Corona Heights Park is a park in the Castro and Corona Heights neighborhoods of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It is situated immediately to the south of Buena Vista Park. Corona Heights is bounded in part by Flint Street on the east, Roosevelt Way to the north, and 16th Street to the south. The base of the hill is at approximately , while the peak extends to above sea level. Corona Heights Playground and the Randall Museum are located within the Corona Heights Park. The whole area is underlain by

Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a ...

bedrock, and a large percentage of the hill is barren. At the hilltop, the chert bedrock in terra cotta red is clearly visible. The steps leading up to the peak are not supported by handrails. The peak of the hill is windy, but it offers an unobstructed panoramic view of the city of San Francisco from downtown to the

Twin Peaks ''Twin Peaks'' is an American mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on ABC on April 8, 1990, and originally ran for two seasons until its cancellation in 1991. The show returned in 2017 for ...

Natural history

Portions of Corona Heights park are made up of native plant communities protected under the natural areas program as well as non-local plants. The park is home to native reptiles, including northern and

southern alligator lizard The southern alligator lizard (''Elgaria multicarinata'') is a common species of lizard in the Family (biology), family Anguidae. The species is native to the Pacific coast of North America. It ranges from Baja California to the state of Washingt ...

s and

garter snake Garter snake is a common name for generally harmless, small to medium-sized snakes belonging to the genus ''Thamnophis'' in the family Colubridae. Native to North and Central America, species in the genus ''Thamnophis'' can be found from the ...

s. Butterflies like the anise swallowtail, red admiral and cabbage white can be seen flying in the park.

Red-tailed hawk The red-tailed hawk (''Buteo jamaicensis'') is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members wit ...

s and

common raven The common raven (''Corvus corax'') is a large all-black passerine bird. It is the most widely distributed of all corvids, found across the Northern Hemisphere. It is a raven known by many names at the subspecies level; there are at least ...

s can be seen over the park on most days. California scrub jays,

mourning dove The mourning dove (''Zenaida macroura'') is a member of the dove family, Columbidae. The bird is also known as the American mourning dove, the rain dove, and colloquially as the turtle dove, and was once known as the Carolina pigeon and Caroli ...

downy woodpecker The downy woodpecker (''Dryobates pubescens'') is a species of woodpecker, the smallest in North America. Length ranges from . Downy woodpeckers primarily live in forested areas throughout the United States and Canada, with the exception of deser ...

chestnut-backed chickadee The chestnut-backed chickadee (''Poecile rufescens''), formerly ''Parus rufescens'', is a small passerine bird in the tit family, Paridae. It is found in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and western Canada, from southern Alaska to sout ...

pygmy nuthatch The pygmy nuthatch (''Sitta pygmaea'') is a tiny songbird, about long and about 10 grams in weight. Description Measurements: * Length: * Weight: * Wingspan: It ranges from southern British Columbia south through various discontinuo ...

es,

bushtit The bushtits or long-tailed tits, are a family, Aegithalidae, of small passerine birds with long tails, compared to their size. The family contains 13 species in three genera, all but one of which are found in Eurasia. Bushtits are active birds, ...

s, American robins,

California towhee The California towhee (''Melozone crissalis'') is a bird of the family Passerellidae, native to the coastal regions of western Oregon and California in the United States and Baja California Sur in Mexico. The taxonomy of this species has been deb ...

white-crowned sparrow The white-crowned sparrow (''Zonotrichia leucophrys'') is a species of passerine bird native to North America. A medium-sized member of the New World sparrow family, this species is marked by a grey face and black and white streaking on the uppe ...

dark-eyed junco The dark-eyed junco (''Junco hyemalis'') is a species of junco, a group of small, grayish New World sparrows. This bird is common across much of temperate North America and in summer ranges far into the Arctic. It is a very variable species, much ...

American goldfinch The American goldfinch (''Spinus tristis'') is a small North American bird in the finch family. It is migratory, ranging from mid-Alberta to North Carolina during the breeding season, and from just south of the Canada–United States border t ...

es, and

house finch The house finch (''Haemorhous mexicanus'') is a bird in the finch family Fringillidae. It is native to western North America and has been introduced to the eastern half of the continent and Hawaii. This species and the other two American rosefi ...

es nest in or near the park.

History

The property has been known as Rocky Hill or Rock Hill, and the Fist (from the upthrusting chert rock boulders at its peak). In the 1800s, Rock Hill was the site of a quarry and brick factory, which were closed by the 1920s. In 1928, Josephine Randall, the Superintendent of Recreation for the

San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department The San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department is the city agency responsible for governing and maintaining all city-owned parks and recreational facilities in San Francisco, California. The Recreation & Parks Department also runs Sharp Park i ...

, proposed that the City buy the 16 acres of Rock Hill for recreation. In 1941, it was purchased for $27,333 and officially named Corona Heights.

Images

Image:Street view of Corona Heights Park.jpg, View of the park from Roosevelt Way Image:Corona Heights Steps.jpg, Steps leading up to the top of the hill Image:View_from_Corona_Heights_1.jpg, View from the hill Image:View_from_Corona_Heights_2.jpg, View downtown from the hill Image:View_from_Corona_Heights_3.jpg, View from the hill Image:View_from_Corona_Heights_4.jpg, View from the hill Image:Franciscan Chert at Corona Heights Park.jpg,

dominates the barren hill

Popular culture

Corona Heights is prominently featured in the 1977 horror novel " Our Lady of Darkness" by

Fritz Leiber Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. ( ; December 24, 1910 – September 5, 1992) was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theater and films, playwright, and chess expert. With writers such as Rober ...

References

External links