Visiting Dignitary: Mayor Edwin Lee paid a
visit to Noe Valley on Feb. 11, to personally thank
neighborhood leaders for
their efforts to maintain a vibrant community benefit
district along 24th
Street. He said the CBD, as well as the flowering
parklets along 24th Street,
had become a model for other residential-commercial
areas in the city.
Photo by Sally Smith
OPEN SPACE, THE FINAL
FRONTIER: Neighborhood
support for preserving the open space on 24th Street that is
currently the Noe
Valley Ministry parking lot is drawing quite a bit of
attention, as the group
Residents for Noe Valley Town Square (RNVTS) moves closer and
closer to
acquiring the $4 million needed to seal the deal. The source
for much of the
funding would be the city’s Open Space Fund. Another big share
of the money is
that pledged by local residents and merchants, thanks to three
years of
fundraising and lobbying by the RNVTS.
Very recently, the group was presented with a
Certificate of
Honor from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors sponsored by
our supervisor,
Scott Wiener. Present to accept the award were RNVTS activists
Todd David,
Peter Gabel, Leslie Crawford, Chris Keene, Kate Sherwood, and
Nisha Pillai. (See
photo in this month’s Letters.)
In his commendation, Wiener wrote, “This
project is a great
example of people in a neighborhood coming together to
preserve open space and
working with city government to accomplish that goal.”
Neighborhood pledges are now nearing $500,000.
You might want to
make a smallish pledge, say 20 or 50 bucks, to show continued
support. The
group has a table at the Farmers’ Market (24th and Vicksburg)
every Saturday morning.
You know the drill: pledge now, pay later.
The project also has caught the attention of
other members of
the Board of Supervisors. So says RNVTS spokesperson Todd
David. “We have the
support of David Chiu [District 3], who made the announcement
at the Noe Valley
Democratic Club get-together.” (More on that later.)
David says he has also been contacted by
Supervisors Eric Mar
and Jane Kim, “and they seem very excited by our efforts and
the public/private
partnership we have created, and want to discuss our efforts
that could then be
adapted to their districts.”
Next for the RNVTS will be a presentation to
the city’s Rec and
Park Commission, most likely at the commission’s April
meeting. If all goes
well there, the plan for the city to buy the parking lot—and
the dream of a
town square in the heart of Noe Valley—will look for a stamp
of approval from
the Board of Supervisors, possibly this spring.
Ah, the efficacy of an idea.
= = =
DON’T DELETE THE
COOKIES: By
the way, the Noe Valley Ministry has taken over management of
the parking lot,
which is now—and has been for over a year—for private use
only. Ministry
spokesperson Chris Keene reports that the managerial change
was made at the
beginning of February. The lot had been run by a professional
parking lot
manager, APN, and public parking was allowed.
“That was not profitable for them,” says Keene,
“and 20 of the
27 spots are rented, by about eight businesses who have spots
for their
customers and two handicap spots, but those two will remain
available to the
public.”
Missing from the lot will be the CookieTime
truck. It looks like
baker Marina Snetkova has sold it to Omi Yamamoto and is
headed back to her
former home, New York. Yamamoto, who lives in the Excelsior
District and
formerly worked for a business called Creative Pastries, is
going out on her
own. She says she’ll continue to make Snetkova’s cookie
recipes, which rated
almost five stars on Yelp, at various locations around the
city and at Off the
Grid’s mobile food gatherings.
= = =
FOR ME AND MY GALA: Noe
Valley Democratic Club members and prospective members had a
grand time at a
party hosted by NVDC President Hunter Stern in January.
Stern, a Noe Valleon since 1993, says the club
received 60 RSVPs
but “about a hundred attended, which was just great.” Stern
says regulars paid
the club’s $30 annual dues and several new members joined the
group.
“And this was actually the first time we had
ever done this kind
of event, since the club was formed in 1995, so we will
definitely do it
again.”
Supe Wiener spoke to those assembled and shared
the optimism he
now has for the aforementioned Town Square project. And, of
course, Supervisor
Chiu gave his support for the square in his greetings.
There was an interesting twist during the gala,
when apparently
two registered Green Party members inquired about joining the
club. Stern had
to tell them sorry, membership and the right to vote on club
endorsements were
for registered Democrats only.
Seems there are hundreds of Democratic clubs in
the city. That’s
because those running for public office seek the clubs’
endorsements at
election time. Very San Francisco. Very Balkanized. But I
digress.
= = =
MONDAY IN THE PARKLET
WITH ED: Mayor
Ed Lee came to Noe Valley on a sunny Monday in February, and
at a press
conference held in the parklet in front of Just for Fun,
thanked the Noe Valley
Association for its beautification efforts and praised the
local residents,
property owners, and merchants for creating a model
neighborhood commercial
district (CBD). Special thanks went to Debra Niemann (NVA
director) and David
Eiland (Just for Fun owner) and other local merchants for
their willingness to
endorse new ideas like parklets, which the mayor deemed a
sterling success.
There was a large crowd of media people for the
event, most of
them eager to ask the mayor about other subjects.
= = =
LIKE • COMMENT •
SHARE: Folks
from Facebook seem to be moving into our very social
neighborhood. Last
December, we reported the rumor wafting from SocketSite.com
that Mr. Facebook
himself, Mark Zuckerberg, had bought “a pied-à-terre” in the
neighborhood. The
Noe Valley Bureau of Investigation confirmed the rumor was
true: at least that
a home was purchased “on the southeast border between Noe
Valley and Liberty
Heights.” Now we know it’s in the 3600 block of 21st Street.
By the way, the
public records for that sale indicate that a California LLC
(limited liability
company) actually holds title to the property and that the LLC
is based in Palo
Alto. It also appears that the purchase price was $3 mil (not
$4 mil, as
reported here in November).
Well, it appears that the pied-à-terre was just
one property
purchased by the people at Facebook. The NVBI has discovered
that the social
media giant also purchased a much larger house down the hill
on 21st Street, in
an area some people have nicknamed “Baja Noe.”
The purchase price extrapolated from the county
transfer tax
records translates into exactly $9,999,000, which may be the
new record price
for single-family dwellings in these parts, and definitely not
“Baja” in terms
of the price. By the way, the property was never listed for
sale. Looks like an
offer that couldn’t be refused.
The house has 14 rooms with over five thousand
square feet, and
sits on one of the larger lots in the neighborhood, a
9,800-square-foot lot
(that’s .225 acres). Zuckerberg’s name is not on this house
either, but rather
a different LLC with a San Francisco address.
However, the NVBI has received reports of
Zuckerberg sightings in
Downtown Noe Valley, most recently on a Saturday morning at
the Farmers’
Market.
= = =
A SAUNA OF ONE’S OWN: News
came from LoopNet.com, a commercial real estate
website, that
Elisa’s Health Spa, a 24th Street institution, is for sale for
“key money” of
$48,000 and a lease for a monthly rent of $3,500. The spa,
which offers hot
tubs and massage, was first opened at 4028 24th back in 1975.
At the time,
building owner Elisa Ining opened a women’s clothing store
too, in the spot
where Easy Breezy Frozen Yogurt is now. (The clothing store
didn’t last too
long.) She also operated a bar next door, and called it the
First Ining (where
Bliss Bar is, uh, was).
According to Mike Onufer, the agent from
Vandermade Commercial
Leasing, there have been inquiries by four groups who are
interested in the
space, “and two of them are currently running health spas.”
Onufer says Elisa,
who is over 80, is “not anxious to sell the business.”
There is no health
or other emergency, he says.
= = =
ITEMS GALORE: Don’t
hunt for eggs in Noe Valley this year. The Noe Valley
Association has called
off its annual egg hunt in Noe Courts park in light of the
Easter holiday’s
early date this year (March 31). “We have learned from years
past that early
Easter means bad weather,” says the association’s news
release. The festival
was normally held on the Saturday before Easter.
The Farmers’ Market has a very eclectic musical
show every
Saturday and in past weeks has featured a musician, Yacouba
Diarra, from
Burkina Faso, a West African country south of Mali. He plays a
n’goni, a
stringed instrument made from a large gourd.
Umpqua Bank is inviting neighbors to nominate
Noe Valley
non-profit organizations and projects to receive grants
ranging from $500 to
$2,000. According to DNV Umpqua Bank Manager Erick Tenorio,
the bank has
received over 20 applications for grants, with almost half of
them coming from
neighborhood groups. Looks like there will be nearly $10,000
awarded this
spring. If you want to nominate a group or a cause, go visit
Tenorio at 3938
24th St.
Opes Advisors, a mortgage broker and asset
manager located on
24th Street directly across from Whole Foods, is expanding
into the adjoining
storefront. The space was most recently occupied by the
Children’s Playhouse at
Noe Valley, which closed last year. The renovations should be
finished very
soon. Opes spokesman John Ebner, who has lived on Vicksburg
Street since 1997,
opened the Noe Valley branch in late 2011 and already needs to
expand. “Many of
our clients live right here in the neighborhood, and we get a
lot of referrals
from the real estate firms in the neighborhood.”
= = =
ALL HANDS ON TECH: Twenty-four
teams entered this year’s Noe Valley Tech Search Party. The
scavenger hunt
started at the 25th Street entrance to James Lick Middle
School, where the
teams each got a map and the clues leading to 10 answers found
in various
locations in the neighborhood. Once the clues were found, the
teams took pix
and emailed them back to home base. The finish line was at the
Valley Tavern,
where the entrants hoisted beers and toasted the
prize-winners.
Two teams with eight correct answers tied for
first place:
ADIDAS (All Day I Dream About Science) and Dewey Defeats
Truman. Second place,
with seven right, went to the First Republic Search Team;
third to Indomitable
Immersion Mamas, who got six correct.
Think you’re so smart? Clue number seven had
three pics: Babe
Ruth, Dave Cowens, and Buster Posey. Need a hint? Think
uniform numbers: Babe
Ruth wore #3, Dave Cowens wore #18, and Buster #28. That’s
easy: 318 28th St.
Okay, how about clue three, “Where water dances
and splendor is
silken.” Dancing Water and Silken Splendor are coffee flavors
at Philz Coffee
at 4298 24th St.
One of the hardest clues had to be “Latitude
37º 45’ 13.4562—Longitude
122º 26’ 27.7656,” which if you got it right would have sent
you to the top of
the stairs where Diamond and 22nd streets meet.
The Tech Search Party reports that almost
$12,000 was raised to
support James Lick Middle and Alvarado and Marshall elementary
schools.
= = =
THAT’S ALL, FOLKS. I
am looking forward to April Fool’s and plan to pop a quiz on
you. The first
question will be: Where in Noe Valley was Fat Ron’s Deli? If
you have any
tricky questions (and answers) about our neighborhood, email
them to me care of editor@noevalleyvoice.com.
