Spot street artists touching up pieces and making new ones in this open-air gallery, maintained by neighbors and Clarion Alley Collective's curators. Only a few pieces survive for years, such as Megan Wilson's daisy-covered Tax the Rich or Jet Martinez' glimpse of Clarion Alley inside a forest spirit.

When Mission muralistas objected to US policy in Latin America in the 1970s, they took to the streets with paintbrushes. Inspired by Diego Rivera's 1930s San Francisco murals, Mujeres Muralistas ("Women Muralists") and Placa ("Mark-making") covered Balmy Alley garage doors and back fences with murals of pride and protest. Today Balmy Alley artworks span three decades, from memorials honoring Salvadoran activist Archbishop Romero to a homage to Frida Kahlo.

A renowned and beloved Mission landmark since 1979, the nation's first women-owned-and-operated community center has housed 150 women's organizations - but it's recognized around the world for its awe-inspiring wraparound murals. Painted in 1994 by dozens of SF muralistas, Maestrapeace murals depict feminist icons from around the world, including Nobel Prize–winner Rigoberta Menchú, poet Audre Lorde, artist Georgia O'Keeffe and former US Surgeon General Dr Joycelyn Elders.

You're always in excellent company in the Castro, where sidewalk plaques honor LGBT+ heroes. The walk runs along Market Street from Noe Street to Casto Street and down Castro from Market to 20th Street. Portraits are etched into the bronze plaques, and many are familiar faces: civil rights activist James Baldwin, artist Keith Haring, author Virginia Woolf, disco diva Sylvester. Honorees are suitably bathed in glory every night, when they're illuminated by rainbow LEDs.

A project of the Exploratorium, the Wave Organ is a sound sculpture of PVC tubes and concrete pipes capped with found marble from San Francisco's old cemetery, built into the tip of the yacht-harbor jetty. Depending on the waves, winds, and tide, the installation emits sound like nervous humming from a dinnertime line cook or spooky heavy breathing over the phone in a slasher film.