Moraga & 16th Street Signs
Moraga Stairs
Close-up Detail near Top
Close-up Detail at Bottom
Looking Down the stairs
Dedication Plaque
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This stairway is just three block to the east of 19th Avenue, one of the busiest and main North-South thorofares through the city of San Francisco, California.
It is by far the most beautiful outdoor stairway I've encountered. The stairway extends Moraga Street from 16th Avenue up to 15th Avenue. The face of every step is decorated with mosaic tiles, that form a continuous design when viewed together.
There are tiles shaped like fish, jellyfish, birds, dragonflies, turtles, leaves, flowers, mushrooms and more - each with the name of an individual on it. These custom tiles are surrounded by traditional mosaic tiles to form the pattern for the face of that stair, which matches with two neighboring stairs.
The bottom of the stairs is an undersea design, which changes as one climbs to be land and garden scenes, which give way to mountains and the sky, eventually starry skies and capped with the bright yellow sun. All this includes patterns of spirals and circles.
The top surface of each stair is paved with a strip of white stone tiles, with the edge of the stair paved with a strip of gray stone tiles. Looking down from the top of the stairs, all one sees is the white surface and gray lips. The view to the west looks over the Sunset District of San Francisco to the Pacific Ocean.
The stairway is located on a hill covered mostly in ice plant, with a few shrub trees, calla lilies, succulents and other plantings near the bottom.
The stairway climbs toward Grandview Park where there are magnificent views of the Pacific Ocean, Golden Gate Park, the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco downtown buildings and the Mt. Sutro tower.
The stacked sequence of eight pictures at the right shows the detail of each of the sections of the stairway design. Click on any picture to see that section in larger detail.
At the bottom of the stairway is a dedication plaque to the artists and many people who contributed to this showcase stairway. It reads:
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