I’ve read that there are about three billion fortune cookies made each year. Of those, I’ve heard that about 30,000 per day are baked at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory in San Francisco’s Chinatown for distribution around the world.
New England Holocaust Memorial
I was quite moved by the simple, yet powerful message of the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston. There is a path that runs beneath the six glass towers representing the main Nazi concentration camps — Majdanek, Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Etched in the glass are six million…
From Humble to Hearst Castle
This schoolhouse in Old San Simeon along California’s Central Coast is a humble contrast to the opulence of Hearst Castle on top of the hill behind it. The one-room school was built in 1881. When newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst built his estate in the early 1900s, he was inspired…
Ernest Hemingway: Chapter One
Ernest Hemingway has been a favorite author of mine since I read The Sun Also Rises many years ago.
Red Rock Canyon: Nevada on the Rocks
On a trip to Las Vegas this summer, we decided to take a break from the Strip one afternoon and get some fresh air and exercise at Red Rock Canyon, just 15 miles west of downtown.
Coasting along Big Sur
It takes a lot of strength and conditioning to peddle up the steep sections of the Pacific Coast Highway, and these three don’t seem to be having any trouble.
Sam Spade Was Here
This elaborate hand-painted ceiling is in the lobby of the Hunter-Dulin Building at 111 Sutter Street in San Francisco, a key point of interest on the architecture walking tour I took last week. Years of cigarette smoke build-up had kept the mural hidden until it was exposed by extensive cleaning…
Views from POPOS
On Rick Evans’ Architecture Walking Tour of San Francisco’s Financial District, there are many interesting aspects of the tour, not the least of which were four of the city’s POPOS (privately-owned public open spaces).