Telegraph Hill's steep-stairwayed eastside is another 'hood not climbed in a while. Always lotsa people up and down the Greenwich and Filbert steps up from Sansome and swarming all over Pioneer Park/Coit Tower at the top.
Started up the concrete part of the Filbert (383 total eastside from a previous list), climbing from Sansome. On the way up this (first pic) saw two guys behind me carrying a wood cabinet up from the foot. I hurried on ahead and others waited on the landing to descend until after the two had reached the first of the wood-Filbert houses.
The first offshoot from the wood Filbert stairway, Napier Lane, has always been one of my favorite "streets." This short boardwalk, with its mostly original old houses that survived the 1906 quake/fire, doesn't continue to the next stairway over, Greenwich. (The middle Napier dwelling in pic 2, #14 and #16, is a replacement for an older white house that was demolished in the early 1970s.)
Pic 3: 224 Filbert stairway, corner Napier. This and the one above it, 226 Filbert, got huge facelifts in the 1970s from the original tiny cottages.
The top of 228 Filbert looks the same (pic 4) as it did in the 1947 B&W film "Dark Passage."
Napier and Filbert have received replacement steps and wood planks in some spots (pic 5).
From divided Montgomery (pic 6), continued up the next long flight over, Greenwich (pics 7, 8) out to Pioneer Park/Coit Tower parking lot. On my way up this redbrick section of Greenwich, a couple was starting down this steep flight carrying a stroller-with-baby-inside. Looks like a new tiered garden is being planned midway alongside the upper stairway.
Ate lunch on a bench below the Tower in the park with its several stairways, then started my descent down the upper eastside Filbert concrete steps (pic 9). Back on Montgomery, started down the lower Greenwich steps to Sansome (pic 10).
This section of Greenwich has seen some new gardening efforts since my last visit, as in the first section down. Then the stairway makes a right turn past more gardens. There's a gardenwalk out to a slatted bench where you're welcome to rest, but you may not want to leave. Out from this bench is a dirt pathway that circles back to the main stairway/walk (pics 11, 12). As you continue on the walkway to the top of the down-stairway, you'll pass some active beehives.
Down on Sansome again, puffed back up to Montgomery on steep Vallejo to walk the Vallejo zigzag gardenspot stairs. The same two old side stairways are still there that were the only ones existing when I lived there in the '70s (pics 13, 14, 15, 16).
Since at the top of the Vallejo stairs (pic 17) the top of the Peter Maccchiarini Steps was nearby, took the west sidewalk stairway, the only stairway actually counted today, 154 steps down to Broadway (pics 18, 19, 20, 21). Supersteep Kearny in the center can't be accessed by vehicles to/from Vallejo at the top.
I miss the colorful old Chinese history mural called "Gold Mountain" that used to be on the right side of the Beat Museum at Romolo and Broadway. It got badly graffitied upon and was finally painted over as seen here: last pic.
Found this article about it:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Gold-Mountain-history-mural-marred-by-graffiti-2311106.php
Started up the concrete part of the Filbert (383 total eastside from a previous list), climbing from Sansome. On the way up this (first pic) saw two guys behind me carrying a wood cabinet up from the foot. I hurried on ahead and others waited on the landing to descend until after the two had reached the first of the wood-Filbert houses.
The first offshoot from the wood Filbert stairway, Napier Lane, has always been one of my favorite "streets." This short boardwalk, with its mostly original old houses that survived the 1906 quake/fire, doesn't continue to the next stairway over, Greenwich. (The middle Napier dwelling in pic 2, #14 and #16, is a replacement for an older white house that was demolished in the early 1970s.)
Pic 3: 224 Filbert stairway, corner Napier. This and the one above it, 226 Filbert, got huge facelifts in the 1970s from the original tiny cottages.
The top of 228 Filbert looks the same (pic 4) as it did in the 1947 B&W film "Dark Passage."
Napier and Filbert have received replacement steps and wood planks in some spots (pic 5).
From divided Montgomery (pic 6), continued up the next long flight over, Greenwich (pics 7, 8) out to Pioneer Park/Coit Tower parking lot. On my way up this redbrick section of Greenwich, a couple was starting down this steep flight carrying a stroller-with-baby-inside. Looks like a new tiered garden is being planned midway alongside the upper stairway.
Ate lunch on a bench below the Tower in the park with its several stairways, then started my descent down the upper eastside Filbert concrete steps (pic 9). Back on Montgomery, started down the lower Greenwich steps to Sansome (pic 10).
This section of Greenwich has seen some new gardening efforts since my last visit, as in the first section down. Then the stairway makes a right turn past more gardens. There's a gardenwalk out to a slatted bench where you're welcome to rest, but you may not want to leave. Out from this bench is a dirt pathway that circles back to the main stairway/walk (pics 11, 12). As you continue on the walkway to the top of the down-stairway, you'll pass some active beehives.
Down on Sansome again, puffed back up to Montgomery on steep Vallejo to walk the Vallejo zigzag gardenspot stairs. The same two old side stairways are still there that were the only ones existing when I lived there in the '70s (pics 13, 14, 15, 16).
Since at the top of the Vallejo stairs (pic 17) the top of the Peter Maccchiarini Steps was nearby, took the west sidewalk stairway, the only stairway actually counted today, 154 steps down to Broadway (pics 18, 19, 20, 21). Supersteep Kearny in the center can't be accessed by vehicles to/from Vallejo at the top.
I miss the colorful old Chinese history mural called "Gold Mountain" that used to be on the right side of the Beat Museum at Romolo and Broadway. It got badly graffitied upon and was finally painted over as seen here: last pic.
Found this article about it:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Gold-Mountain-history-mural-marred-by-graffiti-2311106.php
1. Concrete Filbert turns here and meets wood Filbert
2. 22, 14/16, and 10 Napier, with 222 Filbert beyond
3. 224 Filbert at Napier Lane with 226 Filbert above
4. 228 Filbert
5. Filbert wood stairway starts down from Montgomery
6. Middle stairway that divides upper and lower Montgomery
7. Foot of the upper Greenwich stairway, Montgomery to Coit Tower/Pioneer Park
8. Redbricked upper Greenwich, Montgomery up to Pioneer Park
9. Upper Filbert concrete steps, Pioneer Park down to Montgomery
10. Top of the Greenwich lower stairway below Montgomery
11. 237 Greenwich stairway/walk between Montgomery & Sansome
12. Greenwich stairway houses between Montgomery & Sansome
13. Starting up from Montgomery, Vallejo garden steps
14. Vallejo steps
15. Vallejo garden stairway
16. View east from the Vallejo stairs
17. Top of the Vallejo stairway
18. Vallejo at top of Peter Macchiarini sidewalk stairways
19. Kearny is the steep center street.
20. Fresno side street out from Kearny
21. Fresno at Kearny with east Peter Macchiarini sidewalk steps
22. Romolo & Broadway
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