You are here: Home / Archives for Neighborhoods / Hayes Valley

Hayes Valley’s Newest Container Building

November 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

If you are a long time reader, you are no doubt aware that we are big fans of Hayes Valley and Patricia’s Green. What was once unhospitiable urban terrain, home to freeway off-ramps is now a bustling and vibrant urban destination. The folks at Proxy are behind the temporary installation/conversion of shipping containers on empty lots in the neighborhood that are awaiting development.

Newest container building in Hayes Valley

The shipping containers are currently home to a Beer Garden, Smitten (awesome!) and a Ritual Coffee location. Work has been taking place over the last several weeks on a new shipping container business, located at roughly 489 Hayes. What sets this shipping container apart from the other businesses, though, is that this shipping container is actually 3 containers that have been welded together vertically. Shipping container skyscrapers, be still a hipsters heart!

I have no idea what business will be the lucky recipient of this really cool space, but it has been fun to watch the work progress on the job site over the past couple of weeks. The proxy site doesn’t list any “coming-soon” businesses, but the project contact for the building site is also listed on the proxy website, so I’m sure that they have had a hand in this Hayes Valley project. Looking at the space, it seems (duh) incredibly vertical, so I’m not sure if the plan is for office space, the layout and flow don’t seem particularly hospitable to a retail site, but perhaps the developers have some evil-genius plan up their sleeves?

Do you have any tips about what is happening at this Hayes Valley construction site? If so, please leave a comment below or get in touch via email/twitter/phone/smoke-signals. We’d love to hear what the planned use for this vertical shipping container turned skyscraper shall be.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Hayes Valley

Divisadero Street – from Zero to Infinity

November 16, 2012 by 1 Comment

One of the things I love about San Francisco neighborhoods are how wildly they vary. Say what you will about San Francisco, our neighborhoods each have a unique character, charm, and style. And while The Marina might feel like it is a thousand miles away from the Western Addition, they both have Divisadero Street in common. I’ve been wanting to drive some San Francisco streets from start to finish (or finish to start) to give you a sense of how much things can change along one street in just a few blocks.

This morning I tackled Divisadero Street, which starts in the Buena Vista/Ashbury Heights neighborhood – that’s district 5F if you are playing along at home with a SFAR MLS map – and ends at Marina Boulevard in the Marina District.

Divisadero Street runs through or touches the border of all of the following neighborhoods (I’m going to go in the order you see in the video, which actually starts at the end of Divisadero and works back to the zero block). If you are curious about learning more about any of the neighborhoods, follow the link, I’ve made videos for many (but not all) of them:

I really enjoyed making this first video of a street in San Francisco from start to finish. What other streets would you be interested in seeing from beginning to end? I’ve definitely got Folsom street on the list, but I’m sure there are plenty of other streets that would make for a fun video. I hope you enjoy watching the video, feel free to leave your comments, critiques, and suggestions below.

Filed Under: Blog, Corona Heights, Cow Hollow, From Beginning to End, Hayes Valley, Marina, NOPA (North Panhandle), Pacific Heights, Western Addition

Show Me The Windows?!

September 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Living in San Francisco, one becomes accustomed to certain things. Like farm-fresh food from the nearby foodshed (is that even a word?). Fog. And, um, windows in your home. Which isn’t to say that I haven’t seen some strangely placed windows in my 10+ years of real estate… but I can think of very few homes – like the one in Hayes Valley, pictured below – that are so noticeably missing windows!

Steiner, between Page and Oak

Located in the 400 Block of Steiner, the house pictured above (my photo) and below (thanks, google!) is noteable not for what it has, but for what it doesn’t have: windows!

According to the tax records, the home was built in 1909 and is a single-family home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. While it is perhaps plausible that the entire front of the middle and top level are each one large bedroom, it still seems a shame to give each bedroom only one window – and relatively small ones at that!

Where are the windows? Source: Google Maps

The home last changed hands in 1990 (per tax records), so it seems that the current owners are quite satisfied with the facade of the home. Building permits indicated that within the last decade a two story “sunroom” was replaced with a three story sunroom, but still…

I’m also having a very challenging time imagining the interior layout of the home. Homes from this era in San Franicsco typically had the hallway on the side, leaving room for a double parlor along the side of the hallway. Putting the hall in the middle makes for lots of little rooms (our lot width is typically 25 feet, and according to the assessor’s map, this lot is exactly that), which don’t exactly help light flow throughout a home.

I have a hunch this home once looked dramatically different… time to go digging for some old photos!

Filed Under: Blog, Hayes Valley

Quirky Things I Stumble Upon

January 5, 2012 by 1 Comment

It’s not a secret that I love life in San Francisco and feel blessed to be able to live in such a wonderful and interesting city.

As I was driving to the office this morning, I passed an intersection that I’ve driven through many, many times over the years (Haight @ Laguna). I don’t know why, but today I happened to notice a rather interesting sculpture/art installation/not-quite-sure-how-to-describe-it at the intersection on the southwest side of the corner. [I'm not sure how construction of the new Gay/Lesbian senior housing and associated buildings will impact this sculpture].

The Skull Bunny at Haight and Laguna in the Lower Haight/Hayes Valley

As you can see from the picture above, it is a sculpture of a pink bunny with a skeleton in its mouth, surrounded by a montage of pink bunnies. How I could pass this intersection for years and never notice or wonder about the sculpture is a mystery easily answered by a quick google search!

The pink skull bunny installation happened about a year ago – January of 2011. It was done by local artist Jeremy Fish. According to his blog post about it:

my gang, THE SILLY PINK BUNNIES, is celebrating 20 years of being a mean gang this year. coincidentally 2011 is the year of the rabbit. this statue and mural is a tribute to the the gang and our history in the lower Haight. viva la bunnies! see you this easter.

When I first looked at the sculpture I thought that the words below the pink bunny said “Gove in the Gower Haight” which obviously doesn’t make sense but “Love in the Lower Haight” certainly does!

Ready to buy a house near this awesome sculpture? Don’t go searching the MLS for the Lower Haight – according to the MLS sub-district map there is no Lower Haight. Instead, for whatever reason, it is included as part of Hayes Valley.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Hayes Valley, Only in SF, Things to Do and Places to Go in SF

Parklet, Mini Park, Park

January 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This morning was the first Zephyr sales meeting of the year, and one of the homes on my office tour was located next to a mini park. Which isn’t a parklet. Which definitely isn’t a park. Confused? Here’s a little primer on what makes a mini park mini, a parklet a parklet and a park, well, just a park!

Inner Sunset Parklet

Pictured above is a parklet. This particular one is in the Inner Sunset of San Francisco, located on 9th Ave. between Irving and Judah streets. Parklet projects are a collaboration between the Mayor’s Office, the Department of Public Works, the Planning Department, and the Municipal Transportation Agency. In a nutshell, a parklet used to be a parking spot. They are usually located adjacent to or close to coffee shops, restaurants, and they make nice outdoor spots to enjoy a cup of your favorite beverage and watch the people go by.

 

Rose Page Mini Park on Page St. @ Laguna

A mini park is bigger than a parklet but not as big a park. They are often squeezed into quirky spots such as vacant lots or other little scraps of land found in random places throughout the city. The photo above is of the Rose Page Mini Park, which is also known as the Page Laguna mini park. They are usually nice spots to relax or enjoy a bit of nature (for the city) in, but they aren’t large enough to run wild in.

 

The Bison of Golden Gate Park

A San Franisco park, then, is anything larger than a mini park. Or, put another way, a place you can run wild, if only for a few hundred feet. Pictured above are the bison that live in Golden Gate park, by far the city’s largest park.

So, for all you Starbucks addicts, there you have it – the tall, grande, and venti of San Francisco parks. For everyone else that would be small, medium, and large! If you’ve got a photo or a thought about your favorite small, medium, or large park in the city, we’d love to hear it in our comments section below….

 

Filed Under: Blog, Hayes Valley, Only in SF, Things to Do and Places to Go in SF
Please view our comment policy, disclaimers, and copyright notice (if that's your thing).