by Ted Sherman

Created on: October 28, 2008   Last Updated: December 04, 2008

The one thought I always have when I see that one crazy block of Lombard Street is: the people who live in these houses must be really tired of seeing hordes of climbing tourists and unbroken lines of creeeping cars jam their street every hour of every day. And they must be totally disgusted with those unwelcome visitors who've had a bit too much to drink, try to maneuver it at night.

Actually the city's Lombard Street is not confined to this one block, but that one is a famed one-way meander between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets. It features eight very sharp zig-zags, and boasts that it is "the crookedest street in the world". Of course, many who know what happens on that certain Washington DC street where Congress is in session may have another opinion, although there it isn't the street that is so crooked. Just the politicians.

The crooked quarter-mile block was developed about 85 years ago when a builder first erected houses on that craggy Lombard location, a very steep hillside. His idea was to stagger the street because it was on an almost 30 degree grade. At the time almost impossible for rickety, top-heavy 1920s cars to drive up, it became a one-way, bright-red brick and cobblestone-paved street, and driving downward became the only direction. Even today, it can be hazardous for contemporary model cars to descend, and signs all over the street warn drivers to stay within the five-mile-an-hour limit or they could be ticketed.

Of course, pedestrians can walk it either way, and it takes a hardy climber to make it from bottom to top. We were there about a year ago, standing at the little garden plot at the bottom, snapping away along with all the other tourists, when a troop of Boy Scouts arrived. After a pep talk from their leader, flag unfurled, they began a quick ascent. We decided to follow them, and because of our very advanced ages, we made it about half way and then slunk back to the bottom again. However, the boys carried their flag to the top and stood there like the Marines on Iwo Jima while tourists snapped photos of them. There's a cable car stop where the boys were, and they were local heroes that day.

Just as a matter of curiosity, I checked prices of the homes when they were first offered in the 1920s. For the large, two-story structures, the price was between $11,000 and $15,000, a fairly high figure for that time, when the average American home cost $5,000. For-sale ads in 2007 and early 2008 listed them from $1.2 million and up. Of course, considering the economic shock wave now hitting every city in America, those prices could soon come down sharply. Almost as sharply as the zig-zag street makes its way to its bottom.

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