May 31, 2007
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?
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east of dolores = in the mission. maybe we can call it something like "the nice part of the mission kind of near noe valley but still east of dolores"
I had a number of friends who used to live on Fair Oaks St. They all called it the Transmission.
We hear realtors refer to it half-jokingly as "Baja Noe". Generally we call it Lower Noe. Maybe it's bias, but none of my (older) neighbors call it the Mission. Informally Guerrero is the boundary. Some official City maps actually divide it at Church.
Fair Oaks Neighbors is an actual political group which got the Green Cross evicted, if you'll remember. It's more or less associated with Noe Valley.
FO is mixed renters-homeowners, who all generally get along and get civically involved. Lots of kids, cats, and dogs. And don't forget the Halloween party and the swap meet Fair.
I'm not sure that one can call the "Liberty Hill" designation a realtor-inspired fiction.
It was known as Liberty Hill when I lived there 15 years ago, and is designated as such in the National Historic Register.
It's a lovely neighborhoodlet, and if you're feeling historically minded, give a small vote of thanks to the "Golden Fire Hydrant" at Church and 20th Streets, which saved those genteel old Victorians from the 1906 firestorm.
HEY! Sfist - nice to see in my 'hood. Live 1/2 a block off Fair Oaks; it IS a pretty lil' street mixed w/ renters & owners. Some of the yuppie/NIMBYs can be tiresome, but for the most part people around here are neighborly, friendly - - almost down-right small-townish.
The whole "Green Cross Controversy" boiled down to 2 things: parking & prop. values. I never had any trouble from "thug-looking" clientele....
And yes -check out the Gold Fire Hydrant, one of SF's least noticed historic landmarks; also, 39 Chattanooga (1/2 a block up from Dolores), one of the OLDEST remaining houses in SF (which the 'hood rallied to help save)
David Latterman (3) writes that Fair Oaks is sometimes referred to as "Baja Noe."
Interesting: usually when a resident calls an area "Baja (something)" it's because they aren't happy with where they really live and want to verbally upscale their geographic designation.
For instance, I heard a person refer to living in "Baja Potrero" when she really lives in the Mission.
But the Fair Oaks address already has an upscale cachet even without the Baja Noe designation.
"David Latterman(3)writes that Fair Oaks is sometimes referred to as "Baja Noe." I'm sure I'm reading the same thing as CRS (6) and I see what DL actually wrote as "we hear realtors refer to it half-jokingly as 'Baja Noe'. I lived two blocks east of Fair Oaks, i.e. closer to Mission Street and it's true - BJ Droubi, et al, would often put "Baja Noe Valley" on the fancy fliers for the weekend open houses on our street too. But like DL said, it's half-joking. As for your friend -- if I heard her say "Baja Potrero" I'd think she meant Evans or Bayshore.
"Baja Nob Hill", "Baja Pacific Heights" are other goof-designations. At least DT and the Fillmore are actually baja/low; "Este Noe" would be better but I don't want to encourage any more of this!
I still think east of Church Street/94110 as the Mission but people can call where they live whatever they want and the rest of the community usually catches up.
anyone who refers to their home as being in "baja" anything without a touch of irony deserves a karate chop from my hand to their throat
What "good" is San Francisco to anybody anymore when so few "normal, working, middle-class" people can afford to live here ?
Gays don't have kids (generally) and neither do many YUPPIES or GUPPIES or WHATEVER OTHER EUPHEMISM YOU WANT TO USE, so they're not concerned about "affordability" as much as families or households of more than, say, three people.
San Francisco is NOT as "nice" as it used to be. Not it's all about FLIPPING, TURNING, AND MAKING HUGE PROFITS. Why ?
The gay element has deteriorated, in my opinion, and the only "artists" who can afford to live here are the already successful ones.
Fuck Normal People. SF is for the rich, now and forever.
Hi, please excuse us for inventing the name 'Liberty Hill' back in the early 1980s when we were trying to think up a name that would identify the little 10 square block area on North boundary of the 'Mission District' & 'Noe Valley' ! I am one of these guilty persons, so I make bold to apologize for our little imposture. The local Mission Police Station also thought we were an odd little area from their point of view, curiously different from Noe Valley spreading out to the West, and from the Mission spreading out to the East - they called us the Missing Link between the 2 giant neighborhoods (??)
The big Fire of the 1906 Earthquake was stopped in it's Southern advance at 20th Street here, and a number of us thought it would be great to be the first to go for the first Historic designation on this side of the City right here. The entire blocks between 20th & 19th from Dolores to Mission Street were dynamited, and thanks to the amazing little fireplug at the upper Southeast corner of Dolores Park & Church Street which was one of the only ones still functioning, and a vast crowd of firemen & volunteers (quite literally a 'bucket brigade') who sloshed down all the wreckage North of 20th along this line, the Fire was halted. This is why to this day, that you see almost all Victorian & Edwardian houses starting at the South side of 20th Street.
It is one of the huge and telling curiosties of this locality that especially on the blocks of 20th between Dolores on the uphill West end, & Mission Street at the East end, that almost all the houses on the South side are Victorian, and all the houses directly across the street from them are Edwardian from after 1906 or newer.
Believe it or not, the effect of the Historic District designation has largely been NEUTRAL on property values. Our main purpose for setting up the Historic District was to stop the steady advance of Victorians getting demolished to be replaced by new duplexes, condos, and apartment buildings, which all offered far more 'units' (which by-the-way makes any structure worth far more), but almost zero architecture. The design of these new units was always the same - giant boxes with lots of picture-windows, plain stucco, often cinder blocks, and big Genie garage doors.
Developers at the Planning Department always argued that they were replacing rotting old Victorian buildings with new modern structures that had far more living space, when they requested to demolish the Victorians occupying desirable lots. For those of us in Victorians who loved them, this was extremely discouraging and threatening. We also got the vast majority of the neighborhood property owners to agree - it took us about 4 years to do this. Every other street in the Mission has a number rather than a name since about 1869 so people wouldn't get lost, so we named our little Historic District after two of the 'named' streets in the middle of it : Liberty And Hill.
Our appeal for historic designation was approved (after exhaustive review by the S.F. Landmarks Board) by the SF Board of Supervisors & then Mayor Diane Feinstein in December 1985. Most of us who did all this then, are still living here in this neighborhood. Our not-always-wonderful City of S.F. decided (albeit unofficially) to discourage having any more Historic Districts anywhere about 1992. Building developers, like the notorious Residential Builders' Association had been lobbying our elected City officials for years to stop this kind of Historic designation, because it was preventing them from putting up their beloved 'Richmond Specials'.
Some of us are also not too happy about the ugly new brown signs saying Liberty Hill Historic District, put up by the City which also designed them. The depressing color was inspired by California State Park Service signs and is more appropriate to rural natural parks than an urban architectural historic district. So, PLEASE, at least don't blame us for these !!!
My thanks for the excellent photo essay that started this thread, especially the cool little 'Guarded By Schnauzers' sign !!