Read an Excerpt
"Stairway Walks in San Francisco retains the city's history, appreciates the city's beauty, and most importantly, encourages healthy activity."
—Gavin Newsom, Lieutenant Governor of California, from the foreword to this book
FROM THE INTRODUCTION
I had the pleasure of meeting Adah 15 years ago at the San Francisco Public Main Library. I am so glad I told Adah how much I enjoyed her walks back then, and I am so glad too that we've had so many good walks together as well. Like Adah, I am blessed to live here, and we both are humbled by the friendly strangers and locals we meet daily, especially when we let a walk take us on a new adventure around town or up a familiar stairway and hill in any sort of weather.
Adah sees how stairways knit our neighborhoods together, embracing our various little enclaves strung along over hill and yonder dale. My own interest in the city took on a new dimension once I started exploring it through Adah's stairway walks, and I never doubt what treasures I can still discover when escalating by foot, tread, and riser to the next platform up ahead. I am honored to continue this work for Adah, happily highlighting all the little gems this city wants to share with us. Also, ascending ambulation is absolutely awesome, but let me walk that back—what I mean is, I enjoy walking up (and down) stairs too, so it's a great pleasure to continue Adah's stairway walks in this newest, eighth edition.
I have added two new walks and updated all 29 existing walks with new information, where changes or improvements that impacted the walk or its landmarks occurred since the last edition. Look for the Adah Bakalinsky Stairway in Walk 30 (The Good View). Imagine what once was a brawling bowery and bustling immigrant community now scraped away from tiny Irish Hill in Walk 31 (The Serendipity Slipknot), which still includes one stairway.
But before we get started, and for those of you who have not been on this journey with Adah before, let me first say a bit more about where you are at least reading about walking, if you are not already moving, around there, or here—right now.
All civilizations have built stairs, and the oldest still preserved date back to 7000 BCE. The Greeks and, before them, the Egyptians, and then, before them, Phoenicians, Sumerians, and Elamites too, used steps and terraces to farm, travel, pray, and even practice sacrifice. Moving up was desired and beneficial, unless you were, of course, an unwilling sacrifice.
Because stairs have been used for so long, their inventor is probably lost to the ages. However, ever since those first unknown walkers pressed their soles into soft earth and yielding roots in the hill ahead, and until they clambered onward and upward just to get where they wanted to go or to escape what they wanted to get away from, stairs were just waiting to be discovered.
Classical stairway design influenced European design, from Italy with Palladio to France with Nicolas Blondel, the standard design for tread and riser became part of architectural treatises and materials widely adopted and used from the 17th through the 20th centuries in both America and Europe, and these designs still influence public and private stairway design in cities worldwide.
San Francisco is a "walking city." Built upon 43 hills, with another 28 thrown in for good measure, the city is surrounded by the Bay on the east, the Pacific Ocean to the west, a peninsula to the south, and the Golden Gate to the north. Within these confines, however, variety is constant. Light and water combine to produce striking effects on bridges and buildings throughout the day; and at sunset, beams of light dramatize the hills and sides of houses, casting colors like Cézanne. Mirrored tiles and windows glitter like mosaic tiles on the magic stairway at Moraga and 16th Avenue, and its fantastic new sibling at 16th and Kirkham, the Hidden Garden Steps. Come out at sunrise, sunset, in the fog, or in the sun, and take a walk.
Hills and mountains were made to be climbed, and stairways make it easier to traverse them. The hills accelerate changes in perspective as you walk around corners or circle the ridges. Landmarks recede and suddenly emerge in a landscape abounding in inclines and angled streets. The Mt. Sutro TV Tower viewed from the mid-Sunset District is a beautiful sky sculpture; from the Sutro Urban Forest, it looks like a ship in space. From Ashbury Heights, it looks pedestrian. Then it appears large again, and within touching distance from the Outer Sunset District; now walk two blocks toward it, and it appears distant and small.
The streets of San Francisco range from comparatively flat, such as Irving, to almost vertical, such as sections of Duboce, Filbert, and Duncan. The city's founders and developers found grading the streets on hills a primary obstacle when converting San Francisco from a tent town into a city of timbered houses. Some of the hills were completely demolished in the process; others were cut into without much planning. When the task seemed insurmountable, the "street" ended. Our streets were pummeled and pushed into rectangular grids familiar from the East Coast, but inappropriate for our terrain. Paved streets often follow the contours of hills, but the stairways allow a direct vertical approach from one street to another. They provide accessibility to public transportation; they provide safety in case of fire; and they limit degradation of the land. Plus everyone loves a shortcut.
Within the city limits, there are more than 671 stairways of all descriptions: crooked, straight, short, long, concrete, wood, balustraded, unadorned, narrow, and wide. Some of the stairways are not as easily identified; look on the sidewalk to see if the stairway name is given there—sometimes it is even if a stairway does not have a sign. Sometimes their names are assumed, much like those of some lesser-known hills in the city are.
These walks are designed for the curious walker who loves to explore. Each walk takes between two and two and a half hours if you enjoy all the sights, scents, and sounds along the way. Walks in more well-known neighborhoods like Pacific Heights and Telegraph Hill are here, as are walks in less well-known neighborhoods like Eureka Valley, Edgehill, and Dogpatch. All of the walks offer visual interest in the immediate setting and surrounding areas and also often produce new organic stories shared by neighbors near the stairs.
The walks are best enjoyed at a pace considered reasonable or steady—give yourself time to look around. The pace of a walk is almost as important as its length or difficulty since everyone needs to give themselves more time to think and imagine. Here, your destination is the walk, so you've already arrived. By slowing down, walking half as fast, and taking in what surrounds you, time is the bonus, the joy is in the moving, and the reward is in the path.
The beginning point of each walk can be reached by public transportation. Buses are available at several points of most walks, and alternate routes are occasionally suggested for specific reasons. Some of the walks are quite strenuous, but the rewards of stupendous views and delightful discoveries justify the effort.
In order to appreciate the scaffolding of the city and the variety of neighborhoods within a whistle's call, I've included some graceful links to other walks in other neighborhoods that can be traversed comfortably in a single session. Look for these recommendations in each walk's Further Rambling section.
Using the map given for a particular walk is helpful if you can locate yourself; use the map legend, and orient yourself on the map and the points of the compass. Each walk's quick-step instructions correspond to the numbered circles on its map. Orienting yourself will help you know which direction you are facing when you can't see the sun rising in the east or setting in the west, when it is foggy, for instance. Look for street numbers and landmarks too, and always watch for traffic. Always look carefully when crossing streets, and remember drivers may not see you if they are distracted, so do be careful.
I suggest that walkers carry the following gear to make their adventure more comfortable: binoculars, a city map, a compass, water, fruit, sunscreen, and layered clothing, especially long pants and long-sleeved shirts for walks where vegetation may hide poison oak. I use the directions left and right, but also the compass points (north, east, south, and west) to provide additional assurance. I also highly recommend the map "Nature in the City," which is available for free from the Department of Recreation and Parks. It shows the parks and other green areas in the city.
This edition includes an updated list of every public stairway in San Francisco (see the appendix). Charles Brock has walked every public stairway and every step in San Francisco, and his efforts doubled the previous list. We added one new stairway to this edition's list and are on the lookout for new public stairways to add as necessary. The descriptions in the walks were up-to-date at publication time. However, neighborhoods continually evolve. If you find discrepancies, please inform Wilderness Press.
