A winding, meandering street in the heart of San Francisco has been called by many the most crooked street in the world. With its snaking roadway and brightly hued flowers, Lombard Street is one of the most famous tourist attractions in the Bay Area city.
For years, Lombard Street has been depicted in popular photos shared on social media platforms, including Tumblr, Pinterest, and Reddit. One such post was shared to X on March 9, 2025, in a thread describing "life in the 1970s." It said it represented San Francisco's Lombard Street in 1975. At the time of this writing, the post had received more than 53 million views.
Life in the 1970s 🧵
1. San Francisco's Lombard Street, 1975 pic.twitter.com/f98AHryjoM— James Lucas (@JamesLucasIT) March 9, 2025
This photo genuinely shows Lombard Street. It was taken sometime in 1975, and its photographer, Mike Fitzpatrick, confirmed it to Snopes.
Fitzpatrick uploaded the image to the photo-hosting website Flickr on April 23, 2006, with a caption that read:
I had to climb a telephone pole to get high enough to take this picture. The other tourists who saw me up threre [sic] insisted on handing their cameras up for me to take photos for them too.
In an email to Snopes, Fitzpatrick confirmed the above details, writing:
When I was there in 1973 and again in 1975, I decided to climb up the telephone pole at the SE corner of the intersection to get a better view of the switchbacks. I was in my early 20s then and quite fit. I don't remember how high I climbed, but probably about 10 feet.
When I next visited the site in 2008, I was in my mid-50s and rather than climb the pole, I stood on a trash can and held the camera as high as I could to take a shot. But if you compare that 2008 picture with those from 1973 and 1975, you can see that the 2008 shot from the trash can was not taken from quite as high as are those from the telephone pole.
One way to tell the height of the camera is to look at how far up the stairs to the left of the road you can still see the top of the treads. In the 1975 photo, it is well past the first bend of the road; in the 2008 photo, it is just barely up the first bend. I still have the original 35mm color slide of the 1975 photo. It was taken with an Argus brand 35mm SLR camera. It has not been altered in any way other than perhaps exposure and color balance. There was a steady stream of automobiles winding their way down Lombard Street the whole time I was there.
The photo Fitzpatrick took in 2008 is available to view on Flickr here.
The California tourism group Visit California writes that Lombard Street extends three miles east to west, from The Presidio to the Embarcadero waterfront. It's between Hyde Street and Leavenworth Street that the short, one-block, zig-zag section can be found. The group continues:
The steep hill that Lombard traverses has a daunting incline of 27 degrees. Back in the 1920s, when the street was designed, that would have presented a challenge for the automobiles of the day to climb, and could have been dangerous in the downhill direction. The zig-zagging route was an effort to make it easier to climb, and safer for vehicles and pedestrians. Since then, the 600-foot-long block has featured eight hairpin-tight turns. Perfectly manicured shrubs and pastel-colored hydrangeas line the serpentine red-brick road, adding to the fantastical feel. Every day, well over a thousand visitors test their mettle (and their brake pads) with a drive down the block.
The famed section can be found at 1099 Lombard St., located in San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood.
(Getty Images)
"The 'crooked' section of Lombard Street is both a residential neighborhood and one of the most popular tourist destinations in San Francisco, drawing approximately 2 million visitors each year," writes the San Francisco County Transportation Authority on its website.
(Getty Images)