Summertine in The City

A visit to San Francisco's North Beach-Chinatown
neighborhood netted some shots
on a particularly glorious afternoon. I'm uploading the photos
-- which are clickable to enlarge -- to this blog to give you a sense
of what a very attractive part of The City looks like
on a cloudless and fogless summer day.
The shot above was taken on Stockton Street
looking eastward to the Bay.
You can see part of the Bay Bridge and beyond,
the Oakland container terminal with its massive cranes.

Shoppers on Stockton Street in Chinatown,
not quite as busy as earlier in the day;

most of the shops are getting ready to close.

So now they've renamed Green Street to Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard,
for the benefit of tourists who may be heading for this
'very San Francisco' revue in North Beach.

An impressive mural painted on the Stockton Street side
of the Chinese community hospital
(or at least that's what I think the building is).

And here the Transamerica pyramid, as much a symbol
of The City as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris,
sticking up over an apartment building next to the hospital.

Another shopper carrying the purchases
she has made for tonight's dinner.

A large billboard which is long past the time it should

have its tattered message replaced by another one.

A late afternoon look down Broadway
from Stockton Street.

Montgomery Street, the heart of the financial district: not much different
than that of many another North American city.

I love red cars.

Corner of Washington and Grant Streets. Bay Bridge in the distance.

Just a composition that caught my eye. I guess the light and
dark was what made me take a second look.

A man looks for his dog at the edge of
Washington Square Park on Columbus Avenue.

Bricks and mortar, drain pipes and
shadows shaped like pelicans.

Loungers in the Park, with a zero-emission trolley bus in back.

One way to enjoy a warm afternoon,

if chatting or reading is not your cup of tea.

They call this VW a cabriolet

Here on Columbus Avenue, the last rays of the sun 'strike
the Sultan's turret with a shaft of light'.