Hayes Valley is a neighborhood in SF that was transformed, as so many neighborhoods have been, by the removal of a highway overpass and exit. One of few benefits of our earthquakes has been the removal of portions of our shortsighted and destructive city highway system.
thankfully gone now.
Where there was once an overpass, there is now light, cross-street views, and a wide, street-level boulevard which ends at a neighborhood green.
Adjacent to the green is a home-grown ice cream shop, Smitten Ice Cream.
It’s just off to the right of this photo, and looks like this:
Down the little street it fronts one finds another Blue Bottle Coffee. Linden Alley is noteworthy for its transformation from a standard street to a small stretch of curbless, pedestrian-oriented, traffic-calmed, ADA-accessible street where civil engineers were forced to admit that the status quo is not the only way. The end if the asphalt marks the beginning of the transformed area. Go have a coffee and support these small but effective changes! Also, pretty damn nice trees (R.p. ‘Frisia’), thanks to landscape designers.
There is a busy and happening shopping component to the Hayes Valley neighborhood, as well as good places to eat. Support local businesses! The neighborhood association’s website does a good job of highlighting what is available.
Hayes Valley is easily walkable from the fling hotel, or is a short taxi or bus ride away. Points for the person who can most quickly locate the fling hotel without any map clues.
Also note that Alamo Square, a park not far from the Hayes Valley green, is the location of the most-photographed part of San Francisco: the row of unbearably charming Victorian houses with downtown skyscrapers in background.
n.b: SF maps don’t always show topography, so expect hills where no hills are indicated.
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