San Francisco Cable Cars & Barn - Sights - Historical Landmark San Francisco Attractions Map - View a map of the San Francisco's top attractions. Find out more about the any attraction. MAP INSTRUCTIONS If you move your mouse over a marker, the name of the attractions will appear. If you click on the marker, an information window will appear that contains the address, a description and a picture of the attraction. Click on the name and you will land on our individual attraction page. From there you can navigate to the attraction's official web site. The colored map markers indicate the different types of attractions. Red are Sights, Blue markers are Arts, Science & Museum locations, and Green markers are for parks & Gardens. If you click on the Legend option, you can choose which type of attractions will appear on the map by area. Choose just one type or chose all for a complete viewing of San Francisco attractions. If you click on the Attractions by Type tab, you will find a list of all the map's attractions by type with descriptions, a thumbnail picture and a link will highlight the attraction on the map with the information window open. As with all Google maps, you can zoom the map in and out; you can reposition it by dragging it with your mouse; and you can also change the map type from a normal Street view to a Satelite view, or to a Hybrid view that combines the other two views.

San Francisco Cable Cars & Barn

Sights

It was the invention of the cable car that made high-society life on San Francisco's hills possible and practical. Since 1873, these little trolleys have been an integral part of life in the city, thanks to Scots-born Andrew Hallidie's concern for horses. Having watched a team struggle and fall, breaking their legs on a steep San Franciscan street, Hallidie designed a pulley system around the thick wire rope his father had patented in England. A transportation revolution followed. At their peak, just before the 1906 earthquake, over six hundred cable cars traveled 110 miles of track throughout the city; over the years, usage dwindled and, in 1964, nostalgic citizens voted to preserve the last seventeen miles (now just 10) as a moving historic landmark. Today there are three lines. Two of them, the Powell & Mason and the Powell & Hyde lines run from Hallidie Plaza off Union Square at Powell and Market streets to Fisherman's Wharf. The Powell & Hyde is the steepest, reaching a hair-raising 21-degree grade between Lombard and Chestnut streets. The oldest route, the California line, climbs Nob Hill along California Street from the Embarcadero, rattling past the fanciest hotels in the city. The cars fasten onto a moving two-inch cable, which runs beneath the streets, gripping on the ascent then releasing at the top and gliding down the other side. You can see the huge motors that still power these cables in the Cable Car Museum and Powerhouse , at 1201 Mason at Washington Street (free; daily 10am-6pm; ).

Historical Landmark

San Francisco

1201 Mason Street

Photo of San Francisco Cable Cars & Barn

San Francisco Attractions Map

View a map of the San Francisco's top attractions. Find out more about the any attraction.

MAP INSTRUCTIONS

If you move your mouse over a marker, the name of the attractions will appear. If you click on the marker, an information window will appear that contains the address, a description and a picture of the attraction. Click on the name and you will land on our individual attraction page. From there you can navigate to the attraction's official web site.

The colored map markers indicate the different types of attractions. Red are Sights, Blue markers are Arts, Science & Museum locations, and Green markers are for parks & Gardens.

If you click on the Legend option, you can choose which type of attractions will appear on the map by area. Choose just one type or chose all for a complete viewing of San Francisco attractions.

If you click on the Attractions by Type tab, you will find a list of all the map's attractions by type with descriptions, a thumbnail picture and a link will highlight the attraction on the map with the information window open.

As with all Google maps, you can zoom the map in and out; you can reposition it by dragging it with your mouse; and you can also change the map type from a normal Street view to a Satelite view, or to a Hybrid view that combines the other two views.