Access San FranciscoRide over two hills, then watch the fog come under the bridge.
The crooked block of Lombard Street from above, winding between houses and gardens
ONE BLOCK, EIGHT TURNS

Lombard Street and Russian Hill

A single block of brick-paved switchbacks on Russian Hill, built in 1922 to tame a 27 percent grade, set in one of the city's oldest and most elegant hilltop neighborhoods.

Photo: Christopher Michel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

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No. 1What you are looking at

Lombard Street and Russian Hill

Steep or many steps

  1. 1
    The crooked blockEight sharp turns on one block between Hyde and Leavenworth streets, one-way downhill and paved with red brick.
  2. 2
    The top at Hyde StreetWhere the Powell–Hyde cable car stops, with the classic view down the curves to Coit Tower.
  3. 3
    The garden bedsHydrangeas and hedges planted in the bends between the switchbacks.
  4. 4
    The step sidewalksStairways on both sides of the crooked block for people on foot.
  5. 5
    The Vallejo Street CrestA hilltop district of early houses, with a small park and a memorial to the old Russian cemetery.
  6. 6
    Macondray LaneA pedestrian-only lane among trees and old houses on the hill's northern slope.
The cable car tracks down Hyde Street toward the bay and Alcatraz
The cable car tracks down Hyde Street toward the bay and Alcatrazdconvertini, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
No. 2The sight in full

Reading the place

Why it matters

Lombard Street is an ordinary east–west street for most of its length, a busy arterial through Cow Hollow and the Marina that carries US Route 101. For one block on Russian Hill, between Hyde and Leavenworth streets, it turns into the famous switchbacks: eight sharp turns down a slope so steep that the street was once almost impossible to drive. Billed as "the crookedest street in the world", the block draws around two million visitors a year, and up to 17,000 a day on busy summer weekends.

Lombard Street's crooked block, with the Transamerica Pyramid and Coit Tower beyond
Lombard Street's crooked block, with the Transamerica Pyramid and Coit Tower beyonddconvertini, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

It is also a good introduction to San Francisco's hills and to Russian Hill itself, one of the city's original residential hilltops, with views in every direction and streets so steep that some of them are staircases.

How the curves came to be

The natural grade of this block is 27 percent, too steep for most vehicles to climb. In 1922, at the suggestion of a property owner named Carl Henry, the block was rebuilt as a series of switchbacks to make it drivable. The crooked section is about 600 feet long along its curves, though the straight-line distance is only about 412 feet, and it is one-way, downhill, paved with red brick. A sign at the top recommends a speed of 5 miles per hour.

A stairway beside Lombard Street's crooked block, shaded by hedges
A stairway beside Lombard Street's crooked block, shaded by hedgesDietmar Rabich, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The street's name has nothing to do with the hill: the city's first surveyor, Jasper O'Farrell, named it after Lombard Street in Philadelphia. Nor is it unique. Vermont Street on Potrero Hill also claims the title of most crooked; it has seven turns instead of eight, but a steeper hill.

Russian Hill

Cars turning down the brick curves of Lombard Street's crooked block
Cars turning down the brick curves of Lombard Street's crooked blockBenoît Prieur, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

The hill takes its name from the Gold Rush years, when settlers found a small Russian cemetery at its top, the graves of sailors from Russian naval and merchant ships that had visited San Francisco since 1806. The cemetery was later removed, but the name stuck, and a small park at the top of Vallejo Street holds a memorial placed by the Russian government.

Since the 1850s the northern slope overlooking the Bay has been one of the city's most desirable places to live. The Vallejo Street Crest, on the southeastern side, keeps some of the city's oldest houses behind a retaining wall and a natural bluff, among them the Atkinson House of 1853, one of the oldest houses still standing in the city. The Paris Block Architectural District on Green Street is known for its houses, among them the eight-sided Feusier Octagon House.

Lombard Street running straight down the hill east of the crooked block
Lombard Street running straight down the hill east of the crooked blockBenoît Prieur, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Another small park on Vallejo Street is named after Ina Coolbrith, California's first poet laureate and the first poet laureate of any American state, and looks straight out over downtown. Macondray Lane, on the northern slope, is a pedestrian-only lane of historic houses among trees, and parts of Vallejo and Green streets climb the hill as flights of steps.

What you see

Roses at the top of Lombard Street, the bay and the Bay Bridge beyond
Roses at the top of Lombard Street, the bay and the Bay Bridge beyondpatrick janicek from Courbevoie, France, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Standing at the top, on Hyde Street, you look down over the brick switchbacks and their hedges and hydrangeas to North Beach, with Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill straight ahead. Cars inch down the curves one at a time, and the houses along the block, many with bay windows and small gardens, watch the procession go by. From the bottom, on Leavenworth Street, the view is reversed: the whole block climbs away above you like a staircase of gardens.

The Powell–Hyde cable car stops at the top of the block, and Hyde Street itself is part of the show, with the cars climbing and dropping past, Alcatraz in the bay beyond and the water at the bottom of the street.

On screen

A painted camper van taking one of the brick curves on Lombard Street
A painted camper van taking one of the brick curves on Lombard StreetBenoît Prieur, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

The block's switchbacks have made it a favorite of filmmakers for more than half a century. Chase and race scenes have been shot on its curves in films from Good Neighbor Sam and The Love Bug to What's Up, Doc? and Ant-Man and the Wasp, and it appears in Pixar's Inside Out of 2015. Many visitors know the view from the top before they arrive, which is part of why the corner of Hyde and Lombard is so crowded with cameras.

How to visit

Cars waiting at Hyde Street to drive down the crooked block
Cars waiting at Hyde Street to drive down the crooked blockPi.1415926535, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Most people arrive on the Powell–Hyde cable car and get off at the top, walk down one of the stairways that run along both sides of the crooked block, and carry on down to North Beach or the Wharf. Walking up from the bottom is a hard climb; see the hills for the gradients and for ways to reach the top without the stairs. Twenty minutes is enough for the block itself; allow an hour or two to wander Russian Hill's lanes and parks.

If you drive down the curves, expect a queue at busy times that can back up for several blocks, up to about twenty minutes. The block has also been a hot spot for car break-ins, helped by its heavy traffic and the number of visitors: leave nothing in a parked car, not even for a few minutes, and read street sense for the details. Remember that people live on this block, so keep off the steps of the houses and keep noise down.

Myths and facts

The top of Lombard Street's crooked block, the bay and Russian Hill beyond
The top of Lombard Street's crooked block, the bay and Russian Hill beyondBenoît Prieur, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Lombard Street is not the crookedest street in the world, nor even certainly in San Francisco: Vermont Street has a rival claim. It was not built crooked for show either; the curves were a practical answer to a grade that ordinary cars could not manage. And the crooked block is only a tiny part of a long street that runs all the way from the Presidio to the Embarcadero.

No. 3Where to go next

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