For Mother’s Day weekend, we escaped Sacramento on a weekend getaway to San Francisco on a mission to climb a lot of stairs.
San Francisco is well known for the streets that are actually staircases instead of roads, the streets that turn into staircases, and the staircases that turn into streets. The city is infamous for it’s secret staircases and hidden steps, and while we had climbed a couple of the staircases, the Moraga Steps and the Lyon Street Steps, there were many more on my list to check out.
On Saturday we spent the entire day on our feet:
- We climbed the Filbert Steps and the Greenwich Steps when visiting Coit Tower.
- We walked to Chinatown in search for fortune cookies and the Ferry Building in search of everything delicious.
- We zig-zagged all over the city to find the tiled mosaic Lincoln Park Steps, Hidden Garden Steps, and Flights Of Fancy Staircase.
By the end of the day our butts were whooped and the Flights Of Fancy Staircase was our last stop!
The Tiled Steps On Arelious Walker Drive
The Flights Of Fancy Staircase in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point District, is a four foot wide, 87 step mosaic tile staircase that connects Northridge Road and Innes Avenue. The mosaic design was inspired by patterns from Ghanaian Adinkra cloth, Central American weaving, Middle Eastern tile, and Native American pottery.
The tile staircase is also called the Arelious Walker Stairway or Arelious Walker Steps because it sits on Arelious Walker Drive and is dedicated to Dr. Arelious Walker, a former pastor and advocate for the Bay View District. The Arelious Walker Drive Stairs provides a vital connection from an isolated low-income community to the India Basin Shoreline, the Bay Trail, Herons Head Park, and future development at Hunters Point Shipyard.
The staircase replacement was the result of a year-long community project in partnership with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, the Department of Public Works, and youth from the Willie Mays Boys & Girls Club. Colette Crutcher and Aileen Barr, the artists behind the Moraga Steps and the Hidden Garden Steps, won a competition to design the Flights Of Fancy Steps.
Know Before You Go
- The Flights Of Fancy Staircase is located in the Bayview-Hunters Point District of San Francisco. It sits on Arelious Walker Drive at Innes Avenue and connects Northridge Road and Innes Avenue.
- The mosaic tile staircase was completed in July of 2014.
- When visiting the staircase, do not leave any valuables in your vehicle or anything visible.
- Unlike the Moraga Steps, the Lincoln Park Steps, and the Hidden Garden Steps, this tile staircase isn’t well cared for. There was mud caked on the tile, it was dirty, and there was trash strewn about on almost every flight of steps.
