For two years in 2001-2003, I worked in an office at the foot of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. I collected these pictures during my occasional lunchtime walks in the neighborhood.
The hill is famous as the site of Coit Tower and some luscious views of San Francisco and the Bay. Most days when I climbed the Filbert Steps to the top, I found crowds of tourists dutifully photographing the tower, the city skyline, the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Alcatraz, and all the rest. Spectacular stuff, but you won't find any of those here, nor any of the modernized and spiffed-up corporate edifices on the Embarcadero side of the hill.
What I've attempted to do is turn my eye (and yours) toward the hill as a neighborhood. While the grand scenes are well-suited for the tourist making his rounds, a resident of the hill will, I think, have long since ceased to notice them, and will instead have his or her own private list of favorite spots and views: a garden here, a stairway there, a small architectural flourish there.
This little album is dedicated to the gentler charms of one of San Francisco's oldest neighborhoods.
This site built by Eric
Rawlins.
Last updated 10/1/2003