San Francisco: Lyon Street Oct 2003 (and Jul 2008)

Some day in October of 2003, I walked the lengths of Lyon Street, probably. I say "probably" because Lyon fades in and out of existence as it makes it way. Anyhow, I brought my camera.
And then in July of 2008, I did it again. I took some more photos.

2003 It is not so easy to figure out where Lyon Street begins. One of these paths leads to a stairway which becomes Lyon Street. Actually, several paths do. Which of them is the true origin?

2003 Anyhow, this stairway emerges from Buena Vista park at Haight Street and Lyon. So we are definitely on Lyon now.

2003 This is the intersection with Page Street, still close to the Haight. As you can see, we are ready for the space aliens to land here.

2008 The alien landing circle is gone!

2003 Lyon Street is interrupted in many places. For example, here it turns into a path as it crosses the "panhandle" of Golden Gate Park. This photo was taken from the intersection of Lyon and Oak Streets. Behind me, a man stinking of malt liquor walked, stumbled, picked himself up, unlocked the door of his SUV, crawled in, groaned, slammed the door, and drove off. It was kind of nice to stay off the streets and on this path for a little while after that.

2003 What a great doorway.

2008 The clown face is gone, replaced by a Wilkommen sign. Still a cooler doorway than most.

2003 It looks like someone had an apartment fire here. Do you see that guy in the white shirt? He was tossing charred stuff out onto the street.

[Photo: Graffiti at McAllister and Lyon]

2008 There's a big graffiti wall at Get the Funk Out laundry.

2003 Between Turk and O'Farrell, Lyon Street disappears again. At Turk, Lyon turns into a stairway. Here, I was in the stairwell looking back as a tandem bicycle went by. In the background, you can see where I walked, including the trees of the panhandle and, higher, those of Buena Vista park.

2003 Lyon Street resumes existence at O'Farrell and continues for just one block before it is interrupted again, this time by Geary Boulevard. Anyone attempting to drive across Geary here would have to hop that concrete divider. I was born a few meters from here.

2003 Geary Boulevard interrupts Lyon Street here with a concrete divider. There is no auto crossing here, nor any pedestrian crosswalk. Fortunately, early in the morning, there is no traffic, so I jaywalked and took this photo along Geary while I stood on the divider.

2008 I guess I should show off the view in the other direction, too.

2003 I forget where I was when I took this photo. All I remember is wondering why they had to break all of the car's windows.

2008 This was an empty lot for the longest time. Then it wasn't. Note helpful "Hill" sign.

[Photo: Broadway--Top of the Lyon St Steps]

2008 In the background, you can see that the Palace of Fine Arts' rotunda is covered with scaffolding.

2003 Between Broadway and Green, Lyon turns into a stairway. It is steep and popular with impatient joggers who want to expend lots of effort in not much time.

2003 The stairway goes past this fancy house. I think an ambassador of someplace lives here.

2008 This big heart wasn't there last time.

2003 These ugly posters were up all over the neighborhood. This one was protected by threats and a highly-trained attack spider. (It would occupy the place of the tilde on the big word "WARÑING!", if "WARÑING!" had a tilde.)

2008 This house, near Green St, normally has some pretty light fixtures. But I guess they took them down for some construction.

2008 Muni Drivers occasionaly enter this little building.

2003 Walking on top of the old Presidio wall, I took this photo of construction on the new Lucas complex.

2008 The Lucas complex has been built. If you head in a ways, you can see the Presidiyoda.

2003 Lyon Street disappears again, turning into a set of paths through the Palace of Fine Arts.

2008 Lyon reappears for one last block between the Palace of Fine Arts and Marina Boulevard. (It sort of continues on the other side of Marina, but is called Lundeen, of all things) Down by the Palace of Fine Arts, I was one of the few photographers who wasn't a wedding photographer.

2003 I didn't take this photo on the same day as the other 2003 photos. I missed this last sign, and wasn't really sure where Lyon turned into Lundeen. So I took a photo of the intersection of Lyon and Jefferson, and wrote up a description saying it was just as hard to find the end of Lyon as the beginning. But that was wrong. It's just that the End sign is kind of buried in that tree, and if you look at it from the wrong angle, you can miss it.

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