Lombard Street - San Francisco, California

Address:San Francisco, California

First a bit of history for you: Lombard Street is best known for the one-way section on Russian Hill between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, in which the roadway has eight sharp turns (or switchbacks) that were instituted by Carl Henry in 1922. He suggested the design in order to reduce the hill's natural 27% grade, which was too steep for most vehicles to climb and a major hazard to pedestrians; the new design reduced the steepness to more reasonable 16 degree incline.

Today, the crooked section of the street, about 1/4 mile long, is reserved for one-way traffic traveling downhill and is paved with red bricks and the speed limit here is a 5 mph. Visitors can take a ride on the Powell-Hyde cable car line which stops at the top of this block. While you're here, you can remember famous past residents of Lombard Street who include Rowena Meeks Abdy, an early California painter who worked in the style of Impressionism. Also, iIn his film Vertigo (1958), Alfred Hitchcock chose to make 900 Lombard Street the home of John "Scottie" Ferguson. Even Bill Cosby parodied the street in his "Driving in San Francisco" sketch: "They built a street up there called Lombard Street that goes straight down, and they're not satisfied with you killing yourself that way—they put grooves and curves and everything in it, and they put flowers there where they've buried the people that have killed themselves." But he had it right when he closed with "Lombard Street, wonderful street."