This Week In Noe Valley: Town Square Gets A Vote, A Foreclosure Flip, And A Game Of Thrones Feast

News from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• Board of Supes Budget and Finance committee to take up the Noe Valley Town Square on Wednesday; 5% of all sales at Whole Foods will go towards the Town Square on same day [NVTS]
• Game of Thrones feast at Contigo (more mead, wench!) [Eater SF]
• Noe Valley has a plant fairy godfather [The Shingled House]
• Scott Wiener's May Newsletter [Scott Wiener]
• Church St home purchased from bank after foreclosure on a 40-year mortgage returns to market for $2.55M [Socketsite]

[Photo: Matthew Shuey]

This Week In Noe Valley: Hot Noe Food Trend, Quirky Houses and 1906 Mystery Photo Solved

News from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• Dashboard bacon, a new Noe Valley artisanal food trend [@rachaelshafer and SFist]
• Noe is home to not one but two of SF's quirkiest houses [urbanhikersf]
• Do people really like the parklets on 24th St? Not everyone's convinced... [SF Examiner]
• Mystery 1906 photo turns out to be this spot on outer Church... [SF History Assoc.]

[Photo: @rachaelshafer]

This Week In Noe Valley: The Home Of Lux Homes, Another Stuck Bus, And The History Of San Francisco Street Names

News from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• Noe Valley was king of luxury home sales in SF for first quarter of this year [SF Biz Times]
• New to SF? From SF? This map will make you smarter [Noah Veltman]
• "Another great moment in corporate busdriving" [@bwalsh]
• Yet another realty company's video guide to Noe Valley [ClimbSF]
• Want to donate perishable food? This week we learned how. [@dolface]

[Photo: soniafaleiro]

NVV May 2013: We Read It So You Don't Have To

The Noe Valley Voice is published ten times a year and has been a neighborhood fixture since 1977. Here are notable highlights from the latest issue. Links are to stories we've covered here on NVSF or outside sources as the Voice doesn't post stories online until the middle of the month.

May 2013

Front Page: The Town Square clears a major funding hurdle - the city looks set to buy the lots; Noe Valley wine makers will offer a taste of their wine at the May 11 Garden Tour, AT&T setting locations for the U-Verse broadband boxes - neighbors want them out of sight; local Mother's Day potraits.

Letters: A patron is upset with Walgreens' rewards program; an Elizabeth St. resident is still not happy about the de facto off-leash dog park status of Noe Courts; a Day St resident reports on the declining quality of Starbucks and La Bou since they merged; another Day St resident defends the blue bin recycling bandits: "on this small scale nobody suffers, the fellow makes a bit of change, Recology receives your same monthly payment... the police have more important things to do that deal with this pettiness..." [Ed.-- For the record, lost revenue from stolen recyclables is part of why your Sunset Scavenger rates are going up]. A Dolores St resident credits the NVV for shaming the owner of 1220-22 Church St into repainting.

Features and Short Takes: St. Luke's plans for a new 7-story hospital; Fair Oaks Street Fair (mega garage sale) is May 11 from 9am-5pm on Fair Oaks between 21st and 26th.

Cost of Living in Noe: Good luck finding a condo or single family home for under $1 million right now; the high mark was set by a 1900s cottage on 23rd St. that was updated and sold for $3.6 million.

Rumors: A truck driver gets his rig stuck on the ultra-steep 22nd St on April Fool's Day; look for sidewalk sales on 24th St on Saturday May 18 as part of Small Business Week; NV eagerly awaits the new eatery from the owners of La Ciccia called La Nebbia; the former Noe Valley Deli on 24th St is under construction [Ed.-- Griddle Fresh]; Mazook learns about what's in season at the Farmer's Market and why people like to hang out in Dolores Park; a clothing boutique on Church St. called Kitami Ropa is now officially open.

[The Noe Valley Voice]

Bomb Threat Evacuates 4100 Block Of Cesar Chavez

News today via Celia Sack of Omnivore Books that fire and police were converging on Noe Valley:

What's up Noe Valley? Police cars screaming in every direction!
— Omnivore Books (@omnivorebooks) May 3, 2013

She also Tweeted that Search/Rescue and HazMat were on the way, too. @bling0 confirmed with more detailed information:

Bomb squad in Noe Valley near Cesar Chavez and Castro. Residents told to evacuate area.
— Benjamin Ling (@bling0) May 3, 2013

Neighbor @coudron pinpointed the location and confirmed evacuation:

I was just asked to evacuate the 4100 block of Cesar Chavez because of a bomb threat. Anyone have updates?
— Chris Coudron (@coudron) May 3, 2013

And while we figured it wise to stay away, other neighbors were more adventurous. A nearby neighbor sent us the scoop:

I overhead some of the people who live in the building that was evacuated talking ... apparently a guy who lives in one of the units is a bit strange and recently has been getting stranger, possibly a paranoid schizophrenic. Over the last few months, he’s been switching numbers on people’s doors as if he doesn’t want someone to find him, leaving notes around the building about Donald Trump wanting to blow things up… fun stuff like that. Then today he called the police with a bomb scare, saying someone was trying to blow up the building. When the cops arrived they found some stuff in the front of the building that didn’t look right and decided to play it safe and call in the bomb squad. According to their report, the crazy neighbor was taken into custody by the police, screaming in the back of the police car. You can tell they were really tired of this guy.

Of course there will probably be more once the police start talking and the news crews figure out how to find this dead end street. Stay tuned.

@noevalleysf NBC investigative unit van just drove by heading up there (love when they all hit that dead end!).
— Omnivore Books (@omnivorebooks) May 3, 2013

Update 3:45pm:

Residents in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood are being evacuated this afternoon after police detained a man and then called the bomb squad to the area, a police spokesman said.

Around 12:40 p.m., police were notified about a suspicious person in the 4100 block of Cesar Chavez Street, Officer Gordon Shyy said.

Arriving officers found a man in the carport area of a residential building and detained him.

While responding, officers determined there were a suspicious object or substance in the area and called for the department’s bomb squad and hazardous materials team to come to the area.

Homes on the dead-end street were evacuated around 1:45 p.m. and the intersection of Castro and Cesar Chavez streets was blocked off to pedestrians and motorists, Shyy said.

As of 2:50 p.m., the area remained shut down.

No injuries have been reported, Shyy said.

Sasha Lekach, Bay City News

Update 4:30pm: The helicopters are gone.

Ok, people, show's over, no Noe bomb. Just a huge waste of taxpayer resources.#NoeValley #nobomb@noevalleysf
— Erika Was (@erikawas) May 3, 2013

This Week in Noe Valley: Mystery Blackout, La Nebbia Love, And Honor For Victims Of Violent Crime

News from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• Omnivore's May newsletter wants you to learn how to cook [Omnivore]
• A $780,000 shack is reincarnated as a $3.1M home with a cottage [California Home & Design]
• More La Nebbia love from the interwebs [Zagat]
• The garden tour is coming May 11 [FONV]
• Hog and Rocks chef moves to Potrero and misses Noe Valley – a lot [7x7]
• Yellow is the "it" color of the moment for Noe dining rooms [Home Design Lover]
• Total blackout in Noe Valley for 13 minutes on Thursday night – confusion ensues [@rsarvar, @KristinHenry]
• Victims of the 24th St rapist honored by DA Gascon for their courage in testifying against assailant [SF Appeal]

[Photo: Campoy83]

Real Foods: I Wish This Was...

It's been almost 10 years of lawsuits and blight since Real Foods abruptly shut its doors, and aside from the mural behind the glass this is one of the best things we've seen on site. From a frustrated neighbor:

Well, I've had these 10 stickers in my desk for probably 3 years now, always intending to go put them up at Real Food, and today I finally did! It wasn't more than a minute before people walked up and asked for my Sharpie so they could write on the stickers. The project is by Candy Chang and the stickers remove without any damage to the window, so it isn't vandalism. And really, after what will be TEN YEARS this September, when the heck are they going to make that space into something usable? What a waste!

Anyway, the responses that the first few people had were awesome. I'm sure the stickers will be gone by tomorrow, but for today I hope the 24th street walkers enjoy the statement.

As of 4:30 this afternoon there will still two blank stickers. What would you add? Some examples below.

[Candy Chang: I wish This Was]

Update: Cesar Chavez Streetscape Improvements

Work on Phase II of the Cesar Chavez sewer upgrade streetscape improvement project began last month and like the sewer work will move east to west. Crews are currently rerouting curbs and catch basins between Hampshire and Bryant. CC Puede's Fran Taylor attended last night's neighborhood meeting and sent this update:

The work is scheduled to be finished by the end of the year and will be done in phases:

1. Drainage and bulbouts: 20 bulbouts on the corners with planters to catch rainwater will be done first.
2. Median: Next, the median curbs will be laid out.
3. Repaving: The repaving will be done in sections: Hampshire to Florida in Sept/Oct, Florida to Folsom in late October, Folsom to Mission in November, and Mission to Guerrero at the end.
4. Sidewalks: Next, the new street lamps and other sidewalk improvements will be done.
5. Plantings: The last step will be sticking all those new plants In the ground on both the sidewalks and the median.

Lanes were reconfigured after sewer work was completed to approximate traffic flow when finished. The pavement has been rough, but traffic seems to flow smoothly. When this project was first announced plenty of our readers expressed dismay over the loss of traffic lanes despite the addition of dedicated turn lanes and bus pullouts. Now that the changes are more evident, we're curious - how have the changes affected your commute?

[SFDWP: Cesar Chavez Sewer & Streetscape Project]
[NVSF: Cesar Chavez: Work Starts In June (2011)]
[Photo: SFDPW (PDF)]