Lombard Street is the famous crooked street in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, with eight switchbacks. Many call it informally “the crookedest street in San Francisco” or even the world.
Then you have detractors who say nuh-uh, it’s not the crookedest street, Vermont Street is (scroll to bottom of page). I guess it depends on how you measure crookedness. But one travel book I read many years ago and cannot recall the title of made the statement that Lombard Street “isn’t even the crookedest street in Russian Hill”. They couldn’t have meant Vermont, because that’s in Potrero Hill, not Russian Hill.
What crookeder street in Russian Hill could they have been talking about? I can’t find any obvious candidates on a map. Was it perhaps a street that was straightened out at some point?
HEY! I was just on that street while playing GTA 5… 99% of my search results say Lombard it is. I can’t find it but a while back I was led to believe it wasn’t the most crookedest, yet was named that because of its popularity (location, I guess)…
Just my own impression: I’ve driven down Lombard Street (Wheeeee!), and it takes more than a little dexterity. If there’s a “crookeder” street anywhere, is it actually navigable by cars?
Could you be misremembering what the travel book said?
There is Filbert Street in RH, which is not ‘crookeder’, but has a steeper incline (the reason for the switchbacks on Lombard), only it has no switchbacks.
Filbert is definitely my favorite. It parallels Lombard and has a much more dramatic effect, I think.
If you’re in a car with reasonable hood length (e.g. a full-sized sedan like an old Ford Crown Vic) as you go over the top you can’t even see the street for the first few seconds. It feels like you’re driving off a cliff. We used to take guests who visited us in SF down that street all the time because Lombard was usually backed up with tourists. Good fun. And you could go back around and do Filbert again with no waiting.