Ah, Hayes Valley...
I moved here 20 years ago on October 3, 1994 when the taxi driver, taking me to meet my moving van, warned me to tell United Van Lines to take my stuff to a storage facility until I found another place to rent. The cops stopped me on the street and berated me,
"If you don't have to live here- MOVE!"
A week after I moved in, 50 flyers pushed under the front door of my apartment building warned,
"We're gonna kill all the white people one by one!"
Three blocks away, an elderly woman was beaten and duct-taped to a chair and her house (on Webster and Grove) set on fire.
Yep, it was a rough 'hood, no doubt about it.
The sound of gunfire three times a night, sirens and 100 cops running into Alamo Square cocking shotguns (cops carry shotguns?!) and klieg lights beaming like an ironic movie premiere had me crying on the phone to my friends that I didn't know whether to hit the ground- or move.
Only my crazy 17-page lease crafted by a paranoid landlord and his greasy attorney that warned I'd have to pay to fulfill it- and no takers I could see- and cover a second rental kept me here the first year.
The year went by.
I realized if you were city-smart and didn't wander around Alamo Square and its environs after dark you'd probably be alright. Punctuated by neighbors getting clocked in the face by a brick 40 feet from the front door, I hoped I wasn't being dangerously naive.
Little by little, stores would open, many would close. Bulo and Gimme Shoes made a very early stake, Hayes Street Grill and Stelline established a beachhead before that and are still there, Suppenkuche very early moved into a dicey, dark corner yet thrived and Ivy's gave way to Absinthe.
The Central freeway that ramped off Oak and tore upward, cutting across the roof of Hayes and Gough, was demolished because of seismic instability.
The "Pink Palace" of Section 8 housing and its dangerous gangways full of heroin deals and hookers plying their trade (or very open drug dealing in the middle of Hayes Street at Steiner at 8:30 some weekday mornings) was torn down and replaced with 1-strike, low-income housing. And they meant business.
Suddenly, the neighborhood found its footing but it's not without growing pains: now the Mecca of techies and hip urban dwellers (its central location always so prime that you'd tolerate the steep downside), rents quadrupled and parking disappeared as roommates doubled and tripled to bear the new and highly increased rents.
Twitter, Square, One King's Lane and Dolby's HQ are just 12 blocks down the hill, Google busses now stop every morning across the street starting at 5:30 am and hip restaurants and boutiques populate "Hayes Valley."
It's been the most coveted neighborhood for several years amid its sunny spaces and beautiful Alamo Square park with its off-leash dog run on the western edge and opposite on the eastern slope, the panoramic city skyline view framed by the famous "Postcard Row" houses.
In short, it's the perfect urban oasis.
A mile up Hayes Street you'll find yourself in Golden Gate park if more open space is calling you.
Dining, shopping, the Symphony, Opera, Ballet and SF Jazz, all of the arts have always been here and crime is under control.
And I thank rent control for allowing us to stay and thrive in a neighborhood whose beautiful architecture and parks drew me in almost 20 years ago.
But there are moments I miss the grittiness, the sense you were making a stake in a new frontier, the badge you smugly wore as colleagues who lived in the Marina thought you were absolutely crazy living here.
Maybe it's time to move to Ingleside or the Excelsior before they're completely gentrified too? read more