Treasure Island's Front-Row Seat: The Skyline Across the Water
From the island in the middle of the bay — built for a world's fair, remade ever since — San Francisco arranges itself into its most complete portrait.
There is a spot, on the western shore of Treasure Island, where San Francisco stops being a collection of neighborhoods and becomes a single composition: the skyline stacked against its hills, the Bay Bridge running off to the right, the bay in front doing whatever the light tells it to do. Photographers know the spot. So does anyone who has ever pulled off the bridge just to look.
Treasure Island itself is an artifact — built on Yerba Buena Shoals in the 1930s for the Golden Gate International Exposition, then taken over by the Navy during the Second World War, then passed, in stages, toward its current chapter of redevelopment: new housing, parks and a ferry connection joining the island to the city it faces.
The view explains the island's whole history. From here, San Francisco is close enough to read and far enough to admire — the Transamerica Pyramid and Salesforce Tower marking downtown, the hills of the city rolling west, Mount Sutro and Twin Peaks closing the frame. At dusk in November, the office towers light first, then the windows on the hills, then the bridge.
For now the island remains a place of contrasts: fairgrounds-era bones and construction fences, a marina and yacht club calm, and that famous shoreline where the city poses for its portrait. The redevelopment will change the foreground over the coming years. The background is not negotiable.
Cross the bridge at golden hour and take the exit. Some views explain a city. This one introduces it.
