Exploring San Francisco through the lens of city blocks, Blocker is a regular series by Charles Hodgkins. Look for it on SFist every other Wednesday, around the lunching hour.

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Blocker, No. 29: Leland Ave. in Visitacion Valley

In the tussle over the mantle of San Francisco’s Most Tucked-Away Neighborhood, Visitacion Valley gets our vote...particularly if by “tucked-away,” one really means “neglected.” Geographic and economic isolation have contributed to infrastructural decline - and crime - here for quite some time, although earnest efforts are being made these days to turn the tide.

The block of Leland between Peabody and Rutland is dually zoned for business and residence, so the street is one of Viz Valley’s main drags. There’s plenty of foot and auto traffic here, and the 56 Rutland bus even shuffles by on occasion. Businesses bookend the nondescript strip as post-WWII housing, other small commercial concerns, and a pair of bottlebrush trees fill in the space between. Pretty? Not quite. But, utilitarian? Sure.

Sadly, our favorite spot here is behind bars and a locked gate. Many hope the Visitacion Valley Greenway Project—as well as the handsome Visitacion Valley Playground and Clubhouse (2003) and MUNI’s T-Third streetcar line (2007) on Bayshore—bodes well for this community’s future. But the beautiful park strip is shuttered on this sunny Friday, and it’s unclear why. When it’s open, visitors can walk several blocks along the narrow green belt as it slices through block after block up the hill. We’ve done it before, so we know it’s possible. Just not today.

Among the businesses open on this afternoon, one simply called The Shop seems to enjoy the most foot traffic in and out. All it’s missing is a proper barber pole. Well, there’s no sign out front, either, but a big hint comes in the form of a gregarious fellow draped in a throwback 1970s Willie McCovey jersey (an unfortunate era in baseball fashion, and one that made Giants’ players look like the Halloween Awareness Committee). The dude walks into The Shop and announces that his fade needs attention at once. One of the proprietor-cutters smiles and complies.

Up at the corner of Leland and Rutland, right across from one another, both Hong Kong Hair & Nail Beauty Salon and G & L Restaurant and Bakery sport awnings in dire need of upgrades. The one over the sparsely attended salon’s entrance is especially out of date, its tattered remains suggesting that the grand opening it trumpets may well have occurred during Bill Clinton’s first term in office.

G & L appears to be as popular as The Shop down the block, albeit with a far different clientele. Most every table is occupied at lunchtime, which is more than can be said for the mysterious green building next door—the one featuring a highly misleading sign that (more or less) reads Cancun Taqueria. The front door is locked and barred, and there’s no evidence at all that the celebrated Mission / South of Market taqueria chain ever had anything to do with Leland Avenue. Cryptic, real cryptic.

Across the road and halfway back down the block back toward Peabody, the management team at southern/soul food retailer Two Jack’s has decided to take a long weekend off. We manage to catch a glimpse of the shop’s sidewalk sandwich board through the window, which laments the fact that 93% of all African-American homicide victims are killed by other African-Americans. Nothing cryptic there.

It’s a warm afternoon, so the air is intermittently filled by hip-hop and R&B from the open windows of cars that hustle past. A elderly man stops on the sidewalk to count his change, while other passers-by carry handheld plastic bags of Asian take-out from the more commercially vibrant blocks of Leland to the east.

The park’s closed, there’s no fried catfish on offer, and we appear to have missed the salon’s grand opening by at least a decade. Clearly, it’s lousy timing all around for us in San Francisco’s far southeast corner. But Visitacion Valley’s day may yet come after all.

(Photos by the author.)