San Francisco, My Cut

11 The Sutro Baths were lost to a fire so long ago that most San Franciscans only associate the name with these enigmatic ruins. At the city's northwestern edge, it's an awesome place to spend a few hours pondering the crashing waves—and the site's original purpose. Photo

12 Agitprop, a Prius, and a repurposed old police station—add a couple of fair-trade lattes, and this Mission neighborhood scene would say "San Francisco" more than the Golden Gate Bridge ever could. Photo

SAN FRANCISCO TREAT See the City of the Bay as you haven't before—through David Fenton's discerning lens. • Launch the slide show

13 Terroir, a wine shop and bar in the SoMa neighborhood, is like a library, almost. The place is dead serious when it comes to wine. Food and drink is this town's secular religion, and charlatans are not tolerated. Photo

14 This Ferry Building scene, save for the BMX dude, is like a little slice of 1950s San Francisco. The streetcar might be far from original, but if you squint a little, you can almost picture an army of gray-suited office workers spilling out and marching up Market Street. Photo

15 San Francisco is built at impossible angles (how the roof and the base manage to tilt in opposite directions is beyond me). Until the DEA stopped by last year, this Dogpatch warehouse was the distribution hub for a small chain of medical-marijuana dispensaries, with blacked out windows and surveillance cameras galore. Photo

16 The Bay Bridge never got its due. Battleship gray and built for utility, it only made the papers when a chunk of it collapsed in the 1989 earthquake. Now it's being replaced with an even less exciting span. But for anyone who grew up in the East Bay, it will always be the real gateway to the city. Photo

17 Darkness at noon: what midday looks like on a summer weekend. Photo

18 Dolled-up Victorians get too much attention. This row of town houses on Potrero Hill is how S.F. really lives. Row after row, block after block, houses like these stretch from Potrero Hill all the way to the beach. Add sunshine for color, and it makes you a little wistful. Photo

19 San Francisco's not really a big-building kind of town. The whole place seems about three stories tall, which is why going downtown by the Transamerica skyscraper feels like a field trip. Photo

20 The Twin Peaks bar at Castro and Market has a nickname: the glass coffin. At night it's a fishbowl, the inside filled with people of all ages on a long, slow drunk. Days are a little different—the street corner becomes one of the best for watching waves of people walk, run, strut, and stagger by. Photo