Harry Street is a street that is mostly stairs. The San Francisco Chronicle quotes Stairway Walks in San Francisco author Adah Bakalinsky calling it “(the) most magnificent San Francisco stairway of all.” The paper counts 230 steps.
The climb
SF Stairways says the climb starts at Laidley Street with modest concrete steps through gardens, where Madeira Island geraniums bloom in spring. From there a steep wooden stairway runs the rest of the way up to Beacon Street, and it gets steeper and narrower near the top. The site says it is one of the two longest wooden stairways in the city, along with the Filbert Steps up to Montgomery Street. Both climb about 90 feet in their wooden sections. The Chronicle says the beams look like they came from an 1800s shipwreck. It adds that the houses along the way can only be reached by the stairs and look like Russian River cabins. On the way down, the trees open to slivers of downtown, Bernal Heights and Noe Valley.
History
SF Stairways says the concrete stairs at the bottom seem to have come first, to reach homes on Harry Street. The wooden stairs may date to the 1940s, when Beacon Street was first paved between Miguel Street and Harry. The western end of Harry formed part of the border of the Diamond Heights redevelopment area in the 1960s.
For a wider climb with more places to stop, the Chronicle suggests the wooden steps up Billy Goat Hill a couple of blocks north. Nearby, see our Glen Canyon Park guide.