Grand View Park

Grand View Park, also referred to as Turtle Hill by local residents, is a small, elevated park in the Inner Sunset District, San Francisco, California. [cite web |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/14/NSH0UTBPQ.DTL |title=Grandview Park and the Mosaic Stairway |accessdate=2008-04-28 |author=Gail Todd |date=14-02-2008 |work=SFGate.com |publisher=Hearst Communications Inc.] It is surrounded by 14th and 15th Avenues, as well as Noriega Street.

Despite its small size of 4,500 m² (1.1 acres), about the size of a city block, the park is important geologically and botanically. It is also worth visiting because of the stupendous views it offers over downtown San Francisco, the Golden Gate Park, to the Pacific Ocean, the Marin headlands, and across to the Sutro Tower.fact|date=March 2008

The park covers the peak of a hill that rises to about 820 feet (250 m) above sea level. It is an outcrop of chert, which is part of the heterogeneous assemblage known as the Franciscan Formation, or Franciscan Assemblage, the primary geologic feature on which the city of San Francisco is founded, here covered with a thin layer of sand. It provides one of the last remaining habitats within the city for a number of native plants, including the endangered Franciscan wallflower and dune tansy, and also bush lupin, beach strawberry, bush monkey flower, and coyote bush. The hill is topped with Monterey cypress trees, though these are now seen as damaging to the plant community.fact|date=March 2008

Because of the fragility of the environment, visitors to the park are asked to keep to paths. An active restoration program is under way, led by the California Native Plant Society and the city of San Francisco's Recreation and Parks department.fact|date=March 2008

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