A magical hush
It’s been said that Buena Vista Park is the city’s best outdoor make-out ballroom. Certainly the views of downtown and the Golden Gate Bridge are fetching, although less dramatic than from Corona Heights Park, which is higher up and just to the south. But Corona Heights Park is relatively bare, and in a cold wind, downright forbidding. Buena Vista, by comparison, is dense and—in the summer fog—mysterious and gothic. The trails switch back and forth up a slope, past nooks in the blackberry bushes, up old steps, and through a pine forest and one of the city’s last oak groves. It offers a “magical hush” to the city, as one visitor put it.
Buena Vista is right in the middle of San Francisco, surrounded by Victorians and usually entered on the northern border that runs along Haight Street. It’s the city’s oldest park and is a favorite with dog walkers. It also features a tennis court, albeit in disrepair, and a small play area for children. Among the park’s feathered inhabitants are several species that live in the Oak woodlands, including sapsuckers, brown creepers, and nuthatches.
Info
Address Buena Vista Avenue & Haight Street, San Francisco, CA, 94117, www.sfrecpark.org/destination/buena-vista-park | Public Transport Bus: 6, 71 (Haight St & Buena Vista East or West Ave stop) | Tip Hitchcock fans will appreciate the building at 355 Buena Vista East Street, which appears in the classic thriller, Vertigo.
The grounds also hold a cultural resonance. The drainage ditches that run here and there include fragments of unclaimed headstones from the cemeteries that were removed in the early twentieth century. The dead were reburied in Colma, and the recycled stone has been used in various city projects, including this one.
A word of caution: police have made a concerted effort to patrol the area, but that hasn’t stopped all sorts of people from using the park—for all sorts of purposes. In other words, it’s best not to visit at night.
However, there’s a terrific day hike to be had that leads through Buena Vista Park up to Corona Heights Park and then down the other side of the hill into the Castro District using the Vulcan Steps, which are worth seeing in their own right.
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