This is a love poem in prose-a shining ode to the most beautiful, sophisticated, decadent, provincial, elusive, and utterly paradoxical city in America. It is also a romantic portrait-a masterwork that captures the incredible loveliness of the city's face even as it reveals a dark secret or two of its inconstant heart. This is THE FACE OF SAN FRANCISCO, from the Bay Bridge to the back alleys, from the dazzling mansions of Pacific Heights to the down-at-the-heels pads of North Beach-captured in words by the author of San Francisco Bay, and columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, Harold Gilliam, and caught in nearly 200 revealing faces by the camera of Phil Palmer (1911-1992).