In Sunnyside, the neighborhood overlooking City College of San Francisco, stairways and pocket gardens rule. Layers of the city’s history reveal themselves, too, but only if you put in some work.
Traversing the often-steep streets is a butt-kicker, but follow our steps and you’ll get plenty of rewards.
Some of San Francisco’s best public art is tucked into City College itself, which we’ll add to our route, and then there’s the ever-growing menu of refreshments along Ocean Avenue.
But first, a short orientation: Sunnyside is on the southeastern side of Mount Davidson, the highest of SF’s original seven hills at 928 feet. It’s also a lesson in the pitfalls of early urban planning.
In 1891, the Sunnyside Land Company laid out a grid but the slope made several parcels too steep to build on. The city eventually bought these lots and ran sewer pipes beneath them, which meant leaving the land as open space.
In the 1970s, Mayor Joseph Alioto made these spaces pocket parks. The unexpected greenery gives exploring here the same feeling as the more-famous stairs and slopes of, say, Russian Hill and Telegraph Hill. (Alioto was also big on public art, which, as we’ll see, adds plenty of spice to the City College campus.)
But it also took neighborhood activism to preserve Sunnyside’s crown jewel, which is an excellent place to start our heart-pumping perambulation.
The other city conservatory
Let’s start our ramble on the main thoroughfare Monterey Boulevard between Baden and Congo Streets. In the middle of the block on the north side, look up. (An archway sign makes it obvious: This is the Sunnyside Conservatory, an extremely rare Victorian-era octagon building, one of only three (or four, perhaps) left in the city.
British inventor and entrepreneur William Merrills bought the property in 1898 and wanted a conservatory for his private collection of plants and settled on an octagonal shape to maximize the light. But Merrills’ tragic death in 1914, coupled with large debts, prompted the sale of the property.
The conservatory and grounds would change private hands several times. Winning city landmark status in 1975 didn’t completely protect it from the wrecking ball. Then-owner Robert Anderson managed to knock down a third of it before neighbors intervened. The Recreation and Parks Department bought the property in 1980.
Today, the building doesn’t house plants the way Golden Gate Park’s Conservatory of Flowers does, but the grounds feature several varieties of palm trees, along with ferns, bromeliads, and succulents. The building is available for events. On the day of my visit, people were setting up for a 70th birthday party, and one attendee, now living in Minneapolis, told me she had no idea the conservatory was here when she lived in SF in the 1970s.
There’s a back entrance to the property which adds to the feeling of urban escape. Circle around the building via a plant-shaded path to an illuminated, metalsmithed gate, and exit to Joost Avenue.
Now look left to an official-looking sign 50 feet away. You’ve stumbled upon the Joost and Baden Mini Park, essentially a pathway that cuts the block in half. A neighbor’s driveway calls attention to it much more unofficially, with a sign made of a stone dachshund, duck, and turtle. The more attention the better; it’s easy to overlook.
Under the radar parks
Along the minipark path, even in the grip of a gray SF summer, blue clusters of ceanothus, along with nasturtium, agapanthus, and marvel of Peru (Mirabilis jalapa), brighten the walk. At the top, you’ll emerge onto Mangels Street. Jog a little east toward Baden, and what looks like a private driveway is actually the way to yet another green space: Dorothy Erskine Park.
This open hilltop space became a park in 1979, and on the spot where Mayor Diane Feinstein, Dorothy Erskine, and others sat to dedicate it now sits a fort made from tree branches. Erskine was cofounder of the group that became the Greenbelt Alliance.
The park “sort of flies under the radar,” Urban Hikes founder Alexandra Kenin tells The Frisc. It’s got eucalyptus trees, a dirt path, a small patch of poppies, and it offers a nice view of the eastern side of the city, but not much by way of infrastructure.
I take Martha Avenue down and stop to watch the action on the Glen Park ball fields below, then head down Congo Street, so steep that for a moment I fantasize about rappelling down. Fortunately it’s only half a block, and I turn right (west) onto Melrose Avenue for another pocket of green: the Melrose/Detroit Botanical Garden.
It’s an oasis among the fog and clouds. There’s a well-marked path leading to a picnic table and several benches, where visitors can take a load off and enjoy the scents and visuals of rosemary, flowering salvia, and other herbs.
Like the much (much!) larger SF Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park, this tiny space has plants from all over the world and different biomes, including prickly pears.
After a little rest and a drink of water, I retrace steps back to Congo for another half-block descent to Mangels, where I take a right and head toward Detroit Street for another taste of neighborly activism in this tight-knit corner of the city.
Once a neglected public right-of-way, the Detroit Steps now feature landscaping and a mural. The project began in 2018 — two blocks and 185 steps, with a crossing at Monterey.
Since we’re walking downhill, stop midway and turn around for a view of the mural’s river of vibrant color. (Before I cross Monterey to the lower steps, I pause to pay quick respects: just to the west is the Safeway where Mayor Ed Lee suffered a heart attack on December 11, 2017. He died a few hours later.)
The lower Detroit Steps aren’t painted, but they are no less inviting with strings of lights to guide people after dark and wonderful landscaped gardens with palms, conifers, and all kinds of flowers. I exit at Hearst Street, a slow street where neighbors fought for two years to have the city install speed humps.
Another sight catches my eye: a slow street from bygone days. Just off Detroit below Hearst is a small unpaved lane — one of many of SF’s nameless streets, and it marks where a tributary of Islais Creek used to run.
Today, this dirt alley features discarded tires, a banged-up car door, and weeds, but some neighbors have added landscaping, fencing, and a “Keep off the Grass”’ sign. Wildflowers like oxtongues, hawkbits, and sunflowers have sprouted up on their own, along with a blue potato bush that someone planted.
It’s time for the final leg of the ramble. I head west, walk two blocks to Foerster Street, and turn left again. At Judson Avenue I take a right, Judson bends into Frida Kahlo Way, and I’m soon in the heart of a community college that isn’t far from its 100th anniversary and has an artistic legacy to match.
Schooled on art
The roots of City College of San Francisco stretch back to 1935. Its main campus, which surrounds me, opened in 1940 is home to many major pieces of public art. One of the most prominent is front and center, framed by the campus’s oldest building, Science Hall.
To commemorate assassinated leaders, sculptor Beniamino Bufano fashioned St. Francis of the Guns in 1969 from melted guns collected in a voluntary hand-in program. Behind Francis, “The Truth Shall Make You Free” stretches across the entry of the Science Hall. There’s more inside.
Through the entry, I head to the north wall and gaze at one of two ceiling-high mosaics honoring science and engineering that date back to the opening of Science Hall. Swiss artist Herman Volz, with funding from the Works Progress Administration, was part of a wave of public art in SF that crested with the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island. The second Volz fresco is at the other end of Science Hall.
I continue around to the back and spot a sundial, the copper aged into aquamarine. If it weren’t foggy, I could try to tell the time. The courtyard between Cloud Hall and Science Hall offers a couple more pieces and another famous local.
Frederick Olmsted Jr. carved these busts of Leonardo DiVinci and Thomas Edison, and back inside Science Hall are two Olmsted murals, also part of the WPA era, showing students engaged in scientific research. (Olmsted worked on the Coit Tower murals and also had a long career as a biophysicist. His great-uncle of the same name was the godfather of landscape architecture and designed New York’s Central Park.)
Unfortunately, CCSF’s most famous artwork isn’t available. Diego Rivera’s mural “Pan American Unity,” which sprawls 22 feet by 74 feet across 10 steel-framed cement panels and weighs more than 30 tons, is now in storage. It was in the lobby of CCSF’s Diego Rivera Theater from 1960 to 2022. It’s slated to reemerge in 2027 as the star of a new campus performing arts center.
From here, it’s a quick walk around the Balboa Reservoir — for years a huge empty lot, soon to be a mini-neighborhood with more than 1,000 new homes — to Ocean Avenue, an underrated stretch of shops, bars, restaurants, and more. I could choose from a wide range of places for an early dinner, but I opt for a caffeine jolt to get me home. I head to Java on Ocean to rest my feet and power up.
How to get there
To start at the Sunnyside Conservatory, you can walk west on Monterey from the Glen Park BART station for about 10 minutes, or get closer on the 43 Masonic, 36 Teresita, and the 23 Monterey.
If you prefer to start at City College, the 43 Masonic goes down Frida Kahlo Way, and the 29 Sunset, 8 Bayshore, and K-Ingleside all converge at Frida Kahlo and Ocean. Balboa Park BART is also a short walk from campus.
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Correction, 8/22/25: This story originally misspelled a street name. It is Foerster, not Forester.
Thanx for a very nice article. I grew up on Monterey Blvd at Edna St. I have one correction for you. The street is Foerster, not Forester.
Thanks for the note and the kind words, Don. We’ve made the correction.