Look at Those Eyes.
Two-and-a-half-year-old chihuahua “Sadie” was one of
several SPCAdogs hoping for a new home last month. You
can see other cute pups, as well as adorable kittens,
when the SPCA Mobile Adoption crew comes to town four
times in March.
The visits are to Church Street’s Noe Valley Pet Co. on
March 10, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and K-9 Scrub Club March
18, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and then to Rabat on 24th Street
March 24 and 31, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. For more
information, call the stores or go to www.sfspca.org.
Photo courtesy SFSPCA
TELLING YOU SOFTLY: New
businesses in Downtown Noe Valley (DNV) are opening their
doors to the public
with little fanfare. This is called a “soft opening.” The
official “Grand
Opening” comes later, sometimes months later.
On Feb. 25, Dona Taylor softly opened her third
store in DNV, in
the space recently vacated by Hot Headz at 4027 24th near Noe
Street. The new
store, called Taylor’s Home and Garden, is right next door to
Taylor’s
furniture store, When Modern Was. Pretty cozy. Her other
store, just up the
street, is Gallery of Jewels, which is co-owned with husband
Bill Hoover.
The new store is “a vintage home and indoor
garden store, with
antiques and stuff made out of recycled materials,” says
Taylor. “We will have
things like carved panels and corbels, planters, urns,
botanical prints, and
rustic benches and tables.”
Taylor has hired Donna Gee to manage the store.
Gee worked at the
famous Mia’s Flowers on Church Street for 15 years and then
managed the French
Tulip on 24th Street.
Not surprisingly, Taylor says, there was strong
competition for
the Hot Headz location. “The building owner told me that there
was a lot of
interest by people who wanted to open hair and nail salons,
but he wanted a
retail store, so he agreed to rent to us.”
She says When Modern Was, which she moved from
Church Street to
24th two years ago, has been doing “fabulously” and so she’s
more than excited
about the prospects for the new store.
“We will be having our Grand Opening in April,”
says Taylor. “We
will be serving wine and chocolate every Saturday until then.”
= = =
FILLING UP LOFTLY: Moving
from 1513 Church St. into the space recently vacated by Urban
Nest on 24th near
Sanchez is the boutique Loft 1513. Led by Larissa Verdussen,
the shop is a
collection of wares made by about 40 local artists, most of
whom are women’s
clothing designers. Their previous Loft 1513 opened in June of
’09. Verdussen
has scheduled a very soft 24th Street opening for March 1.
“It has been three years that we have been
looking for the ‘right
place’ on 24th Street to open our women’s boutique, so I am
very excited,” says
Verdussen, “since I have been very involved in promoting the
designers, like
throwing monthly fashion events that showcase the artists.”
The Grand Opening party is set for April 26, from
6 to 10 p.m.,
and will feature four clothing designers—Verdussen (her line
is called Rag
Doll), Yugala Priti, Jill Pillot (Ricochet Wearable Art), and
Carrie Asby
(Sutter Larkin)—and jewelry designer Juliet Spalding.
Oh, by the way, the name “Loft 1513” will not be
changed
to “3927”.
= = =
ELECTRONIC GIZMOS and
high-tech gadgets will be making a comeback this month, when
Radio Shack
reopens its Downtown Noe Valley store. It’s been at its
current location, 4049
24th St., since 1982, but the store had to close abruptly on
Saturday, Sept.
10, when a fire in the flats upstairs caused smoke and
electrical damage to the
space.
Reconstruction began in late November. And
workers have been busy
going in and out of the shop. But local folks got so
desperate, Pete’s Cleaners
at 24th and Vicksburg had to start selling iPhone accessories
(phone cases).
According to building owner Diane Connell, Radio
Shack will be
ready to take possession of the storefront in early to mid
March.
Radio Shack will then take about 30 days to
install what they are
describing as a new state-of-the-art prototype for future
Radio Shacks around
the country. Connell expects the store to hold its Grand
Reopening by or before
May Day.
“I’ve got to say that the contractors and city
building inspectors
have been very prompt and cooperative throughout this whole
process,” says
Connell, “and hopefully the residential units upstairs will be
ready to be
occupied by June.”
You might be interested to know that in 1960,
Connell’s parents,
Abraham and Greta Kass, opened a five-and-dime store called
Meyer’s Variety in
that 24th Street spot. That was when the price of chewing gum
was a nickel (see
Florence Holub’s Family Album, Voice, April
2002).
These days, there is only one variety store in or
near the
neighborhood: the fantastic Cliff’s Variety over the hill in
the Castro. (Ever
been there? If not, you probably just moved here. Check it
out.)
As for Meyer’s, Connell says her parents ran the
store for 20
years. After they retired, “it was a men’s and women’s clothes
store for a
couple of years before closing, and then Radio Shack leased
[the space],” says
Connell.
A Radio Shack representative confirmed its store
was reopening but
was unable to provide any juicy details.
= = =
EASY BREEZY PLEEZY: The
Cosmic Wizard left the 24th Street galaxy last year, but
granted the
neighborhood one last wish: a frozen yogurt shop. Back last
October, Noe
Valleons Durand and Ariel Ford signed a lease and embarked on
the permitprocess, after they
announced their intentions at the September meeting of the Noe
Valley Merchants
and Professionals Association.
“We have gotten a lot of support from the
Merchants Association
and many others—residents, neighbors, and individual merchants
in the
neighborhood,” says Ariel, “and we are set for a Planning
Commission public
hearing on our plans March 8, which we are very confident will
be approved,
[so] we get our permits and start to build out the space.”
The goal for opening their doors is June 1. It
will be called,
according to Ariel, Easy Breezy, and feature frozen yogurt to
go, although
there will also be some seating in the store.
Speaking of frozen yogurt, the space vacated last
year by
Tuttimelon on the corner of 24th and Sanchez is still vacant
and not for rent,
but my spies tell me First Republic Bank is moving forward
with plans to open a
small-sized branch there.
= = =
SAY GOODBYE GOODBYE to
24th Street store Ladybug Ladybug, which shut its doors for
good on the last
day of February. All the inventory flew on home to the
Sacramento Ladybug, a
second shop owner Sheila Istvanick opened last year.
“I am really sad to be leaving Noe Valley and all
my loyal
customers, but the logistics for our family became very
difficult when we moved
to the El Dorado Foothills three years ago from San Francisco.
You know, with
three kids (ages 2, 3-plus, and 6) it became a very long
commute,” says
Istvanick, “and while we had a great store manager [Rebecca
Heller], retail has
been sluggish for the past couple of years, so two stores
[became too much].”
The Noe Valley Ladybug Ladybug began life at 3870
24th almost eight
years ago, when See Jane Run vacated the spot and moved up the
street.
“I really loved watching all of the kids who came
into the store
grow and seeing all their parents on a regular basis—a great
group of
families,” says Istvanick.
“Becka” Heller, who has been at the store for
almost five years,
has lost her job, but says she will be okay. She is graduating
from San
Francisco State this spring, with a degree in sociology.
Istvanick says Heller
was given ample warning of the Ladybug closure and “has been a
big help [to
me].”
= = =
HIT OUT OF THE PARK: It
looks like San Francisco Giants ace Matt Cain will take his
first loss during
spring training—not on the ball yard but on the sale of his
Noe Valley house up
on Diamond Street at Beacon.
Redfin reports that Cain’s four-bedroom,
three-bath “contemporary,
modern/high-tech” 2,815-square-foot home, built in 1968 and
affording a great
view, was being offered for $1,795,000 and a sale is pending.
It appears by
public record that Cain purchased the property in 2008—the
year he made
$950,000—for $2,050,000, and the previous owner had purchased
the house a year
and a half before that for $1,450,000.
The rumor is that the sale will be consummated in
the next two
weeks and that Cain will turn over the ball, or should I say
keys, to the new
owner, having already moved to parts unknown. Bye-bye Baby!
= = =
THE NAKED TRUTH: The Chronicle-SF
Gate reported a Noe Valley story that instantly
went viral with the
headline “Heavy crime in the naked city,” and a post by Vivian
Ho on Feb. 23.
According to the story, Noe Valleon John Knight
was driving north
on Church Street on the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 21, when a
heavy-set woman
wrapped in a blanket, who had just been removed from the
J-Church streetcar at
24th Street and was being attended to by some medical
personnel, bolted and
threw off her blanket, which revealed she was wearing nothing
but sneakers. She
ran up on the hood of Knight’s Volvo and smashed his
windshield. Knight was
unfazed by the incident and seemed most concerned—as anyone
would be—about
whether his insurance company would cover the damage.
SFist ran a news flash on the
event and posted a
photo snapped by alert neighbor Paula Maxa, who captured the
woman climbing on
top of Knight’s blue car. The story and pictures have gone
round the world,
with London’s Daily Mail featuring the
incident online under
the headline “What an insurance claim he must have: heavy-set
woman wearing
only trainers stomps in windscreen of man’s car.”
= = =
KUDOS go out to Downtown
Noe Valley resident Catherine Bergstrom, who was tapped by
Supervisor Scott
Wiener as one of San Francisco’s Women of the Year (he chose
three in District
8). Bergstrom was being honored for her role in organizing a
benefit for the
residents who were displaced by the September fire at the
Radio Shack building.
The fundraiser was held on Oct. 6 at the Valley Tavern, and
raised almost
$7,000 for the residents of four apartments.
The awards ceremony at the Board of Supervisors
will be on March 6
at 3:30 p.m., with the event being organized by the mayor’s
office through the
Department on the Status of Women.
“I was surprised when I very recently got the
letter from the
executive director of the Department, Emily Murase (Ph.D.),
informing me that I
had been nominated by Supervisor Wiener,” said Bergstrom, who
has lived in Noe
Valley for the past nine years and does corporate
communications work in her
home office.
“I really wanted to help the people who lost
everything in that
fire, but really didn’t have money to give them, so I used my
talents and
organizational skill to put on the benefit,” she says, “and I
want to thank
Vince Hogan (Valley Tavern), Celia [Sack] and Paula [Harris]
from Omnivore and
Noe Valley Pets, and Richard Brewer from the Elizabeth Street
Brewery for all
their support in putting on the event.”
Kudos should also go out to the Fair Oaks
Community Coalition, for
raising over $15,000 for the three victims of a serial rapist,
one of whom was
assaulted Dec. 8 on Fair Oaks Street near 24th.
The fundraising efforts were led by Coalition
member Blair Moser,
who said that “empathetic Voice readers
opened their wallets,
too, after reading our story about the assault in last month’s
issue.”
= = =
CIAO FOR NOW: That’s
all, you all. Have a safe and sane St. Patrick’s Day. See you
right here next
month with all the news that’s fit to print.
