Buena Vista Park on Haight Street is one of San Francisco’s oldest public parks. Built on the side of a hill, on a clear day one can see the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and downtown between the trees at the top of the park.
Today you’ll find everyone from wanna-be hippie kids to dog walkers to young couples having picnics in the park.
But if you look closely you’ll also find something else: pieces of old headstones.
When San Francisco started evicting graveyards in the early 20th century to make more room for the living, many headstones were scrapped for material — recycled rock, basically.
In the 1930’s a WPA project was tasked with updating Buena Vista Park’s pathways and addressing flooding issues. Many of these new pathways were lined with gutters paved from rocks; including old headstones.
For the most part the headstones aren’t noticeable, aside from the unusual decision to pave gutters with white stone. However in a dozen or so places around the park, parts of the original engravings are easily to spot. Three of these are in the photos above.
More information can be found on Wikipedia and on Atlas Obscura.