The Mission has more paint per block than anywhere else in San Francisco, and almost none of it is behind a door. Garage roll-downs, church walls, the side of a taqueria, an entire community center from sidewalk to roofline. You can see fifty years of it in an afternoon without spending a dollar, which is one reason the neighborhood has never needed a museum to explain itself.
This route runs about two miles, mostly flat, from the 16th Street Mission BART station to the 24th Street station. Give it two hours, more if you stop to eat. You will stop to eat.
Before you go
- Go in daylight. The alleys are narrow and the color needs sun. Late morning is best.
- Dress one layer lighter than you think. Twin Peaks blocks much of the fog, so the Mission runs warmer and sunnier than the rest of the city.
- Remember these are people's homes. Both alleys are residential. Keep your voice down, don't block garages, and never touch or lean on a mural.
Stop 1: Clarion Alley
Between 17th and 18th Streets, running from Mission to Valencia.
Start here. The Clarion Alley Mural Project began in 1992 and has put up more than 900 murals since, which tells you the most important thing about the place: it is repainted constantly. Work comes down, new work goes up, and the alley you see this year is not the one that was here five years ago. The tone is political, funny and blunt, often on the same garage door. Housing, displacement and who the city is for are the recurring subjects.
Stop 2: The Women's Building
3543 18th Street, between Valencia and Guerrero.
Come out of the alley onto Valencia, walk down to 18th Street, turn right and look up. MaestraPeace covers the building on two sides, about 12,000 square feet of it, painted by seven women muralists with the help of dozens of volunteers. It is a single composition about women's work, belief and history across cultures, and it rewards standing across the street for a few minutes while your eyes adjust to the scale. Then cross and read the details at ground level.
The walk south
From here, take Valencia or Mission down to 24th Street, a little over half a mile. Valencia is the cafe and bookstore route. Mission Street is louder, older and has better produce. Either way, keep looking at walls. Some of the best work in the neighborhood is uncredited and halfway down a side street.
Stop 3: The Carnaval mural
24th Street at South Van Ness.
Daniel Galvez painted this in 1983 to commemorate the Mission's first Carnaval in 1979. It was refreshed in 2014. It also marks your arrival on 24th Street, the spine of the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District and the densest stretch of murals in the city.
Stop 4: Balmy Alley
Between 24th and 25th Streets, in the block between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street.
This is where the Mission's mural tradition took hold. The first paintings went up in 1972, made by Mia Galaviz and children from a local child care center. A year later, Patricia Rodriguez and Graciela Carrillo painted here too, a collaboration that grew into Las Mujeres Muralistas, one of the first all-women mural collectives in the country.
The alley became what it is in the summer of 1985. Under a project called PLACA, led by Ray Patlán, artists added 27 murals in a single season, celebrating the Indigenous cultures of Central America and protesting U.S. intervention there. For the neighborhood, the walls were news.
Today roughly three dozen murals cover nearly every fence and garage on the block. Newer pieces take on gentrification and policing. Older ones have been carefully restored. Walk it slowly, once in each direction.
Stop 5: Precita Eyes
2981 24th Street, at Harrison.
Half a block from Balmy Alley is the organization that has kept much of this alive. Precita Eyes Muralists, founded by Susan Cervantes, runs a visitor center, sells supplies and leads walking tours with people who know who painted what and why. If you want the stories behind the walls, book one. The fee supports the organization's work.
Stop 6: Two more on 24th
Keep walking east. At 24th and Florida, on the side of St. Peter's Parish, is 500 Years of Resistance, painted by Isaias Mata in 1992 to mark five centuries since Columbus's arrival. Two blocks further, at 24th and York, Juana Alicia's La Llorona's Sacred Waters fills the wall of a taqueria in deep blues, tying an old legend to modern fights over water.
From there it is about fifteen minutes on foot back to the 24th Street BART station. Get a burrito on the way. You've earned the foil.
Carry the color
You can't take the Mission home, so we made part of it wearable. The Mission T-Shirt is our portrait of the neighborhood that grew up around Mission Dolores, founded in 1776. The City Vibes Boxy Tee and Harmony T-Shirt come out of the mural tradition directly. The whole set is in Murals, and everything else we've drawn from this part of town is in The Mission & Castro.
Further reading: the history of Balmy Alley and Time Out's Mission murals tour.
