Lombard Street (San Francisco)
The Lombard Street in San Francisco in the U.S. state of California, which partly as U.S. Highway 101 runs, is feeder to the Golden Gate Bridge and one of the main thoroughfares of the city. Became known, however, is the Lombard Street as the crookedest street in the world.
The Lombard Street runs from the Presidio to the Telegraph Hill across San Francisco. The famous part of the road is on the Russian Hill and extends over only one block between Hyde Street and Leavenworth Street. At this point, she was one of the steepest streets in the city with a slope of 27 percent, which was a problem for many cars and pedestrians. Therefore, it was 1923 in serpentine form a one-way (downhill leader ) rebuilt. The Filbert just two blocks distant Street has even a drop of 31.5 percent, but was not defused and was thus able in numerous movies ( and others Bullitt ) serve as a " ski jump ".
The paved road is now at a distance of only about 145 meters from eight curves, one of the curves at the beginning and end, even from ten. Whether you make the title crookedest street in the world deserves, but is not sure. The Vermont Street in Potrero Hill tourist district less important, for example, has about 85 meters distance five curves.
The attractively designed road section is now one of the most popular photo opportunities of the city and is mainly used by tourists who want to go through the " slalom course " once. For pedestrian side a staircase runs.
In pop culture
In the movie Herbie The Love Bug Herbie goes down the road very rapidly. Other cars are not at the same time on the track.
The road and the difficulty to drive it was parodied in San Francisco in the Bill Cosby skit driving. She was also in the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas parodies. In the fictional city of San Fierro, based on San Francisco, Windy Windy Windy Windy her name Street.
Even in video games such as Midtown Madness 2 and The Fast and the Furious there are stretches where the player on the Lombard Street jumps. The road is also a playable venue in Tony Hawk's skateboarding. Also simulated is the Lombard Street in the "Bus - & Cable Car- Simulator ", set in San Francisco. There it is possible to cross the road with a bus, a car or on foot (a particular problem is there is the simulated articulated ).