San Francisco, California

: San Francisco redirects here. For other uses, see San Francisco (disambiguation).

Trivia

• Some Dexter's Laboratory fans have identified San Francisco as the city where the show takes place, while Orchid Bay City where The Life and Times of Juniper Lee takes place is based on San Francisco. Other television shows that use San Francisco as a setting include Nash Bridges and Disney's That's So Raven.
• San Francisco is a location in CRPG Fallout 2.
• In the Star Trek fictional universe, Captain Kirk's U.S.S. Enterprise was San Francisco–class but was later changed by script writers to a more appropriate (following United States Navy warship naming conventions) Constitution–class. Additionally, Star Fleet Headquarters and Academy are located on what is currently the Presidio of San Francisco.
• There are three streets in San Francisco that have two sets of sidewalks. Stockton, Broadway and Geary. Why? Because the tunnels have sidewalks and so do the streets above.
• Opera Tenor Enrico Caruso who was in town during the 1906 Earthquake & fire swore to never return to San Francisco. Later in his life, he reneged on that vow, although he died before he was able to do it.
• The first reinforced concrete bridge in America, Lake Alvord Bridge, was constructed in 1889. But the 116-year-old prototype still arches strongly today over a pedestrian entrance to San Francisco's Golden Gate park, welcoming visitors to the Children's Quarters.

Known as the Lake Alvord Bridge, it was built in 1889 by Ernest L. Ransome, the great 19th century innovator in reinforced concrete design, mixing equipment, and construction systems. The bridge was constructed as a single arch 64-feet wide with a 20-foot span. Ransome is believed to have used his patented cold-twisted square steel bar for reinforcement, placed longitudinally in the arch and curved in the same arc. The face of the bridge was scored and hammered to resemble sandstone.

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E.L. Ransome left San Francisco a few years later, frustrated and bitter at the building community's indifference to concrete construction. Ironically, the city's few reinforced concrete structures, including the Lake Alvord Bridge, survived the 1906 earthquake and fire in remarkable shape, vindicating Ransome's faith in the method.

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The Lake Alvord Bridge was designated a civil engineering landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in the 1970's.

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