NVV September 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.

September 2013

Front Page: Phoenix Books on 24th Street is for sale; Upper Noe Rec Center celebrates "Cinco de Noe" on Sept 7 - a day of live music, kid crafts, a dog parade and recreation; residents on Alvarado seek to curb free parking and petition for a residential area permit.

Letters: An Elizabeth St. resident wonders why private "Google buses" are allowed to idle in Muni bus stops for free; another resident of "West Noe" is unhappy with the no-parking zones created by endless and seemingly poorly coordinated PG&E construction work; a Noe native who lives on 25th at Noe reminisces about how Walgreens used to be a Baby Bell Market, Noe Bagel was a Double Rainbow, and Savor used to be Courtyard Cafe.

Features and Short Takes: A farewell letter from police officer Lois Perillo who is retiring after 29 years with the SFPD, 10 of which she spent patrolling 24th St; R.I.P. Ruth Asawa; Upper Noe Recreation Center turns 5 this year; the Bernal Heights marmot is rescued at Alvarado and deported to Yosemite; Music in the Square debuts on Sept 8 from 1-5pm, a free music festival featuring food, live music and a activities for kids in the future Town Square space; StreetLightsSF is a new app from the SFPUC that lets you report streetlight outages (or you can just call 311).

Cost of Living in Noe: Average price for a home: $1.8 million. Condos? $1 million. Also, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams exits Noe, and more luxury homes have been sold in the NV-Castro-Cole Valley area in 2013 than in any other area of the city.

Rumors: Bay Castle Cleaners is gone and the owners of the building who own and operate St. Clair's Liquors next door are submitting plans to build it out into a commercial space with residential units above and parking spaces in the back - they expect construction to begin in 1-2 years and in the meantime plan to rent the space to a pop-up store; LOLA was asked to vacate her storefront on Castro and after looking frantically in Noe, found a better space on Clement; false alarm on Tung Sing closing - the for rent sign belonged to a residential apartment above, so Noe's oldest Chinese steam table is still open for business.

Strange: Last month the NVV announced a change to their website: "Beginning this month, you'll be able to view the Noe Valley Voice online in the same layout in which it appears in print, including all of the original formatting, photos, and display ads." So while you'll get all the ads, the content is no longer indexed by search engines. Too bad.

[The Noe Valley Voice]