San Francisco Neighborhoods · Cayuga
Cayuga
also Cayuga TerracePersistent Fog zoneA hushed pocket of single-family homes tucked between Alemany, Geneva and I-280 in the city's deep south, trading nightlife for front gardens, quiet streets, and one of San Francisco's most surprising public treasures: a playground filled with hundreds of hand-carved wooden folk-art sculptures.
- Calm, walkable residential streets
- Steps from Cayuga Playground's folk-art garden
- Minutes to the Balboa Park BART/Muni hub
- Close to the Outer Mission's food corridor
On the map
Open Cayuga on the map →The story
Cayuga Terrace took shape in the early 20th century as homestead-association land in the city's southern reaches was subdivided for housing. Many of its streets carry Native-American names, mostly of peoples and languages of the northeastern United States, a naming theme shared with neighboring Mission Terrace and the Outer Mission. Before 1918 a body of water known as Lake Geneva sat near what is now Cayuga Avenue, the street that gives the neighborhood its name. Through the first half of the century the area filled in with the detached single-family homes that still define it, served by nearby rail and streetcar lines and, later, the Balboa Park transit hub.
Things most people don’t know
A sculpture garden made on lunch breaks
Gardener Demetrio Braceros, assigned to Cayuga Park in 1986, hand-carved over 375 wooden totems, figurines and statues on his breaks; the San Francisco Arts Commission later inventoried 376 of them.
Cayuga Playground reborn
The roughly four-acre playground at 301 Naglee Avenue closed in 2011 for an $8.4 million renovation and reopened in August 2013, with many of Braceros's sculptures restored.
A transit powerhouse next door
The nearby Balboa Park Station, opened in 1973, is one of BART's busiest stops outside downtown San Francisco and a major Muni transfer point.
Streets named for Native peoples
Cayuga Avenue and many surrounding streets are named for Native-American peoples and languages, a deliberate theme set when the area was subdivided.
Eating and drinking near Cayuga
Cayuga is primarily residential — these sit in the Outer Mission, Balboa Park.
Restaurants
- Taqueria Guadalajara · 4798 Mission St
- JJamPPong · 5249 Mission St
Bars
- Ocean Ale House · 1314 Ocean Ave
- Machu Picchu Cafe · 402 Geneva Ave
Getting around and getting care
Transit. Balboa Park Station nearby serves BART and Muni Metro J, K and M lines, plus many bus routes; the 29-Sunset, 49, 14-Mission and 8-Bayshore run along the Mission Street corridor to the east.
Nearest hospital. CPMC Mission Bernal Campus, 3555 Cesar Chavez St (ER entrance on 27th St)
Thinking about Cayuga?
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.