maggieandme

This is another Silver Avenue neighborhood. It has a middle class feeling with working neighbors. It's a busy area traffic-wise, especially as commuters are rushing home from work. Great access to both 280 and 101 freeways, which is why it's a popular working person's part of town. A great place to live if you don't want to be in the heart of the City.

This old neighborhood is quiet -- lots of homes. You get the feeling it's blue collar. Many of the homes are rentals. The yards are decent sized. The surrounding streets, like Silliman down to Silver, are busy so you wouldn't want to have your kids try to ride bikes or play in the street.

This neighborhood is old and established. It's quiet and blue collar, with old homes, many that haven't been kept up which always drives you crazy when you consider how much property in this area is worth! Many of the homes are rentals. The yards are decent sized and they actually have small front yards. The surrounding pavement and utilities are not as well-maintained as you would want them to be; in a good storm, power lines and those old muni lines will fall into the street!

This is an awesome part of the street for singles and young couples: there are a ton of apartments, many of them in classic old houses. It is just a couple of blocks up from Market Street, which is busy but also offers tons of cheap eating choices and activity, and one of the busy BART stations which is a hub to catch all kinds of public transportation. Best of all, it's a part of the city known as "The Donut Hole" -- if there's any sunshine to be had in SF, you'll find it right here, shining through the clouds like the hole of a donut!

You're out in the middle of nowhere and there are alot of shadows due to tall buildings which are mostly warehouse type buildings especially as you get higher up in the Avenues cross streets. There are mostly business people of the delivery driver and warehouse stocker types out here but, the upside is, it's not hard to park!

Ellsworth street runs right through what people used to call The Mission District and is a nice, neighborhood kind of street. Most of it is houses where families live in Victorians; some of the Victorians have been made into duplexes. The houses have no front yards -- definitely city living, but nice little postage stamps of a backyard in most of them. This is not a neighborhood for those with impaired ability to get around -- the streets are paved unevenly, can be quite hilly, and almost all of the homes have steep stairs to get up to them.

Pixley Street runs right through the street full of bars and nightclubs that was once known as "The Bermuda Triangle." It was famously said that a single girl can walk into one of the three bars that created that triangle and never come out again. Two of those bars are still there: Pierce Street Annex and the California Cafe. Pixley is more like an alley than a street, with 2 story apartment buildings and a motel. You can eat well, between take out pizza and the bar fare plus it's just a couple blocks in either direction to some great restaurants!

This is the area of the painted ladies. No -- not that kind -- I mean the colorful Victorian houses! You'll get a workout on the hilly street, but you won't notice because you'll be too busy admiring the beautiful Victorians and Queen Anne houses rising above you, and marveling at the perfectly manicured gardens. You'll also be wondering who can afford to live on this old, elegant block of town. This street boasts the hydrangea surrounded Haas Lilienthal House, which gives tours on certain days of the week. It's a great way to get to see the inside of one of these old beauties.

This little section of Grant Street is often overlooked because it is just outside of the entrance to Chinatown, and who can concentrate on Grant when those red gates await you. But, don't overlook it -- it is a gastronomical delight. Between Starbucks and the wonderful Cafe De La Presse, plus all the bustle of downtown and Chinatown, you are in quintessential San Francisco! Cafe De La Presse is an amazing country french style restaurant where singles can be in good company eating alone, with excellent service, white cloth table covers, and to-die-for food!

This street is noisy and has a few tall, narrow "boutique" hotels on it. Don't be lured by the hotels on this street that brag about being "walking distance" to Union Square shops and restaurants. Well, they are walking distance, but it's a grimy, dirty walk and you could die of thirst or starvation with only a couple of shops on the way that could serve you a drink - no "known" names and their hours are short. The neighborhood is busy with trucks loading/unloading at all hours of the day/night, causing double parking traffic jams, plus sirens that echo off the tall buildings on this narrow street.