On Moraga Street between 15th and 16th avenues, a 163-step stairway climbs the hillside in Golden Gate Heights. Its risers are covered in a mosaic that runs from the sea at the bottom to the stars at the top. The San Francisco Arts Commission notes that the hillside faces the ocean.
A neighborhood project
According to the project's official site, neighbors Jessie Audette and Alice Yee Xavier started it in 2003 as a grassroots effort. Neighbors chose artists Aileen Barr and Colette Crutcher to design the 163 mosaic panels. Most of the money came from sponsored handmade tiles shaped like animals, fish and shells. Three community workshops let anyone help make the panels.
How it's made
The Arts Commission's catalog record says each panel was sized to its step's riser. The artwork uses more than 200 handmade tiles and about 75,000 fragments of tile, mirror and stained glass. The stairway is now in the collection of the City and County of San Francisco, a gift of the San Francisco Parks Trust.
Opening day and the gardens
The steps opened on Aug. 27, 2005. Lion dancers led the way up, and the mayor of Caltagirone, Italy, home of the Scala steps that served as the sister stairway, attended. The official site says the gardens on either side are planted mostly with California natives and succulents. Since 2014, some hillside plantings have supported the endangered green hairstreak butterfly. Volunteer days are held around Earth Day weekend and in the fall.