![_Jack In The Box Now Selling A Bacon Milkshake [Updated]](http://sfist.com/assets_c/2012/02/baconshake-thumb-250x250-691687.jpg)
Blocker: 000 Fair Oaks
Exploring San Francisco through the lens of city blocks, Blocker is a weekly series by Charles Hodgkins. Look for it on SFist each Wednesday, around the lunching hour.
Blocker, No. 1: Fair Oaks St. in the Mission
Here where the Mission melts into the Castro to the west, and Noe Valley to the southwest, it’s a bit unclear in which neighborhood we’re wandering around. If the shiny new brown sign at the foot of the hilly 000 block of Fair Oaks St. is to be taken seriously -- and frankly, it’s not -- then we’ve landed in the Liberty Hill Historic District. Crafty, real crafty. San Francisco needs more fictional "sub-neighborhoods" whose names reek of realtor-sponsored specificity, with the express intention of spiking property values, like it needs another earthquake.
But since we’re still east of Dolores, let’s just go with the safe bet: this is the western edge of the Mission. Too general? Can we keep a straight face by upgrading this leg of Fair Oaks to tony-sounding Dolores Heights? What’s next? Pinning the "Amoeba Gulch" tag on the westernmost block of Haight?
Fair Oaks’ five-block stretch begins its southern descent at 21st St. This first block -- an attractive combination of one- and two-digit house numbers, front yard fruit trees, and sunny, mid-afternoon calm -- drops sharply . . . so much so that we don’t think twice when we see a man playfully pushing a woman up the sidewalk for a good chunk of the block. A few large apartment buildings intrude upon the oft-immaculate Victorians and one or two dark wood-shingled homes that look as if they’ve been plucked out of North Berkeley. But, if anything, it’s a refreshing reminder that people actually rent here.
There’s humor, imagination, and worry interspersed along this block. Humor in the sign on the door at 54 Fair Oaks that reads, in a subtle but clever dig at the surrounding yards pockmarked with all-business ADT and Brinks defense warnings, "This property protected by SCHNAUZER security system." Imagination in the collection of circa-1981 pennies placed into the concrete sidewalk directly in front of 69 Fair Oaks; the 60 or so cents spell out the house number, and best of all, nobody worries that it’s some sort of pervy joke. Worry in the flyer announcing the disappearance of local cat Mr. Pibbs, four days ago. Conical turrets, rooftop vanes, and ivy-slathered walls also make brief appearances and lasting impressions.
A woman carries boxes from of one of the multi-unit apartment buildings on the northern end of the block out to her Subaru Outback. We ask where she’s relocating: St. Joseph’s Ave. up in Anza Vista, sort of near USF. We then wonder -- aren’t people calling that Mervyns Heights now?
