Have Y’all Ever Been to Corbin Place?
Corbin Place, and its lovely steps, are a San Francsico treat. (Paolo Bicchieri)
In Stairway Walks in San Francisco, author Adah Bakalinsky writes there are more than 600 stairways throughout the Baghdad by the Bay. It’s writer Gary Kamiya who pens love letters to some of these wondrous joys, such as the Filbert Steps between Telegraph Hill Place and Sansome Streets. The Pemberton Steps are a favorite, too, but one little weird set of stairs deserve a bit more love than they tend to get. And that’d be the Corbin Steps, otherwise known as Corbin Place in Corona Heights.
Nuzzled between 17th Street and Corbin Avenue, there isn’t a ton of information out there about this community-supported bit of urban paradise. According to San Francisco Stairways the area was rebuilt in 2011. Before that the steps were still there, just a lot less colorful and with far fewer pieces of red metalwork. It’s about a 10-minute steep uphill walk from the Castro Muni station below, and the garden and steps are open to the public 24 hours a day. This little brother to the most major of tiled steps in the city might not make it on any big list of must-sees, but that’s part of what drives the charm all the more.
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Some might see this little window of respite as just another San Francisco quirk, nothing to write home about. But the tiny mechanical creatures that dot the area are just a delight. Plus, unlike other steps in the city, anyone who was walked up the arduous climb of 17th Street, hiking from the Castro to Twin Peaks, a place to stop and take a breath is extra needed here. Make a day of proving the doom loop nonsense wrong and traipsing through the city to enjoy some of the best views San Francisco has to offer.
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