Customer Reviews

Landmarks of San Francisco

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I've lived in SF for 6 years and have often wondered about some of the unique homes and buildings I see. Unfortunately, historical plaques on structures are rare. Consider this book as containing the historical plaque for each building.

This book has great photos and succint descriptions, which I appreciate. I didn't pick up this book to read an in-depth history of SF, but simply to learn tidbits about each interesting structure. In the age of the internet, I can use the building's title or home's address to search for more information if I'm intrigued enough to do so. However, I much prefer this broad range of interesting landmarks with a paragraph or two about each.

My only complaint about this book is that the order is by landmark number, whereas it would be more useful grouped by neighborhood. In any case, you can quickly create a walking tour for yourself based on this book.

Despite the attractive photographs, the book is disappointing in that the writer apparently did no original research and simply dumped the City Planning Department's own files for each structure onto each page. The resulting content is little more than expanded captions. These historic resources deserved better.