What San Francisco street did Steve McQueen drive down in Bullit in the famous chase scene?

Answer 1

For example San Francisco General Hospital is close to the chase scenes filmed around 20th Street, Kansas Street, and Rhode Island Street, while Russian Hill served as the base for many of the chase scenes, with the Marina District only a short distance away.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

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Answer 4

A whole lot of streets

The chase segment starts off, with the Charger trailing the Mustang, near the intersection of Potrero and Army streets in Bernal Heights. It then proceeds west on Army Street for a few blocks.

Bullitt makes a U-turn on Army at Precita (note the Pontiac and the lighting: here is the very next frame with a 1956 Dodge Coronet where the Pontiac was and different lighting), (the gas station is still in operation but no longer a Phillips 66.) Bullitt then makes an immediate right turn on York Street .

The Charger follows and this view of Army eastbound is visble just before they make the right onto York. He disappears up York Street and the bad guys stop at the corner of York and Peralta and look west trying to find him. They continue on York at this odd little intersection of York with Peralta

The two cars then magically appear on 20th Street at Kansas Street in the Potrero Hills district where McQueen appears in their rearview mirror They continue north on Kansas Street for about two blocks.

The chase then suddenly jumps to the Russian Hill/North Beach area. It heads east on Filbert Street, with Coit Tower and Saints Peter and Paul Church visible in the center of the frame, at the corner of Taylor.

The chase crosses Mason Street (you can see the cable car) then heads northwest on Columbus Avenue past Greenwich Street and the North Beach Playground (now named after Joe Dimaggio) through North Beach. At Chestnut and Columbus the bad guys make an illegal left turn (note the white Pontiac Firebird) and head west (uphill) on Chestnut. In this view looking east on Chestnut the San Francisco Art College is visible.

They then make a left on Leavenworth and head south toward Lombard.

The chase then continues at the intersection of 20th and Rhode Island in the Potrero Hills district again. They continue on 20th Street and turn right heading north on Kansas.

Once again the chase makes a gigantic leap back into the Russian Hill district. The Charger appears making a right turn onto Larkin Street (heading north) from Lombard (headed west). They continue for one block on Larkin.

At the corner of Larkin and Chestnut streets Bill Hickman gets the Charger into a serious oversteer condition and then over-corrects and crashes into a 1956 Ford parked at the corner. The crash itself can be seen in the movie from one camera angle but the shot from the second camera angle was was not used in the film.

In a rather impressive demonstration of driving skill, Hickman continues east on Chestnut Street after the impact, seemingly unaffected.

McQueen attempts to follow the Charger as it turns right on Chestnut and heads EAST. The Mustang understeers badly and he is forced to stop and back up in order to make the turn. Note the skid marks and also note the fact that the Mustang does not have a limited-slip differential as evidenced by the single long black tire mark left by the right rear tire as McQueen accelerates east on Chestnut.

They then appear heading WEST on Chestnut then turn south on Jones (you can see the street sign and the distinctive building at Jones). They continue south on Jones Street. They make another left from Jones onto Lombard and head east on Lombard.

The locale now shifts to what is probably the most famous part of the chase. Taylor Street headed north crossing Vallejo. They continue north (downhill) on Taylor, passing Green Street, approaching Union Street, passing Union Street, and arriving at Filbert Street. They turn left headed west on Filbert and pass the Chinatown campus of San Francisco City College.

At this point the film editors inserted footage shot from different (uphill facing) camera angles of the procession down Taylor Street. Here is Taylor at Vallejo looking south, Taylor just above Union Street looking south just before Green Street, and Taylor above Green Street (where the Mustang oil pan bursts after a hard landing) looking south.

During this portion of the chase, a green Volkswagen appears in the path of the Charger (and the Mustang) several times. It is the same green Volkswagen in each frame. There are also two Pontiac Le Mans (one white, one green) which also appear in several frames, always appearing in front of the chase, which is an obvious continuity lapse.

The reuse of the Taylor Street footage may have gone unnoticed were it not for the green Volkswagen. Another car, a Pontiac Firebird, also appears in several sequences (once at Bimbo's 365 at Columbus and Chestnut, and again on Larkin Street at Francisco).

The chase next winds up on Larkin Street (again) and this time the two cars pass Chestnut street and continue on Larkin. The Dodge Charger hits the wall where Larkin Street curves left and becomes Francisco Street and loses another hubcap (which magically gets reattached in later frames). Note the white Pontiac Firebird. The cars head down Francisco past Polk Street

They continue north on Laguna, which turns into Marina Boulevard. The entire area is a grassy hill within Fort Mason now part of the Golden Gate Recreation Area.

The chase passes the famous Safeway supermarket, which is still in operation, and Fort Mason. .

The chase continues west toward the Golden Gate Bridge on Marina Boulevard This sequence features several repeats, with the cars passing the Fort Mason area and the Safeway twice.

According to several printed sources, the chase was supposed to continue across the Golden gate bridge but the city (which had already bent over backwards for Solar Productions) refused permission since even in 1968 it would have been a traffic nightmare, so the chase picks up again on University Street, which is all the way across the city to the south.

. The chase continues into McLaren Park.

The chase picks up again on Market Street in Daly City headed eastbound past John F. Kennedy Elementary school at 785 Price Street and Guadalupe Canyon Parkway. It continues eastbound on Guadalupe Canyon Parkway through a road cut . At various points during the eastbound portion San Francisco Bay is clearly visible

The direction changes and the cars are shown heading westbound, passing through the same road cut they passed through headed east. In the scene where stunt driver Bud Elkins lays down a motorcycle, there are several radio towers visible on the hill in the background. Those towers are still there and this section looks very much as it did in the film.

Shortly afterwards the chase ends when the Charger crashes in flames at a gas station at the corner of Guadalupe Canyon Parkway and North Hill Drive (in Brisbane, San Mateo County) which is now an office building.

Chalmers confronts Frank Bullitt at the ambulance entrance of the Hall of Justice at Harriet Street and Ahern. This is just prior to the point at which Bullitt discovers that the man shot at the Hotel Daniels is not Johnny Ross but Albert Edward Renick a used car salesman from Detroit. Bullitt knows that Renick made a long distance phone call from a pay phone near Union Square and has traced the number to a Dorothy Simmons (actually Judith Renick, wife of Albert Renick) at the Thunderbolt Motel in San Mateo.

Since his own car was damaged at the end of the chase, Bullitt gets his girlfriend Cathy, played by Jaqueline Bisset, to drive him to the Thunderbolt Motel in San Mateo, in her yellow Porsche 356B, to check on Judith Renick, aka Dorothy Simmons. The actual location is the Clarion Hotel at 401 East Millbrae Avenue just east of 101 in Millbrae .

Subsequently Bullitt and Cathy stop along US 101 North to talk, with Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard visible in the background.