San Francisco Public Library

San Francisco Public Library Review

Topped with a swirl like an art-deco nautilus, the library's seven-level glass atrium fills the building with light. Opened in 1996, the New Main (as Herb Caen dubbed it) is a modernized version of the old beaux arts-style library. Local researchers take advantage of centers dedicated to gay-and-lesbian, African-American, Chinese, and Filipino history, and everyone appreciates the basement-level café, Wi-Fi, and 15-minute Internet terminal access. On the sixth floor an exhibit inside the San Francisco History Center includes doodads from the 1894 Mid-Winter Fair and the 1915 Pan-Pacific Exhibition, as well as the "valuable emeralds" philanthropist Helene Strybing left to the city—alas merely green glass. Noir fans should head to the back of the center; you can see "Maltese Falcon" statues in the Flood Building and at John's Grill, but this is the only place to see novelist Dashiell Hammett's typewriter. Free tours of the library are conducted the second Wednesday of the month at 2:30.