PROMENADE RIBBON SCULPTURE

The Promenade Ribbon is a five-foot wide strip of pavement separated from the rest of the Bay. Sold ground is split. The concrete band is bisected by a line of glass block. Light spills up through the glass as if from a void. This is where the Bay ands and the City Begins. The line of the pavement rises and falls. It lifts up to function as seats and bollards. It sinks back under your feet where it is pavement. This is where you walk the line, the thin line between land and water.
This is where you cross the line, from land into water and from water into land.

Commissioned by the San Francisco Art Commission for the Waterfront Transportation Projects.
Artists: Vito Acconci, Stanley Saitowitz, and Barbara Stauffacher Solomon 1991-2000

“The Promenade Ribbon” is an urban sculpture installed along San Francisco’s waterfront promenade in 1995. The sculpture, better known as the “Embarcadero Promenade Ribbon,” was created by Vito Acconci. It consists of a concrete strip about 4 kilometers long, with a central line made of fiber optics that used to illuminate the path at night. The purpose of the sculpture is to highlight the meeting point between the city and the bay, and between land and sea.
Today, due to seawater intrusion and years of erosion, the concrete strip is no longer illuminated.

The sculpture was not photographed, but it can be seen at the following link (which also includes photos of the sculpture when it was lit) Will the Embarcadero ‘Promenade Ribbon’ ever light up again?