San Francisco Neighborhoods · Alamo Square
Alamo Square
also Postcard RowSun zoneA grassy hilltop crowned with Victorians, where the candy-colored Painted Ladies pose against the downtown skyline like the postcard San Francisco everyone pictures.
- Iconic Painted Ladies row
- Hilltop downtown skyline view
- Full House filming spot
- NoPa dining at the foot
On the map
Open Alamo Square on the map →The story
The square was named for a lone cottonwood tree — álamo in Spanish — that marked a watering stop on the road from Mission Dolores to the Presidio. The four-acre park was reserved in an 1856 city survey under Mayor James Van Ness, as San Francisco platted the Western Addition. The surrounding blocks filled with grand Victorian and Edwardian homes through the 1890s, many surviving the 1906 quake, and the eastern "Painted Ladies" became one of the city's most photographed sights.
Things most people don’t know
Postcard Row
The six matching Victorians at 710–720 Steiner Street, built by developer Matthew Kavanaugh between 1892 and 1896, are the famed "Painted Ladies." Their colorful facades framed by the skyline make this one of the most photographed blocks in San Francisco.
Full House opening
The Steiner Street row appears in the opening credits of the sitcom Full House. The actual house used for exterior establishing shots, however, sits across town in Lower Pacific Heights, not on the square.
The Westerfeld House
The towering 1889 Queen Anne at 1198 Fulton Street, known as the Westerfeld House, anchors the square's northwest corner. Over the decades it has housed Russian émigrés, a jazz club, and a commune of artists and filmmakers.
Hilltop park
Alamo Square Park climbs a steep rise to roughly 100 feet, opening a sweeping view across the Painted Ladies to the downtown towers. The grassy slopes draw picnickers, dog walkers, and tourists year-round.
Western Addition roots
The neighborhood sits within the Western Addition, just north of the dining corridor locals call NoPa, for "North of the Panhandle." Many of its wooden homes predate the 1906 earthquake that leveled much of the city to the east.
Eating and drinking
Getting around and getting care
Transit. A bus neighborhood: the 5 Fulton and 21 Hayes run east–west toward downtown, while the 22 Fillmore and 24 Divisadero cross north–south past the foot of the park.
Nearest hospital. CPMC Van Ness Campus, 1101 Van Ness Ave (about 1.3 mi)
Thinking about Alamo Square?
Send me an address and I will come back with its sun, wind and fog, what is under it, and what has closed on the block.