This brightly made over hotel hides decades of suicide, serial killers, and mysterious deaths.

The most popular attraction in Southern California was once a flock of ornery bipedal birds that pulled carts.

An airy would-be solution to a housing shortage.

An iconic location along the Los Angeles River where countless movie scenes are filmed.

60 feet of towering steel balances gracefully.

Common all over Japan, kōbans are small community police boxes, and now one is guarding one of L.A.’s megamalls.

Resting place of Hollywood's immortals is also site of summer film screenings.

A veteran Disney animator turned his gift for storytelling to a museum devoted to his love of a California city.

A winding path built in secret on the edge of the continent.

A 300-ship graveyard, with a few still visible at low tide.

A modest reminder of treacherous waters at the Golden Gate.

A masterpiece in Golden Gate Park by virtue of the artist’s debt.

Art in the form of a winding, man made crack in stone.

A hidden subterranean installation offers a view of the sky.

The remains of a 12th-century chapter house in Golden Gate Park.

A garden oasis filled with flowers mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare.

Golden Gate Park's historic collection of plants.

California's most comprehensive horticultural library.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

San Francisco's first World's Fair, dedicated to the wonders of California.

The remains of a ruined mansion memorialize the 1906 earthquake.

An elaborate gift from Claus Spreckels is now a piece of San Francisco history.

The only visible piece of San Francisco's most famous shipwreck.

The giant pair of sexy legs sticking out the window of this costume store have become its main draw.