San Francisco's Crooked Street Gets A 'Sweet' Transformation

On August 18th, the cobbled stones of San Francisco's famous 'crooked street', were magically transformed into a larger-than-life version of Candy Land, complete with Princess Lolly, Princess Frostine and of course King Kandy.

While the one-day transformation, organized to celebrate the popular board game's 60th birthday, certainly looked like the work of a magician, it was actually some hard working men who covered the stones with hundreds of colorful, blue, green, purple and orange inter-locking mats.

Once the 'board' was ready, four teams, comprising of six kids each, ascended the steep Lombard stairs and took their position at the 'start'. Playing a somewhat simplified version of the game, the teams moved to the designated color, depending on the card chosen by a special card drawer.

Hundreds of tourists and locals cheered on, as the kids ran, somersaulted and even slid down on their bellies. One brave soul, even tried to hand-stand down all the way!

The yellow team, all young chronically sick kids from UCSF Children's hospital, were declared the official winners - However, it didn't really matter, since everybody had a ton of fun and received a slice of this amazing Candy Castle cake made by Oakland -based cake company, Debbie Does Cakes. Wish we had been there !!!

The idea for Candy Land was conceived in 1949 by San Diego resident, Eleanor Abbot, as a way to entertain children suffering from Polio, a disease that invades the nervous system. She presented her idea to Milton Bradley (now Hasbro), who fell in love with it and agreed to manufacture it - The first versions were sold at just a dollar apiece. In the last sixty years, the company has sold over 40 million copies and the game remains a must-have for all families with young children.

sources:SFGate.com, Wikipedia.org, sfist.com,kcbs.com