Wide streets of brick warehouses and concrete lofts, and the Hall of Justice that Dirty Harry filmed as the real SFPD headquarters.
What South of Market looks like
The street grid here runs parallel to Market Street rather than the city's usual compass rows, so the blocks meet Market at an angle near . The roadways are wider than the blocks around them, and narrow alleys cut off them every few hundred feet.
Two and three storey concrete loft buildings from the 1920s line many of those alleys, brick warehouses standing beside them with loading docks still cut into their ground floors. Glass office towers rise directly behind that older stock. An alley off still has an embedded rail spur running down its paving, with fire escapes climbing the brick walls on either side.
A few blocks east, is a long oval green ringed by three and four storey buildings. Nearby, is a low two storey wood frame building, bay windows and dark blue paint. It sits wedged between brick warehouses. The 's glass exhibit halls take up several blocks near Howard Street. The runs the length of its own block on Bryant Street, a grey stone institutional building seven storeys tall with cars parked along the curb.
Shot in South of Market
Three films used the Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant Street as itself, the working police headquarters and courts building on the block. Each one used a different part of it.
Dirty Harry, 1971
The Hall of Justice
Dirty Harry filmed here as the real San Francisco Police Department headquarters, where Harry Callahan works. The building's rear exterior returned in Basic Instinct as the police precinct, and The Laughing Policeman shot its coroner's office and morgue as well.
The brick warehouse loft conversions along its wide streets are the closest match for the older industrial stock, and some still have an embedded rail spur in the pavement. Palm trees, distant hills and denser mural coverage give Los Angeles away in a wide shot. Try searching brick warehouse loft conversions now.
Fulton Market District in Chicago, Illinois
This district has brick warehouses from its meatpacking days beside new glass office towers on wide, truck width streets, much like the loft blocks here. Keep wider shots off the elevated Metra viaduct and the old stockyards gates, which belong to Chicago rather than San Francisco. Try searching brick meatpacking warehouses now.
SoDo in Seattle, Washington
Wide streets built for trucking run past concrete and brick warehouses here as well, boxed in by a stadium district and new office towers. Hillier terrain and rain darkened brick show up in any wider or distant frame. Try searching wide trucking streets now.
