Statue of Abraham Lincoln (San Francisco)

The Main Library is the primary library of the San Francisco Public Library, located in San Francisco's Civic Center.

San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. Re-opened in 1915 in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, it is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is taller than that of the United States Capitol by 42 feet (13 m). The present building replaced an earlier City Hall that was destroyed during the 1906 earthquake, which was two blocks from the present one. The principal architect was Arthur Brown, Jr., of Bakewell & Brown, whose attention to the finishing details extended to the doorknobs and the typeface to be used in signage. Brown also designed the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, Veterans Building, Temple Emanuel, Coit Tower and the Federal office building at 50 United Nations Plaza.

The City Attorney of San Francisco is an elected position in the City and County of San Francisco, California. While city-county consolidation resulted in the unified government attaining both a city attorney and a district attorney, the two positions are separate and serve different purposes. Whereas District Attorney office is, as is the case throughout the United States, charged with prosecuting crime (i.e. has the equivalent function of a Prosecutor's Office in other legislations), City Attorney provides legal services to the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, and the rest of the city and county administration, examines surety bonds, contracts and ordinances and represents the city and county administration in civil claims, formally as a representative of People of the State of California. The City Attorney is assisted by a number of Assistant City Attorneys.

San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed in San Francisco City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978. White was angry that Moscone had refused to reappoint him to his seat on the Board of Supervisors, from which he had just resigned, and that Milk had lobbied heavily against his reappointment. These events helped bring national notice to then-Board President Dianne Feinstein, who became the first female mayor of San Francisco and eventually U.S. Senator for California. White was subsequently convicted of voluntary manslaughter, rather than first-degree murder. The verdict sparked the "White Night riots" in San Francisco, and led to the state of California abolishing the diminished capacity criminal defense. It also led to the urban legend of the "Twinkie defense", as many media reports had incorrectly described the defense as having attributed White's diminished capacity to the effects of sugar-laden junk food. White committed suicide in 1985, a little more than a year after his release from prison.

Brooks Hall (originally Civic Center Exhibit Hall, nicknamed Mole Hall and Gopher Palace) is a disused 90,000 sq ft (8,400 m2) event space underneath the southern half of Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco; a parking garage occupies the space under the northern half. It was built in late 1950s for the cost of $4,500,000, and dedicated on April 11, 1958. It was named after Thomas A. Brooks, a chief administrative officer of city and county of San Francisco, who retired the same year the building was dedicated.

Civic Center Plaza, also known as Joseph Alioto Piazza, is the 4.53-acre (1.83 ha) plaza immediately east of San Francisco City Hall in Civic Center, San Francisco, in the U.S. state of California. Civic Center Plaza occupies two blocks bounded by McAllister, Larkin, Grove, and Carlton B. Goodlett (the section of Polk between City Hall and the plaza was renamed for Dr. Goodlett in 1999), divided into a north block and south block by the former alignment of Fulton Street. The block north of Fulton is built over a three-story parking garage (completed in 1960); the block south of Fulton lies over a former exhibition space, Brooks Hall (completed in 1958).

The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium (formerly San Francisco Civic Auditorium) is a multi-purpose arena in San Francisco, California, named after promoter Bill Graham. The arena holds 8,500 people.

The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It resides primarily in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacramento. Its decisions are binding on all other California state courts. Since 1850, the court has issued many influential decisions in a variety of areas including torts, property, civil and constitutional rights, and criminal law.

The San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center (SFWMPAC) is located in San Francisco, California. It is one of the largest performing arts centers in the United States. It covers 7.5 acres (3 hectares) in the Civic Center Historic District, and totals 7,500 seats among its venues.

The Earl Warren Building located at 350 McAllister Street in San Francisco, California is the headquarters of the Supreme Court of California. The building was completed in 1922, and is named for 30th governor of California and 14th Chief Justice of the United States, Earl Warren. The Supreme Court first held oral argument in the building in 1923. The building is part of the Ronald M. George State Office Complex (the San Francisco Civic Center Complex) along with the Hiram W. Johnson State Office Building.The building's facade features granite and terra-cotta masonry and is done in the Beaux-Arts architectural style. Inside, the courtroom for the Supreme Court is paneled in oak and features a coffered ceiling and a skylight 30 feet in height. A mural above the judges' bench depicts a California landscape. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the court vacated the building, eventually returning in 1999.

Untitled is a 1969 bronze sculpture by Sidney Gordin (1918–1996), installed outside San Francisco's Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, in the U.S. state of California.

The Museum of Performance + Design, formerly the San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum, is located in the Bayview District of San Francisco, California at 2200 Jerrold Avenue, Ste. T. The Museum collects and makes accessible materials about the performing arts, with a special emphasis on documenting and preserving the San Francisco Bay Area’s rich and diverse performing arts heritage from the Gold Rush to the present. The museum produces public and educational programs, provides library services to researchers, and conservation and archival services to performing arts institutions. The Museum's collection includes personal papers of prominent artists, original costumes and design renderings, audio-visual recordings of live performances, original artwork, other artifacts, and ephemera. The Museum also serves as the official archives for many local performing arts organizations including the San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Opera, Stern Grove Festival, and the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.