Hallidie Plaza in San Francisco, California

Hallidie Plaza is home to the San Francisco Visitor Information Center, which can supply tourists with maps, discount coupons, and restaurant recommendations, and other useful information. While the plaza has gone through a number of stages in its history and development, it is today one of the main crossroads in the city and remains an important tourist hotspot.

Ask San Francisco locals about Hallidie Plaza, and you are bound to get a bunch of different responses. This little plaza, innocent as it may seem, has been the subject of great debate in recent years. The problem remains what to do with it. For some time, Hallidie Plaza in San Francisco was a hotspot for drug dealers and other unsavory characters. In the late 90s, the city responded by taking out the benches and cutting down the trees. Lights were installed to ward off seedy nighttime behavior. While this worked to some degree, the plaza lost a lot of its visual appeal. Some propose that this public plaza in San Francisco be torn down and built back up again from scratch, while others appreciate its current role as an odd crossroads of sorts.

Whatever the locals think about Hallidie Plaza in San Francisco, there is no denying that it is a crossroads. Downtown workers and touring tourists spill into the plaza on a daily basis after arriving at the Powell Street BART station. While they might not linger in the plaza, it is nonetheless a stop along the way on a journey to an office building, a store, a restaurant, or an area attraction. Just a few blocks north of the plaza is where Union Square can be found, and the renowned Yerba Buena Gardens is just a short trip away as well. Some tourists do choose to linger around for a bit at Hallidie Plaza before visiting attractions like these, if for no other reason than to catch a ride on a historic Powell Street cable car.

Recently, the Hallidie Public Plaza in San Francisco has become a more inviting place to spend some time, and city officials only have hopes of increasing its overall appeal. Some locals refer to nearby Union Square when it comes to Hallidie Plaza. For some time, Union Square was a largely undesirable place to hang out. It saw a resurgence, however, thanks to efforts to increase its overall attractiveness. Hallidie Plaza enjoys a fantastic location, so there is little reason to believe that it can't become something great. Market Street, which is one of the main avenues in the city, forms one of the plaza's borders, and attractions like the Orpheum Theatre and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art are just a few blocks away.

Time will tell when it comes to Hallidie Plaza in San Francisco, and there are many ideas as to what this curious little square should become. Travelers can form their own opinions of this plaza while in town, and if nothing else, they can use it as a jump-off point for various excursions. As a side note, this interesting public plaza in San Francisco is often the site for protests, which are relatively common in this liberal-minded city. Stumbling upon a protest in Hallidie Plaza gives insight into the cultural fabric of the city, which can seem both easy and diificult to define.