johnnycomelately

“I was here first.” Harry J Aleo

Long before I moved to (the outer reaches of) Noe Valley, I was aware of its safe, traditional, almost suburban atmosphere. 24th Street is a showcase for middle-of-the-road eateries, shoe shops, flavored lattes, and fleecy weekend wear. It’s also the site for one of the premier stroller derbies in the city, by which I mean the roaming dog and tot zoo that occupies the avenue any given Saturday. The surrounding neighborhood, though, is filled with charming homes, relatively quiet, walkable streets, and just enough protection from Twin Peaks to slow the onslaught of fog.

Situated amongst the mercantile pablum of 24th Street is Harry J Aleo’s wonderfully looney Twin Peaks Properties office, which still displays random conservative memorabilia featuring Reagan or Bush/Cheney through its front windows. He used to post handwritten notes in the front, railing against the liberal loonies and any other affront to his way of life. Harry was clearly a traditionalist. He once said,

Tradition means a lot to me. We have to maintain some of that tradition for future generations.

Harry’s since passed on, but his beliefs still resonate with a cranky minority wary of changes to their neighborhood.

Like many areas in the city, Noe Valley is evolving. The demographic seems to be trending towards a younger population. Whole Foods moved into the old Bell Market, challenging established mom and pop shops like the 24th St Cheese Co and Drewes as well as several wine shops, flower shops, you name it. There is an invasive proliferation of real estate offices.

And most recently, a Pavement to Parks plaza was proposed for the intersection at 24th and Noe and it’s drawn a lot of ire. Certainly, there are people who are uncomfortable with any challenge to conventional street use. I attended the first community meeting about the proposed plaza and many of the opponents made plangent cries for how it would impact the ease of their drive…around the block. What stood out to me most was the fury some individuals exhibited, indignant that the city could foist something like this on them and their neighborhood. It was every bit the Tea Party lunacy of the health care forums last fall.

Just consider the contempt shown by opponents to the plaza in this video, which features some of the same eccentricity as a Christopher Guest mockumentary:

One of the obstreperous persons shouting over the city staff in the video is Joel Panzer, “master property manager”, who’s responsible for possibly the tackiest signage in the city (at yet another local real estate office).

He’s also interested in preserving Harry Aleo’s storefront as a museum to traditionalism. After all, they were here first and they want to make sure others remember that.

Maybe all this change – even proposed, temporary change – is just too much for longtime Noe Valley residents, who demonstrated similar rancor when the city changed Army Street to Cesar Chavez Street. I don’t want to seem above nostalgia or historical preservation, but I don’t believe in traditionalism. This city and its neighborhoods are going to change, despite heroic attempts to freeze them in time. I have great hope that, in time, our streets and public spaces will be greener, more walkable, our city made more vibrant by designing for the pedestrian environment over the automobile, thus reintegrating islands of suburbia like Noe Valley into a cohesive urban fabric. The Pavement to Parks program is a great way to test different ideas while soliciting community input. As with health care reform, I trust that a very vocal, but misinformed minority won’t derail its progress.

Published:

July 14, 2010 – 9:38 am

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By Zac

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Salad days

My head feels aflame this season. I don’t think it’s just allergies, though my eyes are burning. No, spring is truly sprouting and the air is heady and rich with new blooms. The local wildflowers signal in great waves like LED beacons of red, yellow, purple, pink and white to the imminent flood of produce from farms all around us. Strawberries are here; asparagus, peas and morels are peaking. And, just in time for Easter, the fava beans are starting to rise from the earth like the lamb of god himself. [Note: favas and lamb are a divine combination]

Praise be!

My burgeoning obsession for produce grows ever more delirious around springtime. I crave rapini and various flowering mustards. I felt practically anemic the last few months going without Will’s avocados. But I covet favas and I’m not sure there’s anything I look forward to more all year — except maybe Stan Devoto’s Pink Pearl and Arkansas Black apples — than the sight of these beautiful green pods at the farmers market.

I’m growing favas for the first time this year. The flower is absurdly pretty, velvet black and white and filigreed like a pontiff’s crown. I’ve clearly stunted the plants’ growth by using old wine crates but improvisation is the plight of many apartment dwellers. Still, it’s all I can do not to constantly sit outside and just watch the damn things grow millimeter by millimeter. I’ve spent many nights outside with my headlamp hunting for snails and other garden ne’er-do-wells. I’m no buddhist. I will throw my arm out heaving those things to the ground with force.

I’ve got my fingers in the dirt now more than ever — at Alemany Farm, Garden for the Environment, Little City Gardens, and in my own ramshackle cracks-in-the-concrete space outside my apartment — and it’s got me thinking a lot about the edible environment around me. I’ve long thought of fava beans as an almost exotic crop, an heirloom produce that most people wouldn’t recognize outside of Italy where it’s as common and prolific as pot herbs. But I’ve seen it everywhere this year, at Alemany Farm, in community gardens and even in other front yards.

And that’s great. The bright fresh flavor of these beans (or peas, really) is every bit as intoxicating as the smell on your hands after picking a tomato. If more people are introduced to favas, it could spur them to seek out their own little cracks in the pavement, median strips, or even support the development of new community spaces. Or maybe they’ll just dip into the next healthy packaged food craze at Whole Foods while protesting the new community space down the street. The power of favas can only go so far.

But there is nothing like the satisfaction of eating from one’s own land, container, rooftop or window. The exhilaration of spring’s blossoming and bright flavors is balanced by simple preparations. While I anxiously await my miniature bounty of favas, I foraged some wild onions just up the hill and picked some greens and herbs right from my front patio. A squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil. Good god. Gone are the warm, hearty soups and braises of winter. Here are the salad days of spring.