If these copper-clad walls could talk, they'd name-drop shamelessly. The tower's original occupant was political boss Abe Ruef, ousted in 1907 and sent to San Quentin for bribing city supervisors. Grammy-winning folk group the Kingston Trio bought the tower in the 1960s, and the Grateful Dead recorded in the basement. Since 1972 it's been owned by Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola, who shares offices with Joy Luck Club director Wayne Wang and Oscar-winning actor-director Sean Penn. Coppola runs ground-floor Cafe Zoetrope.
Columbus Tower
North Beach & Chinatown
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
4.56 MILES
When Frederick Law Olmsted, architect of New York's Central Park, gazed in 1865 upon the plot of land San Francisco Mayor Frank McCoppin wanted to turn…
2.97 MILES
Was it the fall of 1966 or the winter of ’67? As the Haight saying goes, if you can remember the Summer of Love, you probably weren’t here. The fog was…
0.16 MILES
If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…
0.12 MILES
No one could have predicted the cultural force City Lights would become when it first opened in 1953. Sure, it had a proletarian ethos suggested by its…
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
0.78 MILES
When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expanded in 2016, it was a mind-boggling feat that nearly tripled the institution's size to accommodate a…
0.42 MILES
If you want to really see San Francisco, head to Coit Tower, a 1933 art deco beaut designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard that sits high up on…
4.12 MILES
Few cities boast a structure so iconic as the Golden Gate Bridge, commemorated in everything from films like The Maltese Falcon to not one but two emojis…
2.81 MILES
Welcome to San Francisco's sunny side, the land of street ball and Mayan-pyramid playgrounds, semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics. Although the…
Nearby North Beach & Chinatown attractions
0.08 MILES
Dragons bring this shadowy brick byway roaring to life. The narrow entryway is illuminated with 'Dragon Boats Chasing Moonlight,' a new mosaic mural…
0.1 MILES
You can see all the way to China from the Hilton's 3rd floor inside this cultural center, which hosts exhibits ranging from showcases of contemporary…
0.11 MILES
'The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great…' This ode by the On the Road and Dharma Bums author is embedded in his…
0.12 MILES
The closest you can get to the complete Beat experience without breaking a law. The 1000-plus artifacts in this museum's literary-ephemera collection…
0.12 MILES
No one could have predicted the cultural force City Lights would become when it first opened in 1953. Sure, it had a proletarian ethos suggested by its…
0.12 MILES
Chinatown's unofficial living room is named after John B Montgomery's sloop, which staked the US claim on San Francisco in 1846. SF's first city hall…
0.12 MILES
California's earliest high-tech adopters weren't 1970s Silicon Valley programmers – they were Chinatown switchboard operators c 1894. To connect callers,…
0.14 MILES
'If, as they say, God spanked the town/For being over-frisky/Why did He burn His churches down/And spare Hotaling's whiskey?' This saloon-goers' retort…