Sunday, October 11, stacks two of San Francisco's biggest annual events onto one afternoon. The last Fleet Week air show runs from noon to 4 p.m. At 12:30 p.m. the Italian Heritage Parade steps off from the foot of Jefferson and Powell in Fisherman's Wharf. It heads south through North Beach on Columbus Avenue and ends in Washington Square, in front of Saints Peter and Paul Church. SFMTA's own parade advisory says the two events overlap.
For Telegraph Hill, the city's closure maps share one feature. Every closure, staging area and bus detour sits at the bottom of the hill. SFMTA's Fleet Week travel update lists North Beach, Russian Hill, the Marina and the Presidio as affected neighborhoods. It does not name Telegraph Hill or list any closure on Telegraph Hill Boulevard or at Coit Tower. The hill itself stays open. Its western edge, where Union Street meets Columbus and Stockton, is where the day closes in.
How Sunday Unfolds From the Hill's Edge
The closures arrive in stages, starting well before the jets and ending an hour after them.
- 7:30 a.m. SFPD may begin closing streets. Parade staging takes over blocks of Beach, North Point, Francisco, Powell and Stockton near the Wharf.
- 8 a.m. Union Street between Columbus and Stockton closes for the parade car show and stays closed until 5 p.m.
- 8:30 a.m. The 39 Coit begins its detour, which also runs until 5 p.m.
- 10 a.m. Fleet Week ship tours open at Pier 27 and Pier 35. They run until 4 p.m.
- Around noon. Rolling closures begin along the parade route, just as the air show starts over the water.
- 12:30 p.m. The parade starts.
- 4 p.m. The air show ends.
- 5 p.m. The rolling closures, the Union Street car show closure and the 39 Coit detour are all scheduled to end. SFMTA says service returns to normal once the streets are clear.
The parade route stays close to the hill's western base. After Leavenworth, it runs southeast on Columbus, south on Stockton and east on Vallejo. It then doubles back northwest on Columbus, turns north on Stockton and west on Filbert, and heads north on Powell to break up in Washington Square. Anyone who usually crosses Columbus to get from the hill to the Marina or Russian Hill will run into it all afternoon.
The Bus That Skips Its Own Stops
On a normal day the 39 Coit runs from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, every 20 minutes midday and in the evening. On Sunday it still gets there, but by a different path, and it drops the Union Street stops that tie the hill to North Beach.
| Direction | Hours | Detour | Stops skipped near the hill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inbound to Fisherman's Wharf | 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Ends at a temporary terminal at North Point and Mason, the existing 28 19th Avenue stop | Union at Montgomery, Kearny and Grant on both sides; Union at Columbus; Stockton at Union, Filbert and Greenwich |
| Outbound to Coit Tower | 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Starts at North Point and Mason, then runs via North Point, Taylor, Bay, Stockton and Lombard to the regular route | Union at Columbus and Stockton; Stockton at Greenwich and Lombard |
SFMTA lists no alternate stops along Union, Stockton or Powell for either direction. Riders who usually board at Union and Montgomery or Union and Kearny will have no inbound bus at their corner from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. Riding down to the Wharf means walking to the reroute. The ride up is easier, because the outbound bus picks up its regular route after Lombard.
The detour shown here comes from the parade advisory. SFMTA's Fleet Week page warns that its details may change as new information comes in. The live route page and SFMTA's text alerts will have the latest. Earlier this year, the Telegraph Hill Dwellers warned in a June letter that a 39 Coit cut could last until December. KQED reported on July 2 that service came back after about a week. SFMTA's September 25 bus-substitution update lists only routes 36 and 37 as affected. The Sunday detour is a one-day change on a route that is otherwise running normally.
The Waterfront Side Runs on a Different Schedule
East of the hill, the day looks different. Pier 27, at the base of the hill's waterfront side, is one of the two ship-tour piers. Tours run there from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, and from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, October 7. Pier 35 is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on all four days. When NBC Bay Area published its schedule, the visiting ships were still to be announced.
Fleet Fest is easy to place in the wrong spot. One informal walking itinerary for the weekend puts it at Pier 27. The published Fleet Week schedule lists Fleet Fest at 2860 Taylor Street in Fisherman's Wharf. Ship tours are at the foot of the hill. Fleet Fest is past the parade's staging blocks, near where the parade begins.
The air show itself is centered on the Marina Green and flies between the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. That puts the main show well west of the hill. On Friday, October 9, the Parade of Ships moves along the waterfront from 11 a.m. to noon, and the procession can be seen between the Golden Gate and Bay bridges. Friday is the day the ships pass the hill's own shoreline.
Up Top, the Usual Caveats Apply
Rec and Park lists the Coit Tower café as open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. The same page warns that the tower's old elevator is sometimes out of service because of mechanical problems. That is standing guidance and has nothing to do with Fleet Week. It still matters on a weekend when out-of-town guests may want to go up.
The same unofficial itinerary suggests watching from the hilltop and gathering on the Pioneer Park lawn below the tower. It then heads down the Filbert Steps toward the waterfront, and its host calls the day one of the waterfront's busiest, according to the Meetup itinerary. No official 2026 Fleet Week guidance names any Telegraph Hill viewing spots. The city has not issued hill-specific crowd warnings either, so there is no official estimate of how full the lawn will get.
Walking Down to the Parade
The parade ends in Washington Square, below the hill's western slope, and it carries more history than most. It began as San Francisco's First Columbus Day Celebration in 1869. In 1994 the Columbus Day Parade became the Italian Heritage Parade, which celebrates Italian and Italian-American achievement and culture. This year's parade is the 158th.
Actor Joe Mantegna is the 2026 grand marshal, and Bernie Orsi is the civic grand marshal. Admission is free, including the Bank of America Concorso Italiano Auto Show. That car show explains the all-day closure of Union between Columbus and Stockton, the block where the hill meets North Beach. Fleet Week also crosses over into the parade. The published schedule puts the 1st Marine Division Ceremonial Band and the Navy Band Southwest Parade Band in the 12:30 p.m. lineup. The organizers say viewing is open along the entire route.
For someone on the hill, the bus won't help much that afternoon. The inbound 39 Coit skips its Union Street stops, the car show fills the block of Union below, and the route's last stretch runs along Filbert and Powell into Washington Square.
A Smaller Project on the Same Slope
After the weekend, one hill project keeps going on its own schedule. The Telegraph Hill Dwellers Parks & Trees Committee received a $5,000 Neighborhood Beautification Grant from San Francisco Beautiful to restore Jack Early Park. The grant pays for materials, and the work includes restoring the wooden light fixtures and the irrigation system, removing ivy to make room for new plantings, and repairing the viewing platform. The committee is still looking for volunteers and asks anyone interested to email [email protected].
For more than 25 years, Heidi Rossi has followed how weekends like this one play out on Telegraph Hill, block by block, from the Union Street stops to the stairways down to the water. If you're weighing a move to a home on the hill, or a sale timed around the city's calendar, Rossi Real Estate can share that local knowledge. Schedule a private consultation.
