Alamo Square Park takes up four city blocks at the top of a hill in the Western Addition. It is bordered by Hayes, Steiner, Fulton and Scott streets. The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department runs the 13.6-acre park, which Wikipedia says is open daily from 5 a.m. to midnight. The park has a playground and a tennis court.
The view
The park is best known for the row of Victorian houses on Steiner Street called the Painted Ladies, which often appear in front of the downtown skyline in photos of the city. On a clear day, the Transamerica Pyramid and the tops of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges are visible from the center of the park, and City Hall can be seen straight down Fulton Street. The opening sequence of the sitcom Full House was filmed in the park, with the row of Victorians behind it.
History
The name comes from a lone cottonwood tree, or álamo in Spanish. Alamo Hill was a watering hole on the horseback trail between Mission Dolores and the Presidio in the 1800s. Wikipedia says Mayor James Van Ness set aside a park around the watering hole in 1856. In 1984, the Board of Supervisors created the Alamo Square Historic District. It cited homes by well-known architects built from the 1870s to the 1920s, including the towered Westerfeld House and Postcard Row.
The 2017 renovation
Rec and Park’s project page says the renovation combined a 2008 bond restroom project with 2012 bond water-conservation work. Crews replaced the irrigation system that had been leaking, planted native “no mow” grasses in place of some high-water lawn and built a new ADA-accessible restroom. Streetsblog SF reported that the park reopened in May 2017 after about a year and $5.3 million of work. General Manager Phil Ginsburg said at the reopening that the new systems would save 2.5 million gallons of water a year.
Muni lines 5, 21, 22 and 24 serve the area. For another neighborhood nearby, see our Japantown guide.