Russian Hill

One of San Francisco’s best-kept secrets is hidden in plain view. It’s quiet (if not serene) yet sophisticated, with an agglomeration of some of the city’s first (and, to this day, finest) high-rise apartment buildings. Unrivaled views—of the East Bay, Alcatraz, Angel Island and Marin County—abound. People keep to themselves, while remaining outwardly cordial and polite. An upper-crust pedigree has endured here for more than 100 years. Its geographic prominence as one of San Francisco’s original “Seven Hills” underscores the fact that it is difficult to access by foot or by car (its steep slopes account for the fact that few main thoroughfares traverse the neighborhood, and parking can be a harrowing experience). But whatever it lacks in terms of convenience, Russian Hill makes up for in terms of cachet.

The neighborhood takes its name from the fact that Gold Rush settlers found a small Russian burial place at the hill’s summit with graves thought to be of traders and military men from Fort Ross, a Russian outpost 60 miles north on the Pacific Coast. But the hill is Russian in name only; few, if any, Russians lived on the hill historically (the Russian émigré enclave today is farther west, in the Richmond District). What most tourists see of the neighborhood they glimpse from the Hyde Street cable car, which stops at the top of the curvy, one-way portion of Lombard Street, where its eight switchbacks have earned it the moniker “the crookedest street in the world.” That, and the several prominent high-rises that crown the hill, are about all many residents of the rest of San Francisco ever see of the area as well, for the steep slopes make it too challenging for many to drive or even walk through (the Broadway Tunnel conducts most of the major traffic underground). A few streets, including Vallejo and Chestnut, simply stop and become pedestrian stairways, the grade too steep for cars. These steps, along with pedestrian-only alleys like Macondray Lane (which Armistead Maupin rechristened as Barbary Lane and used as a setting for his “Tales of the City”) and Fallon Place, only add to the charm of Russian Hill.

High-rise apartment buildings, many of them adorned with art-deco friezes or Spanish-colonial motifs, are clustered around the hill’s crest, in an area bounded roughly by Hyde, Union, Mason, and Vallejo streets. Other landmarks include the San Francisco Art Institute (its Spanish-villa architecture the home of a Diego Rivera mural in the school’s gallery) on Chestnut and Jones, and one of the city’s two surviving 19th-century octagon houses, the Feusier Octagon House at 1067 Green, near Leavenworth. The mid-20th century house at the northwestern corner of Lombard and Jones was Jimmy Stewart’s bachelor pad in “Vertigo.” Though it’s not much to look at today, it served in many pivotal scenes in Hitchcock’s thriller, its blank exterior a perfect backdrop for the tortured love story set in an autumnal San Francisco. Elsewhere, fine Victorian and Edwardian homes, their gardened and well-landscaped lots setting them off pleasantly from the street, hark back to an era when elite businessmen and politicians dominated the neighborhood. Historic San Francisco traces many of its leading figures to this neighborhood.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Russian Hill today remains an outpost of old San Francisco but also a reminder of the multi-culti place it is becoming. Although about 60 percent of its roughly 20,000 residents are white, nearly 25 percent are Asian, making their way into the area from the adjacent (and crowded) Chinatown. The neighborhood also has a number of African American residents, as well as people who claim dual-race heritage. Most are well off, averaging a per-capita income of nearly $100,000 (owing to the number of young lawyers, bankers, and entrepreneurs who make their home here). But a significant percentage of people (almost 20 percent) are 65 and older. Contrary to what these demographic figures might suggest, most residents (85 percent) rent rather than own their dwellings. Either way, they pay some of the highest prices in the city: upward of $750,000 for a two-bedroom condo on the lower flanks of the hill, with the price increasing with the elevation (think views), and as much as $3 million for a single-family dwelling that overlooks Golden Gate Bridge. A studio can fetch as much as $1,300 a month, while one- and two-bedroom apartments start at $1,600 and can easily go to $4,000 or more, again depending on what scenery you look out onto.

As might be expected, this is a neighborhood with few elementary-age kids, so the one major public school is a secondary one: Galileo High (also known as Galileo Academy of Science and Technology), which received an 8 out of 10 GreatSchools rating. Yick Wo Alternative Elementary serves about 250 children from the diverse area near Chinatown. It also received an 8 out of 10 rating from GreatSchools. The only other elementary school is a private one: St. Mary’s Chinese Day School, which offers a K-8 curriculum to kids mainly from Chinatown (which explains why it is building a new school there, on Jackson and Kearny streets).

Two buses—the 41 and the 45—make their way up and down the steep incline of Union Street en route to the Financial District, and cable cars ply both Hyde Street and Mason Street back and forth from Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf. The 19 bus also lumbers up and down Polk Street. These few choices of speedy public transportation mean that many residents own cars, as witnessed by the numerous garages underlying buildings as well as the difficulty of on-street parking. Residents who don’t have a parking space purchase an “A” residential parking permit from the city for $96 a year.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, vandalism, disturbing the peace, robbery and burglary—pretty much in that order—are the infrequent crimes that affect the area. Although the trend is not as pronounced as elsewhere in the city (perhaps because of the steep streets), car break-ins and outright vehicle thefts are growing in number. There have been no homicides in the last three years.

Green spaces include George Sterling Memorial Park, which sits atop a reservoir and is perhaps best known among area residents for its tennis courts, which offer magnificent panoramas of the city and bay, as well as the East Bay, Marin hills and Golden Gate Bridge. Ina Coolbrith Park is a leafy (if somewhat steep) expanse of trees and paths named for the Mormon renegade and first poet laureate of California who once lived on the hill, and Russian Hill Park is a large, grassy field enclosed by a tree- and shrub-studded mound. Michelangelo Playground is a recent addition to the neighborhood, a pleasantly designed and landscaped space with play equipment for kids, basketball hoops, a community garden, and benches, all tucked in a secluded spot.

What the neighborhood lacks in splashy attractions it makes up for in small, intimate ones. In the two-block stretch along Hyde from Vallejo to Union are neighborhood favorites like Frascati and Luella, both serving Mediterranean-inspired cooking, as well as Zarzuela (noted for its tapas), Sushi Groove, and Za Pizza. For ice cream aficionados, the flagship Swensen’s at Hyde and Union has been going strong since 1948. Farther north on Hyde, at the cable car turnaround, sits the birthplace of the Irish coffee, the Buena Vista Café, which, though flanked by the kitschy Ghirardelli Square, is one bar beloved by guide-toting tourists and locals alike. Numerous other restaurants, cafes and shops line Polk Street between Broadway and Filbert Street, including Real Food (a local chain that offers organic fruit and vegetables and other natural products), Russian Hill Bookstore (offering used books that make it popular with the bohemian crowd that populates this part of Lower Russian Hill), and an array of ethnic restaurants (Chinese, Thai, and Italian). There’s even a Little Paris forming around Green Street, with La Boulange café, La Folie restaurant, and a number of French-themed boutiques selling antiques and housewares. Each place has something to offer a curious mind, and, much like this hill-clinging neighborhood, offers a surprise at every corner.