Display and performance information is available at kiosks inside the plaza. Live jazz and blues is featured 6-9 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month. Besides maintaining the Ansel Adams permanent collection, the Friends host traveling exhibitions, publish catalogs, monographs and critical anthologies, and present educational programs. The Embarcadero Promenade, renamed Herb Caen Way after the late San Francisco Chronicle columnist, offers history, architecture, public art and splendid waterfront views. Before the Golden Gate and Bay bridges were built, the 8 Ferry Building was the city's transit hub.
Ferries still carry residents and tourists between the city and points east and north.
The latter, plus Red s Java House at Pier 30, date from an era when shipping was big business in the city and each pier had its own Java House. From Pier 40, walk to 14 South Park, a tranquil square surrounded by stately, restored Georgian houses, once the dwellings of 19th-century cattle kings, senators and other powers. At the south end of Jack London Alley, at Third and Brannan, a 15 plaque on the Wells Fargo building marks the birthplace of the famous writer.