About San Francisco's Cole Valley

6th Annual Fun Fest & Kids Art Auction

Yep...the little elementary school across the street from my house did it again.  Another successful art & wine auction and street fair to boot.  As the school FunFest website declared: "A day celebrating our community with music, games, refreshments, the Kids Art Auction, Wine Cellar Giveaway, a Giants Memorabilia Raffle (featuring autographed balls from Panda, Zito, Lincecum, Wilson, Posey and more)"

Due to some playground and courtyard construction currently in progress at the school, the neighbors along Shrader Street agreed to allow a street closure for the day so that the festivities could spill out onto the street.  Despite the day being a bit overcast and windy, the turnout for the festival was great.  I grabbed my phone and took some video here and there.  My neighbor, Danny had to tease me right off the bat by saying that he "overheard" one of the booths that was going to be in front of my house involved "sticky, messy crafts".  (He knows how fastitidious I am about the outside appearance and the sidewalks...lol).  In years to come I'll probably be the Old Man on the block who goes out once a day to sweep the front of his sidewalks...God help me.

I was really amazed by some of the "kids art" that was up for auction...real talent out there!  One of the highlights for me (as you'll see in the video) was discovering my neighbor Dorthy doing the Hula with her dance buddies on one of the playground areas.  I've seen her perform before, but this time i got it on camera.  She'll be famous on YouTube before you know it.  ;-)

 Today went like clockwork, and since it was so beautiful out, I thought I'd share a portion of my drive home from the office.  I had to edit it a little and add some theme music, but hey...that's what we do here in the Golden State. 

Cheers and a pleasant night to all.

Sales Report: Cole Valley Neighborhood (07/01/10 -01/18/11) Condominiums

MLS # ADDRESS LIST/SALE PRICE SALE DATE BD BA PARKING ~SQFT

370242 568 Belvedere 839,999/826,000 08/27/10 2 1.5 1 side by side 1519

372377 188 Beulah 825,000/805,000 09/30/10 2 2 1 independent 1198

373361 1335 Willard 739,999/735,000 12/23/10 2 1 1 side by side 1073

374752 1242 Cole 999,000/994,000 08/23/10 3 1 1 side by side 1468

374888 158-A Carmel 545,000/545,000 10/08/10 1 1 no parking 532

375597 112 Carmel 679.000/679,000 12/20/10 2 1.5 1 independent 1122

377309 179 Parnassus 979,000/970,000 11/30/10 3 2 2 tandem 1498

378243 37 Alma 899,000/902,750 01/06/11 2 1.5 1 tandem 1436

PLEASE NOTE: While "Active" listings are publicly accessible through many property search engines on the Internet, interior Photos (and specific pieces of information) on properties that have already Sold become proprietary after close of escrow. So...If you're the type that likes to "snoop" around and dig a little deeper, feel free to login to the Zephyr property search engine. The information and data is in real-time AND it's your private account. All on your terms, at your pace, and without strings, solicitation, or most of all, spam.

Spam belongs in a can, not in your email.

Sales Report: Cole Valley Neighborhood, San Francisco, California

Single Family Homes sold between 07/01/10 to 01/18/11

ADDITIONAL NOTE: While "Active" listings are publicly accessible through many property search engines on the Internet, interior Photos (and specific pieces of information) on properties that have already Sold become proprietary after close of escrow. So...If you're the type that likes to "snoop" around and dig a little deeper, feel free to login to the Zephyr property search engine. The information and data is in real-time AND it's your private account.

All on your terms, at your pace, and without strings, solicitation, or most of all, spam.

Spam belongs in a can, not in your email.

Matt Fuller talks about Cole Valley N-Judah muni changes proposed by San Francisco MTA and also detailed at sf.streetsblog.org.

For those that don't frequently ride the N-Judah through Cole Valley, the stops at along Carl street can easily get congested, particularly at the Cole/Carl stop where there are a bunch of transfers to bus lines. People are frequently standing in the street waiting for the train, or crowding the sidewalk so it is difficult to walk through (particularly with a dog, or a kid).

Here is a quick overhead photo of the intersection, with the proposed sidewalk bulbs (where the sidewalk becomes wider than it normally is) to ease congestion:

Proposed sidewalk bulbs at Carl and Cole in Cole Valley (source: SFMTA)

Here is an on-the-ground rendering of what the inbound stop would look like with the sidewalk widened:

Rendering of sidewalk bulbs (source: SFMTA)

They are also proposing to add a sidewalk bulb at the Carl and Stanyan stop, which is also frequently quite busy (although, in my experience, never as bad as the Carl/Cole intersection).

Some residents of Cole Valley are predictably upset, because widening the sidewalk will obviously remove some parking spots. But given how messy and dangerous the current situation is, taking out a few parking spots to improve the safety and efficiency of loading and unloading from the N-Judah seems like a very reasonable trade off to me. Of course, next time I am circling endlessly for a parking spot so I can run into Cole Hardware, I'm sure I'll regret this entire post.

The plan recently won engineering approval, and is scheduled to go before the SFMTA board on December 7. If approved, the current hope is that the sidewalk bulbs would be constructed in 2012. If you are looking for more information, more detailed descriptions of the changes are at this post on sf.streetsblog.org. And in the meantime, enjoy your Muni rides but don't forget your Clipper card!