Five New Artworks and a History Tour on Your Phone: A Fall Walk Through Downtown San Rafael

Between early May and the end of August, downtown San Rafael added five public artworks. Four of them are now permanent. The fifth, an 18-foot stainless steel sculpture outside City Hall, is scheduled to stay for one year. One of the permanent pieces still hasn't reached the spot it was made for. The new collection is still being arranged, and this fall is the one season when all five can be seen where they were first placed.

The Downtown San Rafael Business Improvement District reported on Monday, Aug. 31, that all five works were on display. A California Arts Council grant paid for them, and more than 1,000 community members gave input on the designs. The installations came as the downtown's California Cultural District took a new name. The former Downtown San Rafael Arts District is now San Rafael Arts.

The sculpture with a one-year stay

Oleg Lobykin's "Talking Heads" stands outside City Hall. The City lists it at more than 18 feet tall and 9 feet wide, weighing about 2,000 pounds. Its stainless steel is polished to a mirror finish, so anyone walking around it shows up in the piece. The City describes the work as a study of "void and substance," built from open forms rather than one fixed image. Lobykin was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and lives in Silicon Valley. Alongside his own work, he restores landmark architecture and sculpture.

The City of San Rafael's announcement calls it the fifth and final work in the 2025–2026 program. The other four went into the permanent civic art collection. "Talking Heads" will be displayed for only one year. Local Edition Creative, a Bay Area arts consulting agency, ran the program. The sculpture went up late this summer, so it should be gone sometime next year. Anyone who wants to see their reflection stretched across its steel has this fall, the holidays and spring to do it.

The sculpture that's still due to move

The program's first work is also the one most likely to move next. Martin Taylor's "Touch the Sky" was unveiled on Wednesday, May 6, at the B Street Community Center. The City describes stainless and patinated steel with gold paint, made to suggest motion, light and reaching upward.

The Community Center was always meant to be temporary. The City has said the sculpture will move permanently to the lane divider where Second Street meets Fourth Street. The downtown business district describes the same move as heading to the West End. If you go looking for it this fall, check B Street first and then the Second-and-Fourth divider.

Three works that are staying put

The other three pieces are painted or set into structures downtown already had, so they aren't going anywhere. They went up one at a time over the early summer:

• "Where the Fountain Dreams" by Paz de la Calzada, City Plaza fountain. This one combines a mural with ceramic tile and is about how water flows and how it joins, sustains and transforms things. The mural was on view by May 28, and the City expected the tile phase the week of June 10.
• Wyatt Hersey's retaining-wall mural on Second Street near Ida Street. At about 210 feet, it's the longest piece in the set. It brings together coyotes, wildflowers, bicycles and Mount Tamalpais to tell a story about local nature, community and history. It was on view by June 18.
• "Handle With Care" by Bryan Valenzuela, C Street Garage on Third Street. This two-panel mural shows hands cupping a rose against a Bay Area landscape. Handwritten memories, metaphors and poems fill the hands. The City calls it a meditation on caring for land, life and community together. It was on view by July 2.

Valenzuela's panels reward a slow look. The handwriting is the point, and you can't read it from a moving car on Third Street. Hersey's wall works the opposite way. It is long enough to take in at a stroll, and the Mount Tamalpais imagery echoes the real ridgeline on clear days.

Fourth Street, with the history on your phone

The art program isn't the only downtown project still growing. In September, the City of San Rafael and the Marin History Museum launched a free, self-guided historic walking tour on the STQRY app, in English and Spanish. You can open a stop's history and archival photos by scanning a QR code or just by standing nearby. The tour is at cityofsanrafael.stqry.app.

The Marin Independent Journal reported that the tour covers more than 20 locations, with more planned. Lori Deibel, a research librarian at the Marin History Museum and one of the tour's creators, told the paper, "We would eventually like to include locations all over the city," and explained that the team started on Fourth Street because that's where most people walk. She also said she "discovered so many buildings that still look exactly the same."

The same Marin IJ story names three stops:

1. 831 Fourth St., now Gold Rush Jewelers, began as a Packard dealership. Owner Rick Lewis told the paper that customers appreciate the art deco facade and that the period details inside make the store feel cozy.
2. 1300 Fourth St. was the site of San Rafael's first house, Don Timoteo Murphy's adobe, in 1844. The Bank of Italy building replaced it in 1930. The City's project lead, Walter Gonzalez Valdez, told the Marin IJ that the Bank of Italy helped finance the Golden Gate Bridge.
3. The old courthouse site is a stop for a building that's gone. The courthouse was built in 1872 and stood for about a century. Historic photos on the app show it in place.

The Bank of Italy building shows how unsettled downtown still is. The September Marin IJ story said it would soon reopen as The Twelfth, a women's sports bar. The Twelfth's own website says the team is in the final stretch before opening and has paused its watch parties while it prepares the space.

Lunch at 869 or 1574 Fourth St.

Fourth Street addresses also give you two good places to stop for food, one near each end of the walk.

Sapori Ristorante, 869 Fourth St., is a few doors from the old Packard showroom. It opened in January, and chef Jaime Wence runs it with his wife, Esther, as the Marin Independent Journal reported in May.

Alioto's Focacceria, 1574 Fourth St., is in the West End corner storefront that used to be The Kitchen Table. According to the Marin IJ's August story, chef Alexander Alioto closed The Kitchen Table in June after about seven years, spent a month reworking the kitchen and layout, and reopened in August as a fast-casual deli. The focaccia sandwiches are made on loaves from Poesia Cafe in San Francisco, with fillings like pistachio mortadella with stracciatella and sun-dried tomato. The menu also has four pinsas, and the cold case carries fresh pastas and sauces to take home. Alioto's father, master sommelier Nunzio Alioto, picked the roughly 30 wines.

The deli also has a piece of history you won't find on the STQRY tour. A 20-foot mural from the family's Fisherman's Wharf restaurant hangs above the order counter. That business grew from the fish stand Alioto's great-grandfather opened in 1925. "It was in the attic at my parents' house and is a cool piece of history," Alioto told the paper. There are 22 seats, and the deli is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 7, along the Canal

If you want a reason to walk past Fourth Street, try the Saturday a week after Halloween. San Rafael's 38th annual Día de los Muertos celebration runs Saturday, Nov. 7, from 3 to 9 p.m. at the Albert J. Boro Community Center, 50 Canal St. The program includes a procession through the Canal neighborhood. The City is also working on a future waterfront park at 620 Canal St., a former boatyard it bought in November 2025. The City's October update says it is still collecting ideas, and a pedestrian and bike bridge to downtown is only a possibility for now. For now, the procession is the main event on that stretch of the Canal.

More local notes on downtown, the West End and the Canal are on the San Rafael neighborhood page.

I grew up in Marin, and I like seeing Fourth Street storefronts I've known for decades get their history told. If you're thinking about a move and want to talk about which parts of San Rafael fit your daily routine, from the West End to the Canal, Stephanie Sabo is glad to walk through it with you. Let's Connect.