It's hip, it's cool, it's cutting edge, it's confusing!   What else can you say about Mission Arts and Media area, the multi-named millennial Mecca for the creative and inventive? Called everything from "No Name Gulch", to "Audio Gulch", to "New Media Gulch" by The San Francisco Chronicle, the Bay Guardian and San Francisco Weekly (and even, mistakenly, "Potrero," by some), this six block area surrounded by SOMA, Potrero Hill, Inner Mission, Mission Dolores, Noe Valley and Bernal Heights begs a definitive name! Finally, we'll call it Mission Arts and Media Gulch of NEIMA (North East Inner Mission Area) where you're no more than a Razor scooter ride from a multi-culti multitude of attractions and contradictions. It's San Francisco's ever-evolving neighborhood, a business, cultural and artistic Mecca supporting a melange of the city's oldest and newest cultures.        In its midst is Franklin Square Lofts, situated diagonally across from Franklin Square Park to the northeast and Project Artaud's artist community to the west. Recently transformed from an industrial site to a hotbed of activity with its audio and high tech companies, photographic, industrial design, and arts organizations and studios, multi-media businesses, live/work loft complexes, a small private theater, and a rock climbing gym, the streamlined landscape of Franklin Square Lofts' NEIMA neighborhood offers outstanding upscale restaurants and friendly cafes. Walk just two blocks for a gastronomical treat of whimsical fare at the industrial-yet-plush Gordon's House of Fine Eats (named by the SF Gate as "one of the top 100 Bay Area restaurants" and "upscale dining for the ascendant audio mogul" by the SF Chronicle), housed in a 1930s warehouse with dramatically high ceilings, open kitchen, rotating artwork and a lively bar. Stay till evening when the place really gets hopping with live jazz, gospel, country, or bluegrass. Or toast a corporate coup at the raucous Potrero Brewing Company (Florida Street) with its industrial-chic bar, dining room and pool tables and a huge terrace warmed by heat lamps when the San Francisco sun falls short. Or cruise NEIMA's wide variety of cafés: lounge on a window-side sofa at the Circadia Coffeehouse (just steps from Franklin Lofts), where you can linger over latte while you enjoy internet access or a low-key local jazz ensemble, sample world-class cuisine at the Universal Café, the neighborhood's elegantly appointed hideaway where the salads are stellar and the seared filet mignon flirts with perfection. Savor the all-you-can-eat barbecue on Atlas Café's sunny terrace or crash on a cozy couch with the best yam and tomato sandwich this side of the Mason Dixon line. Sample sushi to die for at NEIMA's sexy, trendy Blowfish Sushi to Die For, a sleek high-tech-meets-bamboo space dominated by space-age lights and animation cells. Or steal away to watch a practice of the San Francisco Fog Rugby Football Club, the nation's second multicultural rugby club (and the only "fog" you'll find in sunny NEIMA!), right at Franklin Square (16th St. @ Potrero). Join other professionals, artists and students at the Cell Artist Cooperative (Bryant and 18th) for a rollicking night of roller skating. Marvel at the neighborhood talent at any of the myriad galleries and studios the neighborhood has to offer including the adventurous, risk-taking non-profit Southern Exposure Gallery (Alabama Street), nominated for Best Gallery for its artist-friendly, multimedia approach, where youthful, ragged-around-the-edges multimedia melanges (painting, sculpture, video, installation) are showcased. Check out the Four Walls Art Space (16th Street), an up-and-coming gallery housed in a renovated fire house, replete with the old station's fire pole holes, multiple windows, and wooden floors. And, mere steps from the Lofts on Bryant Street, discover the Melting Point Gallery and The Crucible Steel Gallery, a project of CELL (Collectively Explorative Learning Labs) where the CELL's own artists, neighborhood youth, and the public display everything from video, film, and photography to fine art, sculpture, and puppets. Attend one of its lectures, panel discussions, and poetry readings. Or make the short sprint to Pretzel's Yoga (Carolina St.) where the audio gulch alleyites go to unwind. Quieter than most, Franklin Square Lofts enjoys accessibility complemented by privacy, the stimulation of the street with the inspiration of the arts. Work, play, work out or sleep in. This is really living in Franklin Square Lofts.    To the north of NEIMA are SOMA (South of Market), South Park, Multimedia Gulch - San Francisco's most up-to-the-nanosecond destinations. SOMA's history is as varied as it is salty. The SOMA of today would be virtually unrecognizable to an early 20th century time traveler: first, the earthquake and fire of 1906 devoured most of its vulnerable wooden structures so few pre-fire buildings remain. Then, the 20's brought the return of industry and inexpensive workers' housing while flophouses, liquor stores, second-hand stores, and a vocal Socialist movement distinguished the 30's. Fast forward to the 60's and 70's when bars, bathhouses, and back alleys were at their height. The 80's brought an influx of artists and computer nerds. Today, trends are being set as we speak. It's a New Media Mecca with a New York-meets-Venice Beach ambience. Shirtless skateboarders whiz along the palm-tree-lined waterfront past hipsters in basic black with headsets, palm pilots and the ever-present cup of Peets coffee. Underground comic book publishers compete for warehouse space with comically-named dotcoms. Fine arts flourish in SOMA's museum/ arts district where the Museum of Modern Art and the Yuerba Buena Center, a new $2 billion complex including an ice-skating rink and children's museum, cutting edge shopping, fabulous dining, a 15-screen cinema with an Imax theater, the five-acre Esplanade Garden atop the Moscone Convention Center, a children's carousel and more, make this area a virtual sensory celebration. Looking to indulge just two of your senses? Try the Flower Market Cafe where an omelet, coffee, and first dibs on the freshest flowers to be found in the city are yours for the asking. And imagine living this close to PacBell Park, the new 13-acre $255 million home of the San Francisco Giants. Now walk two blocks and look for multimedia up-and-comers Looksmart, Wired magazine, and others in any of the stunningly renovated warehouses in South Park, a.k.a. Multimedia Gulch. A cybercity in itself, this neighborhood supports a booming population of the dotcommed and hip while maintaining street names of 20th century luminaries like South Park native Jack London. Gone are the machine shops, garages and run-down warehouses of yesterday-- today it's architectural firms, smart new microbreweries, tree-lined streets and luxury condos. Here is where both the unplugged and the connected work and play: browse a gallery, sample world-class cuisine, elbow-rub with multimedia whiz kids at the latest IPO party! From the leather men of Folsom Street to the techies of South Park to the oddly Miami-esque South Beach to the crack of a bat at PacBell, variety is the spice of SOMA.       To the east, built upon one of the gentler sloping hills in the city, hovering over SoMa and the Mission District, is Potrero Hill. Those nostalgic for San Francisco's Barbary Coast days of farms, forests and sand dunes will delight in its name, derived from the Spanish word for "colt", conjuring visions of horse-grazed pastures. Today, this smart, quaint hillside enclave promises wondrous views of downtown, a robust dotcom economy, a variety of topnotch restaurants and a plethora of shopping opportunities. Its thriving neighborhood community of solid middle and upper-middle class single professionals and families occupy festive Victorians, adobe-styled, stucco homes in pretty pastels or mid-70s Bauhaus style abodes framed by friendly local businesses. Refurbished warehouses provide a lively alternative for both private residences and businesses. Grown-ups enjoy baseball, basketball and tennis at the Potrero Recreational Center while kids swing or skateboard and dogs frolic after Frisbees at nearby McKinley Park. Catch a show at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House Multi-ethnic Theatre or a course at The American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Locals frequent the neighborhood's mellow pubs and restaurants, patronize its generous produce and whole food markets, cafes, and coffee shops. The northwest quadrant offers a variety of furniture stores, antique dealers, auto-body shops, and design firms. Impressive all, but Potrero Hill's claim to fame is probably its Vermont Street, undeniably the "crookedest street" in San Francisco, with its six hairpin turns and its 14.3% grade. Sunny Portrero Hill: small and progressive, warm and a bit crooked, and always welcoming. The Inner Mission district itself has always been the city's melting pot, a fun mix of the chaotic and colorful, and it continues to boil as the old-media muralists and the new-media netniks struggle to share this rapidly-changing area. Settled by immigrants of every stripe - Irish and Italians driven from other areas of the City by the 1906 quake, Mexicans and Central Americans fleeing revolution and oppression, artists and bohemians in search of affordable rent, dotcoms and techies drawn to the music and arts scene - the Mission remains one of San Francisco's most vibrant neighborhoods. Its rich history is written on its walls, where hundreds of murals adorn buildings from Balmy Alley to the BART station at 24th Street, and on the faces of its eclectic residents. You'll find both dogs and do-gooders at Dolores Park, where San Francisco's legendary political protests often begin or end. The Mission's restaurants and clubs are as diverse as its population, from burrito joints and tapas bars to upscale bistros and trendy night spots. Whether it's snacking on plantains or papayas in the open market, perusing paperbacks in the Middle Eastern bookstore, or a paella picnic in the park, the Mission never fails to please.     To the west lies Mission Dolores, named for San Francisco's oldest structure, dating from 1776 when it was established by Spanish San Franciscans as one of 21 missions set a day's travel apart along the California coast. Visitors to this squat building, dwarfed by the towers of the neighboring Mission Dolores Basilica, walk its crude tile floors between thick adobe walls to see the brightly painted Baroque altar under a breathtaking ceiling covered with earth-toned chevron designs. On the south side lies a small crowded cemetery where both the famous (Don Luis Antonio Arguello, first governor of California) and the infamous (James P. Casey, murderer of the crusading newspaper editor James King of William) are buried. The surrounding area offers generous tree-lined streets coupled with the convenience of stores and eateries on nearly every corner. Also to the west is the comparatively tranquil, charming Noe Valley, described by Zippy the Pinhead cartoonist Bill Griffith as an "urban mall" for java junkies who enjoy the luxury of a home office. Once occupied by expansive sheep and cattle ranches, today's Noe Valley is one of San Francisco's most bucolic neighborhoods: impressive residences only briefly interrupted by tony boutiques, a few banks, eclectic eateries and a post office. Middle class and liberal, its residents enjoy the safety and security of a small town where "everybody knows your name" and sidewalk strolls turn social in seconds. South of Portrero Hill lies Bernal Heights. Looking for a date? How about some locally produced honey? Find these and more any time of year at the Bernal Heights Farmers' Market. This shamefully sunny, middle-class neighborhood of 25,000 offers a variety of remodeled, single-family, owner-occupied homes at shockingly reasonable prices. Its lovely Queen Anne cottages and 19th century bungalows fronted by beautifully maintained lawns, complemented by a community alive with activism and ethnic diversity, make this a most desirable place to live. Sick of overdevelopment? The Guardian calls Bernal Heights "the city's last great neighborhood;" credit a formidable community resistance to chain stores and strip malls for its enviable small village flavor. Bernal Heights prides itself on its eclectic, community-minded independent spirit, and its friendly and diverse population of all ethnicities and lifestyles. Here, shopkeepers greet their customers by name. The playground bustles with regulars. Folks crowd the avenue on a warm night to network or mingle and chat. Blink twice and you're Downtown, it's that easy. Or stay in Bernal Heights: take in its awesome views, browse the music stores or arts and crafts shops, toss back a cold one or schmooze over sushi at one of its many local bars and restaurants, meet and greet dogs walking their humans in Holly and Bernal Heights parks or uncover a treasure at Sunday morning's massive flea market.