At Home in Redwood City since July, 2005

In the early summer of 2005, the house where we'd been renting a flat for six years sold, and the new owner was pleased to let us know she wanted to live in the "nicest, most historic flat" in the place. So we scrambled a little, and were glad to find Housing Maps combining the housing maps from Craigslist as waypoints on a Google Map. We thought we'd look within the City and also consider going a short way down the peninsula; we found an ad that just resonated with our hearts and went to find a wonderful delight of a house, complete with a huge yard, in Redwood City.

At Home in Noe Valley 1999 - 2005

From the summer of 1999 (Lise) and January 2000 (Ruth) we found ourselves at home in a neighborhood in the middle of San Francisco that has several different names, each evoking a different part of the history and heritage of the town. Officially in the Western Mission, a two-block wide by several blocks north-south strip along the Mission District along the flat valley floor between Twin Peaks and Potrero Hill to the East, we were in the beginning of the rise toward Twin Peaks to the west.

The Mission is a lovely and lively place to live, with more than 30 different ethnicities/countries represented in stores and at least 50 restaurants , and over half a dozen cafes offering free wifi 'net access within a few blocks. There are also many, many murals beautifying and uniting the neighborhood, some older projects and some ongoing or just finished this year. The small markets, from the Wan Fat Fish Co, to Lucca Ravioli, to the mercado in the middle of the block at the Mission Market at 22d Street, to the health food store on the corner who put in an organic deli in 2002, are a pleasure to shop at; these are all independent businesses owned and run by our neighbors and the scale of this economy feels very good.

The Liberty Hill Historic District was named and sketched out in recognition of the many houses that were around to make it through the Great Quake of 1906 as well as they did, including the house we live in. The landlords, who lived here for several years, mention that this house was one of the first two on the block. it would be interesting to see the old plat maps.

We were also near enough to the 24th Street shopping district of Noe Valley, more of a garden district with quite a crop of citizens under the age of three, possibly something to do with the dot-com-boom before it burst?

We were also a short walk away from the Castro, the queer capitol of the nation. Noted not only for several yearly festivals celebrating queer culture (Pride and the Castro Street Fair, Mardi Gras, particularly), a strong base of civic pride and social justice efforts, the Castro is also home to notable cultural institutions as an Art Deco movie house named for the street and the dream supplier anyone could ask for: Cliff's Variety & Hardware Store!