Hayes Valley, San Francisco: the Van Ness opera and symphony halls, Hayes Street and Alamo Square

The cornerstones of the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue and the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue were laid on 11 November 1931. The Opera House opened on 15 October 1932 with Puccini's Tosca, conducted by Gaetano Merola; the Veterans Building opened on 11 November 1932. The two stand on one parcel and are covered together by San Francisco Landmark No. 84, designated in 1977. Arthur Brown, Jr. designed them, and San Francisco City Hall, honouring Daniel Burnham's vision for a unified Civic Center. The complex is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco.

Most plenary sessions of the 1945 United Nations Conference took place in the War Memorial Opera House, and the United Nations Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 on the stage of the Veterans Auditorium, now the Herbst Theatre. The Herbst seats 892, was built as an auditorium and was refurbished in 1978 with a grant from the Herbst Foundation. The murals hanging in it are by Frank Brangwyn, depict Air, Earth, Fire and Water, and were brought from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. The fourth floor of the Veterans Building was rebuilt as the Wilsey Center and opened in 2015.

The Opera House auditorium seats 3,006 and has been home to San Francisco Opera since it opened, and to San Francisco Ballet. It also housed the San Francisco Symphony until Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, at 201 Van Ness Avenue, opened in September 1980 with a 2,739-seat auditorium. The Harold L. Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall at 300 Franklin Street opened a year after Davies Symphony Hall. The SFJAZZ Center opened in January 2013 at 201 Franklin Street, on the corner of Franklin and Fell Streets, with a restaurant and bar, B-Side, inside it; its own site gives the box office hours as Wednesday to Saturday, 12.00 to 17.30, closed Sunday to Tuesday, and open 90 minutes before showtime.

The Sydney Goldstein Theater at 275 Hayes Street opened in 1926 as the auditorium of Commerce High School and stands on the same parcel as the school building at 135 Van Ness Avenue, which is San Francisco Landmark No. 140, designated in 1981. Commerce High School closed in 1952. The hall was closed to the public in 1985 and reopened in 2013 with 1,687 seats, and City Arts & Lectures operates it. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music gives its address as 50 Oak Street.

Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley is a Recreation & Park property of 0.48 acres at 489 Hayes Street, on the block of Octavia Boulevard between Hayes and Fell Streets. Proxy occupies 432 Octavia Street, at the corner of Hayes and Octavia. It houses small businesses and hosts free public events, among them the Proxy Spring and Fall Film Festivals, the Sunday SOUND concerts and the Hayes Valley Carnival. Ritual Coffee Roasters and Smitten Ice Cream trade at that same address, and Blue Bottle Coffee is at 315 Linden Street.

The shops and restaurants run along Hayes Street and its cross streets: Hayes Street Grill at 320 Hayes, Arlequin at 384 Hayes, Absinthe Brasserie at 398 Hayes, Azalea at 411 Hayes, Timbuk2 at 506 Hayes and Souvla at 517 Hayes; Miette at 449 Octavia Street; Rich Table at 199 Gough Street, Monsieur Benjamin at 451 Gough and Robin at 620 Gough; Birba at 458 Grove Street; and Suppenkuche at 525 Laguna Street. Zuni Cafe is at 1658 Market Street. No source states how long any of them has traded, so no founding years are given here.

Six Recreation & Park properties carry addresses in these streets: Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley; Hayes Valley Playground, 0.75 acres at 689 Hayes Street; Koshland Park, 0.96 acres at 363 Page Street; Page & Laguna Mini Park, 0.18 acres at 281 Page Street; the Page Street Community Garden, 0.09 acres at 438 Page Street; and Alamo Square, 13.65 acres at 1081 Fulton Street. Alamo Square is designated under Article 10 of the Planning Code as the Alamo Square Historic District, Appendix E, listed on 6 July 1984. The row of Victorian houses at 710 Steiner Street, the Painted Ladies, faces the square across Steiner Street.

The designated houses are spread through the residential streets. The Nightingale House at 201 Buchanan Street is San Francisco Landmark No. 47, designated in 1972, and the Dietle Residence at 294 Page Street is San Francisco Landmark No. 48, designated in the same year. The R. (Rube) L. Goldberg Building stands at 182-198 Gough Street as San Francisco Landmark No. 268, designated in 2015. The Russell Warren House, at 465-467 Oak Street and 368 Lily Street, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 12 December 1983, reference number 83003594, and the House at 584 Page Street was listed on 12 September 1985, reference number 85002195. At Laguna, Webster and Buchanan Streets stand the three buildings of the former teachers' college: Richardson Hall at 55 Laguna Street is San Francisco Landmark No. 256, Woods Hall at 101 Webster Street is San Francisco Landmark No. 257, and Woods Hall Annex at 218 Buchanan Street is San Francisco Landmark No. 258, all three designated in 2007.

No source states which transit stations and bus routes serve these addresses, so none are given here. Steer by street numbers instead, along three axes that between them reach almost everything in this neighbourhood.

The first is Van Ness Avenue and the block behind it. The halls run in numerical order down the avenue: 135 Van Ness, then 201, 301 and 401. On Franklin Street are 201, the SFJAZZ Center, and 300, the Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall. The Sydney Goldstein Theater is entered from 275 Hayes Street, at Franklin Street, and shares its parcel with 135 Van Ness Avenue.

The second is Hayes Street, whose shop and restaurant numbers run from 320 up to 689, crossing Franklin, Gough, Octavia, Laguna and Buchanan Streets in that order. Octavia Boulevard crosses it at Patricia's Green, and Proxy is on that corner at 432 Octavia Street; Blue Bottle Coffee is on Linden Street at 315.

The third is Page Street, which carries the Dietle Residence at 294, Koshland Park at 363, the Page Street Community Garden at 438 and the House at 584. Alamo Square is at 1081 Fulton Street, with the Painted Ladies opposite at 710 Steiner Street. The Divisadero Street and Oak Street buildings are at 280 and 500-502 Divisadero Street and at 1111, 1152 and 1153 Oak Street. The mint building of 1937 is at 155 Hermann Street. 188-198 Haight Street is San Francisco Landmark No. 164, and 1800-1806 Market Street is San Francisco Landmark No. 223.