Macondray Lane runs two blocks east to west between Leavenworth and Taylor streets on the southeastern side of Russian Hill, parallel to Union and Green streets. Wikipedia says the wooded enclave was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 as part of the Russian Hill–Macondray Lane District. Views from the lane reach north to Alcatraz and the bay.
Finding it
SFGate says the entrance is easy to miss: a set of thick wooden stairs beside the pale yellow Queen Anne at 1809 Taylor St., stamped with an SF Public Works seal and marked with a “MACONDRAY LANE” street sign. SF Stairways notes that the stairs were rebuilt into a sturdier stairway in 2016. At the top, SFGate describes cobblestones mixed with dirt and moss, gardens of fuchsia and angel’s trumpet, and fewer than a dozen homes along a lane where traffic noise mostly disappears.
Barbary Lane
Wikipedia notes that Maupin confirmed in the 2017 documentary The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin that Macondray Lane inspired Barbary Lane. In the books, Barbary Lane is the home of landlady Anna Madrigal and her tenants. Tales of the City began as a serial in the San Francisco Chronicle. SFGate says Maupin wrote 10 books in the series, and several were adapted for TV by PBS (1993), Showtime (1998 and 2001) and Netflix (2019). The Taylor Street stairs have been used as a filming location.
The lane is a public path with private homes on both sides, so keep quiet as you walk through. For more of the neighborhood, see our Ina Coolbrith Park guide.