San Francisco Stairways #7

The top of these stairs is at Broadway and Lyon. In fact the stairs are Lyon Sreet itself, for two steep blocks. There isn't anywhere to stand and take a picture of the whole thing. The picture is taken from the top, looking down the hill. You see most of the first block.

The formality of the stairs and gardens is very pleasing. You could call this another piece of "pre-nihilist architecture." As is that dome in the background seen against the Bay. That's the Palace of Fine Arts, the last remaining building from a world's fair, the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition. It has a bit of special meaning to me, because my grandfather, Simon Peterson, was a new and poor immigrant from Sweden in that year. He was living in Visalia, California, and wanted to see the great fair, and managed to do so. He had left Germany, where he had been living, in 1914, on the last ship he could have got out on before being caught up in WWI...

(Other stairway posts here.)

This Google satellite view has the top of the stairs at the very top of the picture...