The Noe Valley Voice is published ten times a year and has been a neighborhood fixture since 1977. Here are highlights from the latest issue. Links are to stories we've covered here on NVSF.
November 2009
Front page: Supervisor candidates faced off early at a forum at the Noe Valley Recreation Center on Oct. 22 – and William Hemenger of Diamond Heights has also just entered the race; Omnivore cookbook signings; Billy Goat Hill gets $50,000 for trail and habitat restoration from the Measure A Parks Bond passed by voters in 2008.
Feature: Tough times for 24th Street and upper Noe merchants continues – although the Whole Foods opening has brought some life and foot traffic back for many. Retailers hurt by Whole Foods are 24th St Cheese Co. and Drewes Meats. Whole Foods employs 100 workers--nearly 4 times as many Bell Market.
Letters: A poem to honor the passing of Noe Valley resident Bruce Sherman; a 7 paragraph tangent from the owner of Chloe's Café about working as a caterer on the set of Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze.
Op-Ed: A reader in a moss-green hemp-based hoodie ogles the faux ground beef, imitation sausage and fake chicken nuggets at Whole Foods – and decides the store is an OK addition to Noe after all.
Cost of Living in Noe: Average sales price 1.16 Million. Rents: down a little but still expensive.
Short Takes: Noel Stroll and a hay ride return to 24th Street on Dec. 5 from 4:30 – 7:30PM, and Santa will be at Zephyr from 11-2 for more family fun. [Ed. -- for now the link to Noel Stroll on last year's post redirects to Cooks Boulevard]. Ladybug Gardeners are at the Upper Noe Rec Center on Nov. 14 at 9AM planting and trimming- volunteers welcome.
Store Trek: Curator; Green11.
Rumors: Bevan Dufty proposes "removing conditional use criteria for full-service restaurants and permit small self-service restaurants and self-service specialty food establishments with conditional use" (Ed.--Translation: more restaurants on and around 24th Street assuming it passes through lengthy planning process and endless community meetings); Noe Soup will never open-–the owners abandoned the idea when they heard Whole Foods was coming and oh, because of a "complicated vent system;" the fusion restaurant on Church Street is stalled because of the "downturn in the economy;" Bistro 24 closed and is for sale for only $198K – although it may reopen (again!?) with a different partner if a buyer isn't found; Mi Lindo Yucatan closed and the space is under construction; La Boulange will open this month; Just Awesome Games reopens in West Portal after running from high rents in Noe (old space owned by Carol and Bill Yenne); Phoenix building (owned by Sue Bowie) still for sale for $2.25 million and the Streetlight building is listed for $2.2 million.
[The Noe Valley Voice]
I've read the new (November) Noe Valley Voice in just under an hour and feel it was time well spent to get all the news of our neighborhood. Your 60 second blob of the Voice is an insult to neighborhoodies who want to know what's happening.The Voice has actual reporters--unlike this blog. Maybe you guys (whoever you are) could come up with something other than the news you cull from your computer links. Got any original items????
ReplyDeleteI kind of like this summary... Because I hate sorting through all those annoying real estate ads. Hey, this blog is just doing what NVV should be doing with its online presence. As it is, the NVV web site is so 1997.
ReplyDeleteThanks NVSF for letting us know that the new Voice is out....we went right down to Good News on
ReplyDelete24th Street to get our copy so we can read it ourselves. Oh, and thanks to all those real estate folks and the many other locAl businesses for buying ads in the Voice to keep it going.
The summary of all the closed businesses on 24th was interesting. I've only lived in Noe Valley a couple of years, can someone give me some perspective? When was the last time so many storefronts were empty and in transition?
ReplyDeleteAnd Anonymous #1? Give it a rest. You don't have to read this blog. This blog is not stopping anyone from reading the Noe Valley Voice. And this blog regularly originates stories, it doesn't just cull stories from elsewhere.
I like the summary.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I offer you, Dear Anon, whole-hearted congratulations on reading the entire Noe Valley Voice (all the ads--really? did you really read it ALL?) in just under an hour, I wonder why you feel so offended by the summary here? Do you likewise feel offended by movie summaries in the review section of the Chronicle? Well, ok. Maybe the Chronicle is just offensive in general, but you get my drift.
And re: Nelson--I don't myself know, having only been here 5 or so years. I think it's probably the worst--or at least was pre-whole foods--that I've seen it. But, on the other hand, in some ways it was worse (for me personally) when the library was shut.
I've been here 20 hears and never seen so many vacancies.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I LOVE this summary. It saves paper and time and is funny to boot.
I suspect Anon #1 is someone from the Voice.
I've been here since '78 and yes, it's the worst - but keep in mind, Noe Valley's 24th St. wasn't always so chock-full of shops. So there weren't as many vacancies during the recession of the early 80's, for example, simply because there weren't that many storefronts to begin with.
ReplyDeleteThere's been quite bit of expansion and up-scaling in the past 30 years, and a contraction at some point was, in retrospect, inevitable. You can be held up high by various flavors of yuppiedom (I guess the latest is googledom) only for so long.
Having said that, I think (if the landlords decide to cooperate with more reasonable rents), there are some good opportunities for people to move in with businesses that really cater to the locals (family-friendly, upscale but not snob-scale, friendly service, etc.). After all, it's not like people have been leaving Noe Valley in droves. There are as many if not more people as ever, and they still have the same appetites for goods and services.