This week, Mayor Ed Lee's office approved funding and a new name for those funny, half-secret stairs on Waller Street between Buena Vista East and Broderick.
The measure approved $70,000 worth of funding for improvements to the area, which includes a block-long, 91-step staircase adjacent to Buena Vista Park. (Buena Vista is also due for some touch-ups and improvements in the coming years, also brought about by city funding.)
The plan includes renaming the stairway "Adah's Stairway" after Adah Bakalinsky, the author of the bestselling San Francisco guidebook Stairway Walks In San Francisco, which documents and describes the 600-plus stairways hidden around the city. The plan includes installation of a commemorative plaque honoring Bakalinsky.
While it hasn't yet been specified what the exact plan is for the small park, it's expected to include some general sprucing up of the space, which is currently overgrown and a little weedy.
(Looking up the hill from Waller and Broderick)
The top of the stairs are currently blocked off with traffic sawhorses and sandbags to divert rainwater back to the street gutter on Buena Vista East. However, it looks as if some of the trees in the park have already been trimmed up.
(Looking east from the top of the stairs)
Funding awarded to the site is part of the city's Community Challenge Grants, a citywide grant program put in place to fund city greening and watershed improvements. The measure was initially supported by then-District 5 Supervisor Christina Olague and District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener.
Though we don't know exactly when the improvements are set to begin, we'll keep an eye on the staircase and let you know when it debuts in its new and improved incarnation.
