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4624705-Grace Cathedral in Nob Hill San Francisco San Francisco

Grace Cathedral in Nob Hill

Nob Hill is very distinct neighborhood in San Francisco and named a signature neighborhood, renowned for its city landmarks and the famous hotels.

The actual peak of Nob Hill lies slightly to the northwest, approximately at the intersection of Jones and Sacramento Streets. South of Nob Hill is the shopping district of Union Square, the Tenderloin neighborhood, and Market Street. To the east is San Francisco's Chinatown and a little farther, the city's financial district. Northeast of Nob Hill is North Beach and Telegraph Hill. North of Nob Hill is Russian Hill, and eventually, the tourist-centered areas of the waterfront such as Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf.

Nob Hill is an affluent district, home to many of the city's upper-class families as well as a large young urban professional population, and a growing Chinese immigrant population from a slowly encroaching Chinatown to the east. Sometimes it is sarcastically referred to as Snob Hill. The intersection of California and Powell streets is the location of its four well-known and most expensive hotels: the Fairmont Hotel, the Mark Hopkins Hotel, the Stanford Court, and the Huntington Hotel. Interestingly, they represent also three names out of The Big Four. The Fairmont is also named for a San Francisco tycoon, James G. Fair.


Nob Hill is also well known for Grace Cathedral, a famous Episcopal cathedral. It is the cathedral church of the Episcopal Diocese of California, once state-wide in area, now comprising parts of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The cathedral has become an international pilgrimage center for church-goers and visitors alike, famed for its mosaics by De Rosen, a replica of Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise, two labyrinths, varied stained glass windows, Keith Haring AIDS Chapel altarpiece, and medieval and contemporary furnishings, as well as its 44 bell carillon, three organs, and choirs. It contains one of only seven remaining Episcopal men and boys cathedral choirs, the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys, along with two other choirs with its corresponding boys K-8 school in the United States, along with Washington National Cathedral.

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