West Portal, San Francisco, California
Encyclopedia
West Portal is a small neighborhood in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. Like adjacent Forest Hill and St. Francis Wood, West Portal is an affluent, primarily residential area of the City. The neighborhood's main corridor, West Portal Avenue, serves as a principal shopping district of southwestern San Francisco.

Location

West Portal is located at the southern edge of the hills in central San Francisco. The neighborhood is named for the western terminus of the Muni
San Francisco Municipal Railway
The San Francisco Municipal Railway is the public transit system for the city and county of San Francisco, California. In 2006, it served with an operating budget of about $700 million...

 tunnel beneath
Twin Peaks Tunnel
The Twin Peaks Tunnel is a long light rail transit/streetcar tunnel in San Francisco, California, United States, running under Twin Peaks. When it was opened on February 3, 1918, it was one of the longest railway tunnels in the world . It was the longest U.S...

 Twin Peaks that opened in 1918. The ride in the subway from West Portal to Union Square is about fifteen minutes.

Characteristics

Because of its small size and mom and pop stores, restaurants, and saloons, the neighborhood is often described as having a village atmosphere. The neighborhood is served by a branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Like Glen Park
Glen Park, San Francisco, California
Glen Park is a small neighborhood in San Francisco, California, named for the adjacent Glen Canyon Park.-Location:It is at the southern edge of the hills in the interior of the city, to the south of Diamond Heights and Noe Valley, west of Bernal Heights, and east of Glen Canyon Park...

, the neighborhood is one of San Francisco's metro-centered communities.

The frequent fog helps keep the area green in the usually rainless summer months, and on a clear day, the park above the tunnel provides a view of the Marin Headlands
Marin Headlands
The Marin Headlands is a hilly area at the southernmost end of Marin County, California, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Headlands are located just north of San Francisco, immediately across the Golden Gate Bridge. The entire area is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...

 and the Farallon Islands
Farallon Islands
The Farallon Islands, or Farallones , are a group of islands and sea stacks in the Gulf of the Farallones, off the coast of San Francisco, California, USA. They lie outside the Golden Gate and south of Point Reyes, and are visible from the mainland on clear days...

 in the Pacific
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

.
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