Portal:San Francisco Bay Area

The Exploratorium is a museum in San Francisco whose stated mission is to change the way the world learns. It has been described by the New York Times as the most important science museum to have opened since the mid-20th century, an achievement attributed to "the nature of its exhibits, its wide-ranging influence and its sophisticated teacher training program". Characterized as "a mad scientist's penny arcade, a scientific funhouse, and an experimental laboratory all rolled into one", the participatory nature of its exhibits and its self-identification as a center for informal learning has led to it being cited as the prototype for participatory museums around the world.

The Exploratorium was founded by physicist and educator Frank Oppenheimer and opened in 1969 at the Palace of Fine Arts, its home until January 2, 2013. On April 17, 2013, the Exploratorium reopened at Piers 15 and 17 on San Francisco's Embarcadero. The historic interior and exterior of Pier 15 was renovated extensively prior to the move, and is divided into several galleries mainly separated by content, including the physics of seeing and listening (Light and Sound), Human Behavior, Living Systems, Tinkering (including electricity and magnetism), the Outdoor Gallery, and the Bay Observatory Gallery, which focuses on local environment, weather, and landscape.(more...)

Alma de Bretteville Spreckels (March 24, 1881 – August 7, 1968) was a wealthy socialite and philanthropist in San Francisco, California. She was known both as "Big Alma" (she was 6 feet (1.8 m) tall) and "The Great Grandmother of San Francisco". Among her many accomplishments, she persuaded her first husband, sugar magnate Adolph B. Spreckels, to donate the California Palace of the Legion of Honor to the city of San Francisco. Spreckels' last major project was the construction of the San Francisco Maritime Museum. When it opened in 1951, her collection of model ships that had been on display at the 1939–40 Golden Gate International Exposition was the main exhibit. (more...)

San Francisco /sæn frənˈsɪskoʊ/, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural center and a leading financial hub of the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California.

The only consolidated city-county in California, San Francisco encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km²) on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,867 people per square mile (6,898 people per km²). It is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated major city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in California, after Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose, and the 14th-most populous city in the United States—with a Census-estimated 2013 population of 837,442. The city is also the financial and cultural hub of the larger San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical area, with a population of 8.5 million. (more...)

• The SS City of Chester sinks after a collision (pictured) with RMS Oceanic at the Golden Gate in San Francisco Bay
• Hunt Bros. Fruit Packing Co. is founded in Sebastopol
• Swinerton construction is founded in San Francisco

• ... that the vivid colors of the San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds (pictured), ranging from magenta to blue-green, come from the brine shrimp and microorganisms that thrive in the water?
• ... that the Laguna Creek watershed debouches into the San Francisco Bay near the site of the ghost town of Drawbridge?
• ... that the chase scene from the 1968 Steve McQueen film Bullitt starts on Cesar Chavez Street (then Army Street) before continuing through San Francisco?
• ... that the title of There There, a 2018 novel about urban Indians in Oakland, California, mirrors Gertrude Stein's quip about the city that "There is no there there"?

• ... that the Newby Island landfill is an island surrounded by a levee, which keeps its runoff from directly entering San Francisco Bay, and the water that drains from it is treated in the dump's own treatment plant?
• ... that the 2012 groundbreaking ceremony for Avaya Stadium (pictured) had 6,256 participants, setting a new world record?

January 2015

SF Sketchfest, or The San Francisco Comedy Festival, is a comedy festival founded in 2002 by San Francisco Bay Area actor-comedians David Owen, Janet Varney and Cole Stratton (pictured). It takes place every January and February and features sketches, improv, stand-up and other events.

*more quotes about San Francisco from Wikiquote

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