Jackson St, Pacific Heights

I lived on Jackson at Franklin for a couple of years and it was great. A little noisy because of the traffic on Franklin, but otherwise good. What I loved was walking a couple of blocks down to Polk Street on the weekends and grabbing breakfast at the Bell Tower. They serve alcohol there too so if you are hunger over, hair of the dog I say!

Jackson Street in the Russian Hill area has some really nice older buildings—the kind where you get fire-escapes and the whole bit—and there are really nice views of the bay. It is a beautiful street and would be a great place to live, just far enough away from the main action to make worth while.

It is even nicer for family living in the Pacific Heights area on its western end. For those looking for a nice place to take the pouches while taking in the view at the same time there is Alta Plaza Park—a great place to read a book undisturbed. There are also good tennis courts and a great play area for the kids. At the western end of Jackson you will find the Presidio Golf course for those that like to spend an afternoon knocking that hard little ball around. Unfortunately, the take on this course is that although it is beautiful it tends to be on the muddy side and a bit too challenging for your weekend golfer.

Overall Jackson is a great, relatively quite place to live in the city—if you can afford it.

Jackson Street stretches from the side of Golden Gate Park at Arguello Boulevard to just about where Embarcadero Street is (but it never touches it). This street cuts through Chinatown, which I am more familiar with. The part of Jackson Street that is in Chinatown contains many Chinese Buddhist prayer shops that sell paper money, and other various objects that you can burn for the dead when you go to their graves to pay respects to them. Within two blocks, I saw about three of these shops. Some shops are very small, while others are much larger. There are also lots of Chinese restaurants and souvenir shops. On Jackson Street, you are allowed to bargain with the vendors that have tables set up in front of shops. They will usually sell clothing and religious items, such as “I Love SF” caps and small Buddhist statues.

Jackson Street is a residential neighborhood with very nice houses. There is not too much of a hill except for a block or two so there are many people going on jogs. The 3 Jackson is a great bus that runs on this street. It is almost always clean and quiet though it can get crowded during rush hours. There also can be slow traffic during rush hours since there are a few private schools on this street, including San Francisco University High School. Therefore there are many parents dropping off their kids for school. However, this is a great neighborhood for families with kids since there are many great private schools for a variety of ages nearby. Plus, there is Alta Plaza Park for younger kids to play or to play with the dog.