trying to do here with these specialty restaurants?

Well, I think what we tried to do is take iconic restaurants from particular neighborhoods-- restaurants like Wing Wings that are located in the lower Haight.

Nopa actually came to define a neighborhood so much that they named the neighborhood after it.

Man: So here we have our chorizo and brisket, caramelized onions, and that's what we use for our gordita filling today.

And the sauce?

The sauces are chile arbol tomatillo, and we use that to toss our chips in.

Chorizo, chiles, and chips.

I can't think of anything better.

I mean, that's like-- Oh, we have cheese and crema.

Cheese and crema.

It's like the food of the gods, right?

If you're not gonna go into all the neighborhoods and get a flavor of the neighborhoods, you can come here on a Sunday and get a flavor of San Francisco in one spot.

Come and get a cocktail and have all of San Francisco on a blanket.

No extra charge for the celery stick or the green bean.

OK, guys, enjoy!

OK, let's go, Will.

All right.

Cocktails!

Cocktails!

Mimosas!

Bloody Marys!

Rosendo, voice-over: Mission San Francisco de Assisi, known as Mission Dolores, founded by Father Junipero Serra in 1776, is one of the best-preserved of California's 21 missions.

Its religious and historic importance helped make it the heart of the Mission neighborhood, and its cemetery is the final resting place for native people and First Californians, with headstones that date back to the early 1800s.

Rosendo: Who's buried here, Vincent?

Man: Primarily Ohlone people.

There's also about 5,000 Europeans buried here as well.

I've been to a lot of missions.

When you go, they hardly ever talk about the native people who actually built them.

I know that there was a pathway from the Presidio to here that in later years was called Lovers' Lane.

It was used by the native people, though, when they were building both the Presidio and the mission.

The pathway probably wasn't as romantic back then as Lovers' Lane.

I guess not-- not for the natives.

As native people back then had to wake up early and go through the cold fog to get to the Presidio, it would have been less pleasant than that romantic notion.

These two people who are here are my great-great- great-great-great-great- grandmother and grandfather.

So the woman-- her name is Jocbocme, and she's Ohlone.

She was already married to a man named Poylemja.

They were baptized here.

They were married as Catholic people here, but it's important to recognize they were already married in the traditional way before they came here.

And for me, it's important because it gives recognition to the native burials that are here.

Thank you for sharing this with me, and thank you for making a new connection for me to this mission and all the missions of California and Baja California.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

How do I say "Thank you" in Ohlone language?

[Speaks Ohlone] That means, "My heart is good."

Rosendo, voice-over: The face of the Mission District has regularly changed.

The Ohlone and Spanish made way for late 19th and early 20th century Irish, German, and Italian immigrants.

They were, in turn, replaced by families from Central America and Mexico in the 1950s.

It has also been a magnet for artists and activists.

24th Street is the neighborhood's cultural artery.

Man: 24th Street is the heart of the Mission.

In this corridor-- about 10 blocks-- you will find some of the best street art in the city.

You will also find some of the best restaurants.

And it is here that we celebrate our biggest party in San Francisco, which is Carnaval-- the largest intercultural celebration in the western United States.

So if you want to get a real taste of the Mission, you have to come to 24th Street.

We are here at the children's mini park.

This mini park has been here for several decades, and as you can see, it's surrounded by very old murals dating back to the late Seventies, early Eighties.

This is a very good example of how murals are in a constant dialogue with its surroundings.

They're on the sides of buildings, they're on storefronts... On people's homes, on people's garage doors, on public schools, everywhere.

Welcome to Balmy Alley, Joseph.

This is the oldest alley in the city.

This alley is a public art gallery.

Murals have been painted here for over 30, 40 years.

In the Eighties, the main concern were the civil wars then raging in Central America, and many murals were painted about that.

In the present, the hot topic-- it's gentrification, or how the neighborhood has undergone all these changes recently.

This was what you were talking about earlier, where you were saying there's a dialogue between the muralists and the community.

One of the things that really interests me is this gentrification you're talking about-- that people come to an area because they're in love with what it is and inadvertently change it into something it's not, so there's got to be a nice balance between keeping things the way they are and having them naturally evolve, and the murals seem to speak to that.

This is a part of San Francisco people need to know about.

Absolutely.

Rosendo, voice-over: Just down the street from the Mission District is another colorful and distinct San Francisco neighborhood--the Castro.

Man: Cafe Flore is the center of the Castro.

There are people here who were active in the fight against AIDS, HIV in the Eighties and Nineties, and you have tourists coming in.

You have straight couples with kids.

You have gay couples with kids.

The thing about Cafe Flore is, it's everything I love about the Castro, which is a big mishmash.

The makeup of the community has changed, and you're gonna take us on a little tour through some of its past.

We are.

We're gonna take you on a walking tour of what, uh, those of us who have lived here a long time call the Gay Zip--94114.

And here we're coming up on another icon in the Castro, the Twin Peaks-- the first gay bar with clear windows.

You could see in and out.

We were talking before about the Castro neighborhood being a crossroads, and it's always been like that.

It isn't just a crossroads of cultures in the 21st century, but during the 20th century and the late 19th century, there was a whole melting pot going on here, and where we are now is a perfect example of that.

Right here is a house that, since it was built in the late 1880s, has only had two owners, and by legend, this house started as a brothel.

Well, 1849 was the big gold rush.

You had all those gold miners, and they had needs.

There were a lot of men, and they had needs-- physical, which that house took care of, but over here, this building took care of their spiritual needs.

It was built in 1900.

This is Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church.

This was the center of the Castro then, which was an Irish working-class neighborhood.

You know, a lot of people think of the Castro as a gay neighborhood, but up until the late 1960s and early 1970s, it wasn't.

The Victorians were getting old, some of the Irish community members were moving out, dying off, and then those Victorians that were looking old and stodgy-- well, I say it took 10,000 gay interior decorators to move in, see their value, and make them fabulous.

Because they had an eye for what the real beauty of those old buildings were, and that's what helped revitalize this area.

And I guess that's the next stage of our tour.

That is.

We're gonna look at the continuing evolution of the Castro.

Let's go.

What you're seeing is yet another iteration of the Castro community growing and thriving.

This streetscape project is not only gonna make it better for pedestrians and people on bikes, but we're going to have, in the sidewalks of Castro, a permanent memorial-- the Rainbow Honor Walk-- showing the importance of the gay community.

Gay people came to the Castro in the 1960s and 1970s because of the beauty, and what they did was build a beautiful community.

That's when my brother came.

He came here because he-- as a gay man, he felt comfortable being here.

He felt accepted here, where there was hope that he could actually become all that he wanted to be.

Well, you use a good word.

I mean, he was part of that migration of which Harvey Milk was part.

Right.

Harvey Milk came in 1977-- first openly gay man elected in the United States-- and his famous phrase was, "You gotta give 'em hope!"

Right.

And a year later, he was assassinated.

And then, when the man who assassinated Milk and Moscone was let off with a manslaughter charge for 5 years, for the first time, the nongay community in San Francisco said, "This is wrong."

Yeah.

"An injustice has been done."

And of course, as you know, a few years later, a tragedy that we really thought was gonna be the end of it all--AIDS-- hit San Francisco.

Right, and I can personally state that my brother was part of that experience as well.

Your brother was one of about 10,000 people, mainly men and women-- people dying young from a mysterious disease, and what I think the nongay community reacted to was, "Look how this community comes together-- saves its own, heals its own."

To me, the Castro is not just a residential street.

It really is a testament to the human spirit.

Rosendo, voice-over: Taking in all that San Francisco has to offer would take a lifetime, so it's fortunate that there are those dedicated to helping you get the most for less out of the city.

San Francisco Travel, the visitors association, has official deals on their website, and for one price, the CityPASS ticket booklet gives you 4 major attractions such as the Blue & Gold cruise, the Aquarium by the Bay, the Exploratorium, as well as 7 days' unlimited free rides on the Muni and cable car system.

♪ Riding those little cable cars halfway to the stars ♪ may be romantic, but it isn't cheap, so the pass helps.

[Bell ringing] I can't come to San Francisco without paying homage to poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Bookstore, an icon of the North Beach neighborhood.

This is the first poetry book I ever had.

It's called "A Coney Island of the Mind," and it's comforting to see this book again.

It's comforting to come to City Lights Bookstore and see that it's still here.

What allows this place to exist, and what role does it play within the greater community of North Beach?

Well, as Lawrence Ferlinghetti says, this is a kind of library where books are sold, but moreover, it's a literary meeting place.

It is a commons of North Beach.

One of the things people are dealing with is change.

We always are dealing with change.

How is the North Beach community dealing with the inevitable?

Yeah, well, the community's still vibrant.

It's still alive albeit, you know, fighting some of the gentrification that's going on in the rest of the city.

Just for old times' sake, I'd like to read something from this old Ferlinghetti collection of poems.

I mean, it's 1958.

"I'm waiting for my case to come up.

"I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder.

"I'm waiting for someone to really discover America and wail "and I'm waiting for the discovery of a new symbolic western frontier "and I'm waiting for the American Eagle to really spread its wings "and straighten up and fly right "and I'm waiting for the Age of Anxiety to drop dead "and I'm waiting for the war to be fought "which will make the world safe for anarchy "and I'm waiting for the final withering away of all governments and I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder."

Mm.

That is the story of North Beach and also of City Lights.

It's about people coming to San Francisco, and especially to North Beach, looking for a new identity, looking for a greater future.

It's still happening.

Rosendo, voice-over: San Francisco from the Marina District.

It's beautiful.

I mean, the Golden Gate Bridge is a California icon, not just a San Francisco icon.

Whoo!

You really get to have a sense of how natural San Francisco is.

Golden Gate Park is a San Franciscan favorite, but it wasn't always.

Prior to its construction in 1871, its 1,000 acres was a wasteland of wind-swept sand dunes.

Today, it offers a myriad of recreational opportunities and is home to attractions like the Conservatory of Flowers, the de Young Museum of Fine Arts, and the California Academy of Sciences.

Under one living roof, a natural history museum, a planetarium, and an aquarium.

For baby boomers, Haight-Ashbury conjures up fond memories of our youth... the ones we can remember.

Long before 1967 and the Summer of Love, the Haight was a mecca for beatniks from North Beach drawn to the abandoned Victorians, the cheap rents, and freewheeling lifestyle.

Haight-Ashbury soon became the center of the Sixties hippie and countercultural revolution.

[Music playing] Men: ♪ Come on, now ♪ And what was the culture counter to?

War, hate, prejudice, oppression, and anything that suppressed freedom-- freedom to think, freedom to speak, freedom to live, freedom to love-- and the right to be everything that you could be.

It was a time for rights-- civil rights, human rights, women's rights, and gay rights, which brought my brother to San Francisco.

All that new thought and freedom scared some, angered others, and liberated most, and ultimately changed the world.

I'm proud to be part of the generation that gave birth to the Haight and the things it stood for.

Men: ♪ Come on, now ♪ And while the upper Haight has evolved into a fun, colorful, nostalgic caricature of its former self, the heart and soul of the community has not died.

It just moved into the lower Haight, where it's a bit different, but still alive and well.

Men: ♪ Come on, now ♪ Rosendo, voice-over: San Francisco is a city of neighborhoods, and within its 7- by 7-mile boundary, it seems that every patch of ground has a name.

Wikipedia lists 117.

I've explored 6.

And while they are an essential part of the whole, they bring more than geography.

Each has a unique history and iconic attractions, shops, and restaurants that add their special zest to the mix.

And while change is inevitable, in San Fran, rather than destroy what they have, they consider it and then make it more of what it is.

The song says "I left my heart in San Francisco."

Well, there are 800,000 residents and millions and millions of visitors who have left at least a piece of theirs here, and I'm one of them.

Until next time, this is Joseph Rosendo reminding you of the words of Mark Twain: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness."

Happy traveling.

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For a DVD of today's show or any of Joseph's "Travelscope" adventures, call 888-876-3399 or order online at Travelscope.net.

You can also email us at TV@Travelscope.net or write us at the address on your screen.

Rosendo: Now that we've explored San Francisco's neighborhoods, learn more at Travelscope.net, where you can follow my worldwide adventures through my emagazine, blog, podcasts, and on Facebook.

Stay in touch-- 888-876-3399 or TV@Travelscope.net.

Man: Welcome to the San Francisco CUESA market.

It's the center for urban agriculture.

Do they mind if you sample one?

No.

We can definitely sample one.

I mean, you know, the joy of coming to a farmers' market, you get to taste... Got to taste your stuff.

Their prize possession is these baby favas.

They're so young.

You taste them.

They're so tender and so vibrant.

Jeff, you're obsessed with favas.

I'm obsessed with favas, you know?

You are.

These are about 18 times bigger than the ones we got before.

You're right, and the flavor is 18 times better.

Beautiful seared scallops.

They have ramps.

It's gonna be a great dish.

This sounds great.

What a miserable job I have.

Right?

This looks delicious.

That is delicious.

Delicious, even if you say so yourself.