Real World: Ex-Plosion

The Avalon Ballroom was a music venue in the Polk Gulch neighborhood of San Francisco, California, at 1244 Sutter Street (or 1268 Sutter, depending on the entrance). The space is known as the location of many concerts of the counterculture movement, from around 1966 to 1969. It also had a reopening 34 years later, from 2003 to 2005.

The Mantra-Rock Dance was a counterculture music event held on January 29, 1967, at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. It was organized by followers of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) as an opportunity for its founder, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, to address a wider public. It was also a promotional and fundraising effort for their first center on the West Coast of the United States.The Mantra-Rock Dance featured some of the most prominent Californian rock groups of the time, such as the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, as well as the then relatively unknown Moby Grape. The bands agreed to appear with Prabhupada and to perform for free; the proceeds were donated to the local Hare Krishna temple. The participation of countercultural leaders considerably boosted the event's popularity; among them were the poet Allen Ginsberg, who led the singing of the Hare Krishna mantra onstage along with Prabhupada, and LSD promoters Timothy Leary and Augustus Owsley Stanley III.The Mantra-Rock Dance concert was later called "the ultimate high" and "the major spiritual event of the San Francisco hippie era." It led to favorable media exposures for Prabhupada and his followers, and brought the Hare Krishna movement to the wider attention of the American public. The 40th anniversary of the Mantra-Rock Dance was commemorated in 2007 in Berkeley, California.

The Scottish Rites Bodies Regency Center (commonly known as the Regency Center) is a multi-use events venue located in San Francisco. at the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Sutter Street. It opened in 1909 as a masonic lodge. In later years, it has served as a dance studio and movie theatre.

Divas Nightclub & Bar was a San Francisco nightclub located at 1081 Post Street in the Polk Gulch neighborhood of San Francisco, California, where it was located since 1998, prior to closing. With three floors, the club catered predominately to trans women and their admirers, until it closed on March 30, 2019. Prior to its location at 1081 Post Street, Divas had opened in 1989 across the street at the corner of Post and Larkin, under the name Motherload.

Polk Street (also sometimes referred to by its German name, Polkstrasse) is a street in San Francisco, California, that travels northward from Market Street to Beach Street and is one of the main thoroughfares of the Polk Gulch neighborhood traversing through the Tenderloin, Nob Hill, and Russian Hill neighborhoods. The street takes its name from former U.S. President James K. Polk. The street also has bike lanes, which were approved in 2002. San Francisco bike route 25 runs along Polk Street, and is the only North-South route suitable for casual bicycle travel within at least a mile in either direction. Some of the changes have been debated by residents and the improvements have continued as part of the SFMTA Polk Streetscape Project and Shared Spaces program, which has allocated outdoor street space for local businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Standard Oil Gasoline Station is the last remaining gas station branded with Standard Oil in California, United States. It maintains this branding to maintain Chevron's claim to the trademark in California. It is located at 1501 Van Ness Avenue (as part of U.S. Route 101) in San Francisco, on the northwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and Pine Street. The station was reconstructed in 2022 and added one of Chevron's proprietary ExtraMile convenience stores, replacing what was previously a cashier kiosk. Besides the name, it operates as a typical Chevron.

Goodman Building, also known as the Emeric Building and the St. Beryl Hotel, is a historic commercial and residential building, built in 1860 and located at 1117 Geary Boulevard in Cathedral Hill, San Francisco, California.The building is listed as a San Francisco Designated Landmark since February 28, 1975, for the historical cultural value as it was an artist community and not for architectural significance.

Mountain View Academy is a private secondary school in Mountain View, California, USA. It is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (IASHS) was a private unaccredited for-profit graduate school and resource center in the field of sexology in San Francisco, California. It was established in 1976 and closed in 2018. Degree and certificate programs focused on public health, sex therapy, and sexological research. The institute grew out of research in the 1960s highlighting the general lack of understanding and formal training in human sexuality. Its library and archives were a collection of adult films, academic sexological and erotological resources, and sex therapy training materials. Like all post-secondary schools in California, IASHS was required by California law to register with the State of California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, an anti-fraud or anti-diploma mill unit of the California Department of Consumer Affairs. IASHS had BPPE "approval to operate", which means that IASHS met the minimum legal standards for "offering of bona fide instruction by qualified faculty". That approval was discontinued in 2014. In 2017, the institute's attempt to renew operation was denied.

The Theodore F. Payne House, also known as the Payne Mansion, is a Victorian house in the Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California, United States. Built in 1881 and designed by William Curlett in a mix of Stick, Eastlake, and Queen Anne styles, it survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It has been adapted to house a hotel and a restaurant.

The Uptown Tenderloin Historic District is a historic district located in the Tederloin neighborhood of San Francisco, California, U.S.. It has 408 contributing buildings and covers roughly a 33-city block radius in downtown San Francisco. The Uptown Tenderloin Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 5, 2009, for architecture and social history.

Swan Oyster Depot is a seafood eatery and cultural landmark located in the Polk Gulch neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It opened there in 1903 and except for a brief hiatus and rebuilding period following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it has been running continuously in the same venue since that time. This makes it one of the longest continuous businesses and dining establishments in the United States. Swan's menu has remained largely unchanged throughout its history, and it has had exactly the same 18 wooden stools and marble counter that were installed for the post-earthquake reopening in 1912.