Sydney Walton Square

You are standing in a space designed to mimic the tranquility of an alpine meadow, even though it sits right in the middle of a dense urban center. Landscape architect Peter Walker crafted this two-acre park to represent a flat valley floor, using the surrounding high-rise buildings as artificial mountains to enclose the view. The square occupies the former site of the Colombo Market, which once served as the city's primary produce hub. Starting in 1874, horse-drawn wagons arrived here in the early morning hours to deliver fruits and vegetables to San Francisco. By the mid-twentieth century, the area had fallen into decline and faced significant sanitation issues, leading to its total transformation during the urban renewal projects of the nineteen sixties. The only physical remnant of that agricultural past is the masonry arch covered in ivy at the edge of the park. This structure served as the entrance to the old market and stands today as a city-designated landmark. While the market itself was replaced by modern residential towers and plazas, the park remains as a deliberate public gesture, maintained by the adjacent Golden Gateway Center as part of a mandate that required over one million dollars to be spent on public art for the development.