Filbert Street (San Francisco)

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Image:FilbertStreetAndGrantAvenueLookingTowardsCoitTowerAndGarfieldElementarySchool.jpg

Looking up Filbert Street heading towards Coit Tower.

Looking up the steps

Filbert Street is an east-west street in San Francisco, California. It originates at Lyon Street on the edge of The Presidio ans runs westward, intersecting major thoroughfares Van Ness Avenue and Columbus Avenue. When the street reaches the Telegraph Hill neighborhood, it ends at Kearny Street near Coit Tower and continues as a pedestrian stairway known as the Filbert Street Steps.^[1]

The Filbert Street Steps runs along a short section of Filbert Street. Along the steps is a garden tended to and paid for by the residents of the street. The steps lead from Telegraph Hill down to The Embarcadero. Many houses in this residential neighborhood are accessible only from the steps. Similar to paved streets, several fire hydrants and a solitary parking meter are located along the steps.

Though the picturesque Lombard Street is often billed as the city steepest street, Filbert Street and 22nd Street in San Francisco are two of the steepest in the Western Hemisphere at a maximum gradient of 31.5% (approximately 17°).^[2]

Baldwin Street in Dunedin, New Zealand is steeper, with a maximum gradient of 1:2.86 or 35%.^{[citation needed]} There are also three streets in Los Angeles that are steeper—28th Street in San Pedro at 33.3%, Eldred Street in Highland Park at 33%, and Baxter Street in Silver Lake at 32%.^[3]

The wild parrots of Telegraph Hill, which were the subject of a 2005 documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, may often be seen along the steps.