As you walk down Ross Alley, you may just pass this fortune cookie factory, but the aroma of the freshly made fortune cookies will draw you in. This factory has been supplying fortune cookies to Chinatown and around the world since 1962. Within a few paces of the entrance you can see fortune cookies being made right in front of you. First, the thin circular cookie is pulled off a hot press. Then, a fortune is placed on one side of the hot, flat dough. Next, each soft, hot cookie is shaped over a steel rod into the shape of a fortune cookie.  This process must be done very quickly, otherwise the cookie will harden before it has the right fortune cookie shape. When you are inside the factory, you will be amazed at how quickly the fortune cookies are made. Come experience the fortune cookie factory and taste freshly made fortune cookies.

Hovering delicately above the sidewalk, a sculptural canopy of angled and overlapping glass and steel pianos is held aloft in the eaves along the building’s frontage. These pianos, made from salvaged factory windows, are the building blocks of a physically commanding monumental sculpture. Brimming with entropic energies of a force of nature, this arrangement of materials on the side of a building evokes a precarious equilibrium of objects in space.Upright, grand and baby grand pianos, are intricately tied together with rope and supported from below by finely crafted wood braces. Here the formal rather than the functional qualities of the somewhat familiar components make up a single cohesive sculpture, citing Land Art in an Urban setting and bricolage emphasizing the artistic opportunities in quotidian objects. The pianos glimmer and shimmer during the day, as rays of natural light refract through the glass pianos and create brilliant prismatic patterns on the building and the sidewalk.  From dusk until dawn warm light emanate from the pianos, harmonically flickering to the majesty of Enrico Caruso’s operatic recordings. It is as if Enrico Caruso and his fellow performers appear as illuminated essences moving inside the pianos passing from one to another inside the composition, as actors move across a stage. An operatic drama unfolds as pedestrians discover the source and relationship of faint stirrings of opera music. By tuning into a short range FM transmitter, hidden within a single piano, discerning listeners will discover that they may be serenaded by the particular Caruso recording which inspired that moment’s light visualization dancing through the pianos.

Parking garages get no respect. You pay a premium to drive up tight corkscrew ramps, searching for an open spot as rare as an endangered bird, only to squeeze your rustbucket right between two SUVs. But the North Beach Garage makes parking fun by painting clever sayings on the floor of each parking stall. Since this 204-space garage is technically in Chinatown, fortune cookies pop to mind, but the quotes mix aphorisms ("What goes around comes around") and New Age positive thinking ("This is the greatest day of your life") with bits of advice ("The time is right to make new friends").  An open-air atrium with tall bamboo plantings adds to the garage's Zen decor. Try not to be tempted to pass up open spots in search of a better fortune ("Your sense of humor is enjoyed by all") — it tends to tick off your passengers. Prices range from $2.50 per hour for shorter stays (less than 4 hours), $3 per hour for longer; daily and monthly rates available. Open 24 hours.