Golden Gate Heights’ residents Jessie Audette and Alice Xavier started the grassroots project to beautify the neighborhood and connect neighbors in a community project.
Artists Aileen Barr and Colette Crutcher created the mosaic design, a colorful, flowing, sea-to-sky theme. The mosaic consists of 163 separate mosaic panels, one for each step riser. Community members were able to participate directly in creating the panels through a series of workshops
The 16th Avenue Tiled Steps Project was officially inaugurated on Saturday, September 27, 2005. Among the dignitaries at the ribbon cutting ceremony were Prof. Francesco Pignataro, Mayor of Caltagirone, Italy (location of the famous Scala Steps), the Italian Consul General, acting mayor Supervisor Sean Elsbernd. Supervisors Fiona Ma, and Assemblymember Leland Yee.
To celebrate the event Lion Dancing was performed by Sefu Dino Salvatera's "Hung Sing Gung Fu Club", and the
Nguyen Dance Company executed a graceful dance on the stairway.
For more about San Francisco’s many stairways, see Adah Bakalinsky's wonderfully informative guidebook, Stairway Walks in San Francisco.
