The San Francisco Ferry Building

The San Francisco Ferry Building's latest incarnation as a gourmet marketplace has lasted just eight years, but it feels like it's been around for much longer. Much like New York's High Line, it was widely hailed as an instant classic on the day it opened, and continues to evolve, improve and delight.

During its zenith in the 1930s, 50,000 people a day rushed through the Ferry Building's vast skylit Grand Nave. It was second in traffic only to London's Charing Cross Station. New highways, bridges and railways in the last half of the century led to a slow decline. A hideous elevated freeway that blocked it from view and severed pedestrian traffic from Market Street didn't help matters. The freeway was demolished after the 1989 earthquake, and ten years later the city accepted bids for an ambitious $110 million dollar redevelopment project.

And so in 2003 a star was born. Dozens of local butchers, creameries, vintners and confectioners hung their shingles along with 175,000 square feet of gleaming new office space. The ferries continued to operate, transporting 11,000 commuters a day, but now their passengers could pick up sweet baguettes at Acme Bread Company and chunks of chèvre from the Cowgirl Creamery.

The Ferry Building is also justly renowned for perhaps the mother of all farmer's markets, which caters to thousands of people on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The best day to visit is Thursday, when the street food fare includes Korean pork tacos, fresh lox sandwiches, green tea lemonade and scoops of guava sorbet. Browse the aisles at Sur La Table or Book Passage, then steel yourself with a Blue Bottle espresso before setting out for a brisk afternoon constitutional along the Embarcadero.

For a pleasant evening of jazz and sushi, I recommend a sunset ferry ride across the bay to Jack London Square for dinner at Yoshi's. Free walking tours are offered at noon on Saturdays and Tuesdays, to coincide with the farmer's market. Validated parking is available at the Washington Embarcadero Lot directly across from the Ferry Building. On Saturdays the farmer's market offers a clever "veggie valet" service that holds perishables so that shoppers can continue browsing. -A.H.