• UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights
• Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve
• Parnassus Avenue
• Kalmanovitz Library

Parnassus takes its name from the ancient Greek mountain sacred to Apollo and the Muses — a fitting choice for what became San Francisco's center of medical learning. In 1895 the California State Legislature authorized a University of California medical campus, and Mayor Adolph Sutro donated 13 acres on what was then called Mount Parnassus, a foggy expanse of sand dunes at the city's western edge. UC San Francisco established itself along Parnassus Avenue in 1898, and the cornerstone of the first medical building had been laid on March 27, 1897.

When the 1906 earthquake and fire devastated much of San Francisco, the Parnassus campus became critical: its medical facilities anchored care as 40,000 displaced residents sheltered in the nearby Golden Gate Park tent city. Today the UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights and the 61-acre Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve — a dense urban eucalyptus forest designated as permanent open space — define the neighborhood's dual identity as healing institution and hillside sanctuary.

Parnassus carries more than a century of medical discovery on its fog-draped slopes. MY-NHD's Parnassus collection honors those who have lived, studied, and served in the shadow of one of California's great research institutions.