Noe Valley ( / ˈ n oʊ . i / NOH -ee ; originally spelt Noé ) is a neighborhood in the central part of San Francisco, California . It is named for Don José de Jesús Noé , noted 19th-century Californio statesman and ranchero, who owned much of the area and served as mayor .
84-506: Roughly speaking, Noe Valley is bounded by 21st Street to the north, 30th Street to the south, San Jose Ave and Guerrero Street to the east, and Grand View Avenue and Diamond Heights Blvd to the west. The Castro ( Eureka Valley ) is north of Noe Valley; the Mission District is east. The neighborhood is named after José de Jesús Noé , the last Mexican alcalde (mayor) of Yerba Buena (present day San Francisco), who owned what
168-552: A Muni Metro subway station and a multitiered park. Milk's camera store and campaign headquarters which were at 575 Castro has a memorial plaque and mural on the inside of the store, formerly housing the Human Rights Campaign Action Center and Store, it now houses an LGBTQ+ arts store. There is a smaller mural above the sidewalk on the building showing Milk looking down on the street fondly. Across Market Street from Harvey Milk Plaza, and slightly up
252-434: A Norwegian family living in the area in the 1910s. Forbes' book served as the inspiration for John Van Druten's 1944 play I Remember Mama . The play was adapted to a Broadway theater production in 1944; to a movie in 1948; to a one-hour Lux Radio Theatre presentation on August 30, 1948; to a CBS Mama television series running from 1949 until 1957; and to a Broadway musical in 1979. Mama's Bank Account reflected
336-570: A (then) Eureka Valley neighborhood, where for generations Norwegians worshiped at the Norwegian Lutheran Church at 19th and Dolores streets, and met for fraternal, social events, and Saturday night dances at Dovre Hall, 3543 18th Street, now the Women's Building . The Cove on Castro used to be called The Norse Cove at the time. The Scandinavian Seamen's Mission operated for a long time on 15th Street, off Market Street, just around
420-411: A child, she was encouraged by her third grade teacher to create her own artwork. As a result, Asawa received first prize in a school arts competition in 1939, for her artwork about what makes someone American. Following her graduation from the internment center's high school, Asawa attended Milwaukee State Teachers College , intending to become an art teacher. She was prevented from attending college on
504-469: A continuous strand throughout the artist's career and crucial to developing her distinct, inventive aesthetic sensibilities. While Asawa has been widely celebrated for her three-dimensional work in her lifetime, "...she itched to push her drawings forward. 'Working in wire was an outgrowth of my interest in drawing' she often insisted," the New York Times review of the exhibition notes. Asawa had
588-461: A farm. Asawa believed in a hands-on experience for children, and followed the approach "learning by doing." Asawa believed in the benefit of children learning from professional artists, something she adopted from learning from practicing artists at Black Mountain College . Eighty-five percent of the program's budget went toward hiring professional artists and performers to instruct the students. This
672-546: A few blocks farther south as it moves toward the Glen Park neighborhood. It reappears in several discontinuous sections before ultimately terminating at Chenery Street, in the heart of Glen Park. Castro Street was named after José Castro (1808–1860), a Californian leader of Mexican opposition to U.S. rule in California in the 19th century, and alcalde of Alta California from 1835 to 1836. The neighborhood known as
756-843: A fountain for which she mobilized 200 schoolchildren to mold hundreds of images of the city of San Francisco in dough, which were then cast in iron. Over the years, she went on to design other public fountains and became known in San Francisco as the "fountain lady". The artist's estate is represented by David Zwirner Gallery . In 2019, her Untitled (S.387, Hanging Three Separate Layers of Three-Lobed Forms) , circa 1955, sold for US$ 4.1 million. Untitled (S.401, Hanging Seven-Lobed, Continuous Interlocking Form, with Spheres within Two Lobes) , circa 1953-1954, sold for US$ 5.4 million in 2020. The first exhibition to focus on Asawa's life-long drawing practice, Ruth Asawa Through Line, opened at
840-585: A large hill like it was a dance with flaming torches blasting Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. In contrast, Asawa described her experiences studying under Josef Albers as more formalist and what other students described as Fascist in demeanor and did not consider the feelings of his students in his teachings. He preferred to teach exploration and discover through design rather than the regurgitated freeloaded knowledge taught by other academics. Asawa connected with this approach because of her family's cultural background and what she describes as an intolerance for emotion. In
924-494: A more stable area to live. The gay community created an upscale, fashionable urban center in the Castro District in the 1970s. Many San Francisco gays also moved there in the years around 1970 from what was then the most prominent gay neighborhood , Polk Gulch , because large Victorian houses were available at low rents or available for purchase for low down payments when their former middle-class owners had fled to
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#17327760821331008-614: A passionate commitment to and was an ardent advocate for art education as a transformative and empowering experience, especially for children. In 1968, she was appointed to be a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission and began lobbying politicians and charitable foundations to support arts programs that would benefit young children and average San Franciscans. Asawa helped co-found the Alvarado Arts Workshop for school children in 1968. In
1092-640: A proud icon of the LGBTQ community following its reopening in 1963. The Castro's age as a gay mecca began during the late 1960s with the Summer of Love in the neighboring Haight-Ashbury district in 1967. The two neighborhoods are separated by a steep hill, topped by Buena Vista Park. The hippie and free love movements had fostered communal living and free society ideas including the housing of large groups of people in hippie communes. Androgyny became popular with men even in full beards as gay hippie men began to move into
1176-402: A variety of techniques. Like all Black Mountain College students, Asawa took courses across a variety of different art forms and this interdisciplinary approach helped to shape her artistic practice. Her study of drawing with Ilya Bolotowsky and Josef Albers was formative. Her drawings from this time explore pattern and repetition, and she was especially intrigued by the meander as a motif. She
1260-504: A whole. The GGBA sought to gain local political power and hoped to achieve their gains through an increase in gay tourism, and the association formed the San Francisco Gay Tourism and Visitor's Bureau in 1983. The LGBT tourism industry drives and benefits the economy due to the constant influx of consumers. " The Trouble with Trillions " (season 9, episode 20 of The Simpsons ) features Fidel Castro learning about
1344-742: Is a project of the GLBT Historical Society . The F Market heritage streetcar line turnaround at Market and 17th-streets where the Jane Warner city parklet sits. Across Castro street is the Harvey Milk Plaza in honor of its most famous resident with its iconic giant flag pole with an oversized rainbow flag, symbol of the LGBT community. Below street level is the main entrance to the Castro Street Station ,
1428-570: Is colloquially known as Stroller Valley, for the many strollers in the neighborhood. The median sale price for homes in Noe Valley as of December 2019 was $ 1.83 million. One of the attractions of Noe Valley is that the adjacent Twin Peaks partly blocks the coastal fog and cool winds from the Pacific, making the microclimate usually sunnier and warmer than surrounding neighborhoods. Traffic flow
1512-400: Is limited – one main north access through Castro Street to Eureka Valley , one main west access up Clipper Street toward the former Twin Peaks toll plaza and west of the city, several east accesses to the Mission District through 24th Street, Cesar Chavez, and other numbered streets, and the main north–south Church Street access used by the J Church Muni Light Rail. Public transit includes
1596-467: Is mostly concentrated in the business district that is located on Castro Street from Market Street to 19th Street. It extends down Market Street toward Church Street and on both sides of the Castro neighborhood from Church Street to Eureka Street. Although the greater gay community was, and is, concentrated in the Castro, many gay people live in the surrounding residential areas bordered by Corona Heights ,
1680-402: Is now Noe Valley as part of his Rancho San Miguel . Noé sold the land, later to be known as Noe Valley, to John Meirs Horner, a Mormon immigrant, in 1854. At this time the land was called Horner's Addition. The original Noé adobe house was located in the vicinity of the present day intersection of 23rd Street and Douglass Street. Along with nearby neighborhood Corona Heights , Noe Valley was
1764-564: The California Gold Rush and in its aftermath, a substantial Finnish population settled in San Francisco . Finnish Club No. 1 was established in the Castro District of San Francisco in 1882. Soon after, two "Finnish Halls" were erected nearby. One was located at the corner of 24th Street and Hoffman Street. The other hall was located on Flint Street, on the "Rocky Hill" above Castro, an area densely populated by Finns at
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#17327760821331848-484: The Castro Street History Walk (CSHW), is a series of twenty historical fact plaques about the neighborhood—ten from pre-1776 to the 1960s before the Castro became known as a gay neighborhood , and ten "significant events associated with the queer community in the Castro"—contained within the 400 and 500 blocks of the street between 19th and Market streets. They were installed at the same time as
1932-410: The Mission District , Noe Valley , Twin Peaks , and Haight-Ashbury neighborhoods. Some consider it to include Duboce Triangle and Dolores Heights, which both have a strong LGBTQ presence. Castro Street, which originates a few blocks north at the intersection of Divisadero and Waller Streets, runs south through Noe Valley, crossing the 24th Street business district and ending as a continuous street
2016-693: The Santa Anita racetrack for much of 1942, after which they were sent to Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas . Ruth's father, Umakichi Asawa, was arrested by FBI agents in February 1942 and interned at a detention camp in New Mexico . For six months following, the Asawa family did not know if he was alive or dead. Asawa did not see her father for six years. Ruth's younger sister, Nancy (Kimiko),
2100-762: The Tamarind Lithography Workshop Fellowship in Los Angeles in 1965 as an artist. Collaborating with the seven printmakers at the workshop, she produced fifty-two lithographs of friends, family (including her parents, Umakichi and Haru), natural objects, and plants. In the 1960s, Asawa began receiving commissions for large-scale sculptures in public and commercial spaces in San Francisco and other cities. Asawa installed her first public sculpture, Andrea (1968), after dark in Ghirardelli Square , hoping to create
2184-561: The U.S. Postal Service honored her work by producing a series of ten stamps that commemorate her well-known wire sculptures. Ruth Aiko Asawa was born in 1926 in Norwalk , California, and was one of seven children. Her parents, immigrants from Japan, operated a truck farm until the Japanese American internment during World War II . Except for Ruth's father, the family was interned at an assembly center hastily set up at
2268-603: The Whitney Museum of American Art in fall 2023 and traveled to the Menil Collection in Houston in early 2024. Co-organized by both institutions in close collaboration with the estate of the artist, this note-worthy show highlighted the breadth of Asawa's works on paper, including drawings, collages, watercolors, and sketchbooks that she produced as part of her daily sketching routine, establishing drawing as
2352-413: The 1930s, the Castro gradually became an ethnically mixed working-class neighborhood, and it remained so until the mid-1960s. There was originally a cable car line with large double-ended cable cars that ran along Castro Street from Market Street to 29th St., until the tracks were dismantled in 1941 and the cable car line was replaced by the 24 MUNI bus. The Castro is at the end of the straight portion of
2436-551: The 1950s, when her work appeared several times in the Whitney Biennial , in a 1954 exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , and in the 1955 São Paulo Art Biennial . In 1962, Asawa began experimenting with tied wire sculptures of branching forms rooted in nature, which became increasingly geometric and abstract as she continued to work in that form. With these pieces, she sometimes treated
2520-464: The 1950s, while a student at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, Asawa made a series of crocheted wire sculptures in various abstract forms. Asawa felt that she and her fellow students were ahead of the administration with developing their own form of modernism in sculpture, constantly trying new things. She began with basket designs, and later explored biomorphic forms that hung from
2604-540: The American architect and designer Buckminster Fuller . At Black Mountain College, Asawa began making looped-wire sculptures inspired by basket crocheting technique she learned in 1947 during a trip to Mexico. In 1955, she held her first exhibition in New York and by the early 1960s, she had achieved commercial and critical success and became an advocate for public art according to her belief of "art for everyone". She
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2688-461: The California coast, as the war had continued and the zone of her intended college was still declared prohibited to ethnic Japanese, whether or not they were American citizens. Unable to get hired for the requisite practice teaching to complete her degree, she left Wisconsin without a degree. (Wisconsin awarded the degree to her in 1998.) Asawa recounted an experience when stopping in Missouri to use
2772-531: The Castro , is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco . The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States. Having transformed from a working-class neighborhood through the 1960s and 1970s, the Castro remains one of the most prominent symbols of lesbian , gay , bisexual , and transgender ( LGBTQ ) activism and events in the world. San Francisco's gay village
2856-431: The Castro District, at 9 Douglass Street. Its opening as an official business serving the general public took place in 1913. In 1919, the business moved to 4032 17th Street, a half block west from the busy Castro Street. In 1932, the business moved again, now to 2284 Market Street. In 1986, after having been stationed in the Castro District for over seven decades, the business moved the final time, now to 465 Taraval Street in
2940-496: The Castro LGBTQ Cultural District; the ordinance was passed unanimously. One of the more notable features of the neighborhood is Castro Theatre , a movie palace built in 1922 and one of San Francisco's premier movie houses. 18th and Castro is a major intersection in the Castro, where many historic events, marches, and protests have taken and continue to take place. A major cultural destination in
3024-551: The Castro an area of high spending and lead to high tourist traffic. In addition to the city's locals, people travel to visit the shops and restaurants as well as the events that take place, such as the Castro Street Fair . Events such as the fair drum up business for the community and bring in people from all over the nation who visit solely for the atmosphere the Castro provides. People who do not necessarily feel comfortable expressing themselves in their own community have
3108-719: The Castro in 2016), and the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival . An LGBTQ Walk of Fame, the Rainbow Honor Walk , was installed in August 2014 with an inaugural twenty sidewalk bronze plaques representing past LGBTQ icons in their field who continue to serve as inspirations. The walk was originally planned to coincide with the business district of the Castro and eventually include 500 bronze plaques. The main business section of Castro Street from Market to 19th Street
3192-567: The Castro, in the district of Eureka Valley, was created in 1887 when the Market Street Railway Company built a line linking Eureka Valley to downtown. In 1891, Alfred E. Clarke built his mansion at the corner of Douglass and Caselli Avenue at 250 Douglass which is commonly referenced as the Caselli Mansion . It survived the 1906 earthquake and fire which destroyed a large portion of San Francisco. During
3276-534: The Castro. The Castro is a site of economic success that brings in capital all year round with many events catered to the gay community along with everyday business. The Castro is a "thriving marketplace for all things gay" meaning the area caters to people who identify with LGBT culture and other associated meanings to the word gay. There are cafes, the Castro Theater, and many businesses that cater to or openly welcome LGBT consumers. These establishments make
3360-454: The J Church, which runs down Church Street until 30th Street. The 24 Muni Bus also runs through Noe Valley. Its route comes from the north on Castro Street and switches to Noe Street at 26th Street. It then exits the neighborhood via 30th Street. Additionally, the 48 Muni Bus runs down 24th street, connecting the neighborhood to the nearby Mission District. The neighborhood is primarily residential, although there are two bustling commercial strips,
3444-737: The Market Street thoroughfare, and a mostly residential area follows Market Street as it curves and rises up and around the Twin Peaks mountains. The U.S. military discharged thousands of gay servicemen from the Pacific theatre in San Francisco during World War II (early 1940s) because of their sexuality. Many settled in the Bay Area, San Francisco and Sausalito . In San Francisco, an established gay community had begun in numerous areas including Polk Street (which used to be regarded as
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3528-480: The San Francisco's Sunset District , where it continued as Finnila's Health Club, serving women only. Despite public outcry and attempts to prevent the closing of the popular Finnila's Market Street bathhouse, the old bathhouse building was demolished by Alfred Finnila soon after the farewell party held in the end of December 1985. Today, the Finnila family owns the new Market & Noe Center building at
3612-523: The area of Castro Street. Ruth Asawa Ruth Aiko Asawa (January 24, 1926 – August 5, 2013) was an American modernist artist known primarily for her abstract looped-wire sculptures inspired by natural and organic forms. In addition to her three-dimensional work, Asawa created an extensive body of works on paper, including abstract and figurative drawings and prints influenced by nature, particularly flowers and plants, and her immediate surroundings. Born in Norwalk , California in 1926, Asawa
3696-478: The area. The 1967 gathering brought tens of thousands of middle-class youth from all over the United States to the Haight, which saw its own exodus when well-organized individuals and collectives started to view the Castro as an oasis from the massive influx. Many of the hippies had no way to support themselves or places to shelter. The Haight became drug-ridden and violent, chasing off the gay population, who looked for
3780-405: The artwork's removal. Asawa countered: "For the old, it would bring back the fantasy of their childhood, and for the young, it would give them something to remember when they grow old." Many San Franciscans, especially women, supported Asawa's mermaid sculpture and successfully rallied behind her to protect it. Near Union Square (on Stockton Street, between Post and Sutter Streets), she created
3864-615: The camp. In 1943, she was able to leave the camp to attend Milwaukee State Teachers College , where she hoped to become a teacher but was unable to complete her studies because her Japanese ancestry prevented her from obtaining a teaching position in Wisconsin. In 1946, Asawa joined the avant-garde artistic community at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where she studied under the influential German-American Bauhaus painter and color theorist Josef Albers , as well as
3948-413: The ceiling. She learned the wire-crocheting technique while on a trip to visit Josef Albers while he was on sabbatical in 1947 Toluca , Mexico, where villagers used a similar technique to make baskets from galvanized wire. She explained: I was interested in it because of the economy of a line, making something in space, enclosing it without blocking it out. It's still transparent. I realized that if I
4032-512: The city's gay center from the 1950s to the early 1980s ), the Tenderloin and South of Market . The 1950s saw large numbers of families moving out of the Castro to the suburbs in what became known as the " White flight ", leaving open large pockets of real estate and creating appealing locations for gay purchasers. The Missouri Mule first opened in 1935 by Norwegian Immigrant Hans K Lund and would find its place in San Francisco's history becoming
4116-568: The corner from the Swedish-American Hall, which remains in the district. In the 1920s – during prohibition – the downstairs of the Swedish-American Hall served as a speak-easy, one of many in the area. "Unlicensed saloons" were known as speak-easies , according to an 1889 newspaper. They were "so called because of the practice of speaking quietly about such a place in public, or when inside it, so as not to alert
4200-564: The early 1970s, this became the model for the Art Commission's CETA/Neighborhood Arts Program using money from the federal funding program, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), which became a nationally replicated program employing artists of all disciplines to do public service work for the city. The Alvarado approach worked to integrate the arts and gardening, mirroring Asawa's own upbringing on
4284-738: The earthquake. The brick and wood frame of the St. Francis Lutheran Church building survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and then was used for several months as an infirmary. Following the earthquake, the same year, Finns founded the Lutheran Church of the Cross in Berkeley , at University Avenue, where the Lutheran congregation still operates today. In c. 1910 , a bathhouse called Finnila's Finnish Baths began serving customers in
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#17327760821334368-540: The efficient, low-cost homes being more ornate than others, depending on the owner's taste and finances. Today, Noe Valley has one of the highest concentration of row houses in San Francisco, with streets having three to four and sometimes as many as a dozen on the same side. However, few facades in such rows of houses remain unchanged since their creation in the late 19th and early 20th century. Many Noe Valley streets were laid out and named by John Meirs Horner, who named Elizabeth Street after his wife and Jersey Street after
4452-467: The end of her life, Asawa recognized art education as central to the importance of her life's work. In July 1949 Asawa married architect Albert Lanier, whom she met in 1947 at Black Mountain College. The couple had six children: Xavier (born 1950), Aiko (1950), Hudson (1952), Adam (1956–2003), Addie (1958), and Paul (1959). Albert Lanier died in 2008. Asawa believed that "Children are like plants. If you feed them and water them generally they'll grow." At
4536-609: The first along 24th Street, between Church Street and Diamond Street, and the second, less dense corridor along Church Street, between 24th Street and 30th Street. Ruth Asawa was a resident of Noe Valley from 1962 until her death in August 2013. Carlos Santana graduated from James Lick Middle School on Noe Street in the early 1960s, as did Benjamin Bratt in the following decade. Famous residents include Evan Williams , Mark Zuckerberg , and Terry Karl . The Castro, San Francisco The Castro District , commonly referred to as
4620-430: The freedom to travel to places such as the Castro to escape the alienation and feel accepted. There is a sense of belonging and acceptance that is promoted throughout the district to accommodate non-heteronormative people that many LGBT travelers are attracted to. The Golden Gate Business Association (GGBA) was created in 1974 to help promote the Castro as a place for tourists, but also San Francisco and LGBT businesses as
4704-759: The hill, is the Pink Triangle Park – 17th Street at Market, a city park and monument named after the pink triangles forcibly worn by gay prisoners persecuted by the Nazis during World War II . Harvey's was formerly the Elephant Walk , raided by police after the White Night Riots . Twin Peaks Tavern , the first gay bar in the city, and possibly in the United States, with plate glass windows to fully visibly expose patrons to
4788-437: The impression that it had always been there. The sculpture depicts two cast bronze mermaids in a fountain, one nursing a merbaby, splashing among sea turtles and frogs. The artwork generated much controversy over aesthetics , feminism , and public art upon installation. Lawrence Halprin , the landscape architect credited with designing the waterfront space, described the sculpture as a suburban lawn ornament and demanded
4872-599: The inaugural twenty RHW plaques. The CSHW goes in chronological order starting at Harvey Milk Plaza at Market Street, up to 19th Street, and returning on the opposite side of Castro Street. The $ 10,000 CSHW was paid for by the Castro Business District (CBD) which "convened a group of local residents and historians to work with Nicholas Perry, a planner and urban designer at the San Francisco Planning Department who worked on
4956-409: The location of the old bathhouse, in the corner of Market and Noe Streets. From 1910 on, the Castro District of San Francisco and some of the surrounding areas were known by the term Little Scandinavia , because of the large number of the residents in the area originating from Finnish , Danish , Norwegian and Swedish ancestry. The 1943 novel Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes focused on
5040-658: The neighborhood is the GLBT History Museum , which opened for previews on December 10, 2010, at 4127 18th St. The grand opening of the museum took place on the evening of January 13, 2011. The first full-scale, stand-alone museum of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history in the United States (and only the second in the world after the Schwules Museum in Berlin), the GLBT History Museum
5124-405: The police or neighbors". Scandinavian-style "half-timber" construction can still be seen in some of the buildings along Market Street, between Castro and Church Streets. A restaurant called Scandinavian Deli operated for decades on Market Street, between Noe and Sanchez Streets, almost directly across the street from Finnila's . Receiving an influx of Irish , Italian and other immigrants in
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#17327760821335208-602: The public, is located at the intersection of Market and Castro. The Hartford Street Zen Center is also located in the Castro, as well as the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church , 100 Diamond Street. Special events, parades and street fairs that are held in the Castro include the Castro Street Fair , the Dyke March , the famed Halloween in the Castro (which was discontinued in 2007 due to street violence), Pink Saturday (discontinued in
5292-616: The reality of racism in America was evident. This led to a direct sense of social consciousness in Asawa's sculptures and an intimacy influenced by the adversity her family experienced as a minority in America. The summer before her final year in Milwaukee, Asawa traveled to Mexico with her older sister Lois (Masako). Asawa attended an art class at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico ; among her teachers
5376-399: The restroom and she and her sister didn't know which bathroom to use. There was a colored and a white toilet at the bus stop and because of the racial discrimination at the time they chose to use the colored toilet. Once at Black Mountain there was more equality for her and other minority students including other Asian Americans and African Americans. While on campus they were equals but in town
5460-463: The sidewalk-widening project and lives in the Castro" to develop the facts. Each fact was required to be about the neighborhood or the surrounding Eureka Valley . The facts are limited to 230 characters, and were installed in pairs along with a single graphic reminiscent of the historic Castro Theater . San Francisco has a large and thriving tourist economy due to ethnic and cultural communities such as Chinatown , North Beach , Haight-Ashbury and
5544-461: The site of two quarries until 1914. Noe Valley was primarily developed at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the years just after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake . As a result, the neighborhood contains many examples of the "classic" Victorian and Edwardian residential architecture for which San Francisco is famous. As a working-class neighborhood, Noe Valley houses were built in rows, with some of
5628-400: The state where he was born. Most of Noe Valley is still called Horner's Addition for tax purposes by the city assessor's office. Present day 24th Street was named "Park Street," and 25th Street was named "Temple Street" to commemorate John Meirs Horner's Mormon faith. St. Paul's Catholic Church , also known as Parroquia De San Pablo, is a famous church located at Church and Valley Street. It
5712-437: The suburbs. By 1973, Harvey Milk , who would become the most famous resident of the neighborhood, opened a camera store, Castro Camera , and began political involvement as a gay activist, further contributing to the notion of the Castro as a gay destination. Some of the culture of the late 1970s included what was termed the " Castro clone ", a mode of dress and personal grooming that exemplified butchness and masculinity of
5796-731: The time, consequently nicknamed "Finn Town". In 1899, the First Finnish Lutheran Church was founded on 50 Belcher Street, in what then was considered part of the Eureka Valley district of San Francisco, but what is located on the outskirts of what today is best known as the Castro District. Next to it, on September 17, 1905, the cornerstone was laid for the Danish St. Ansgar Church at 152 Church Street, between Market Street and Duboce Avenue. In 1964, St. Ansgar merged with First Finnish Lutheran Church. The name for
5880-493: The united church, St. Francis Lutheran Church , was derived from San Francisco. Before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake , nearly all the children attending the McKinley School (now McKinley Elementary School) at 1025 14th Street (at Castro) were Finnish. Following the earthquake, a large number of Finns from San Francisco and elsewhere moved to Berkeley , where a Finnish community had been established already before
5964-481: The wire by galvanizing it. She also experimented with electroplating , running the electric current in the "wrong" direction in order to create textural effects. "Ruth was ahead of her time in understanding how sculptures could function to define and interpret space," said Daniell Cornell, curator of the de Young Museum in San Francisco. "This aspect of her work anticipates much of the installation work that has come to dominate contemporary art." Asawa participated in
6048-403: The working-class men in construction—tight denim jeans, black or sand combat boots, tight T-shirt or, often, an Izod crocodile shirt, possibly a red plaid flannel outer shirt, and usually sporting a mustache or full beard—in vogue with the gay male population at the time, and which gave rise to the nickname "Clone Canyon" for the stretch of Castro Street between 18th and Market Streets. The area
6132-654: Was Clara Porset , an interior designer from Cuba. A friend of artist Josef Albers , Porset told Asawa about Black Mountain College where he was teaching. Asawa recounted: I was told that it might be difficult for me, with the memories of the war still fresh, to work in a public school. My life might even be in danger. This was a godsend, because it encouraged me to follow my interest in art, and I subsequently enrolled at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. From 1946 to 1949, she studied at Black Mountain College with Josef Albers . Asawa learned to use commonplace materials from Albers and began experimenting with wire, using
6216-819: Was followed up in 1982 by building a public arts high school, the San Francisco School of the Arts, which was renamed the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts in her honor in 2010. Asawa would go on to serve on the California Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts in 1976, and from 1989 to 1997 she served as a trustee of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco . At
6300-454: Was going to make these forms, which interlock and interweave, it can only be done with a line because a line can go anywhere. After her trip to Mexico, Asawa's drawing teacher, Ilya Bolotowsky , noted that her interest in conventional drawing had been replaced by a fascination with using wire as a way of drawing in space. Her looped-wire sculptures explore the relationship of interior and exterior volumes, creating, as she put it, "a shape that
6384-504: Was heavily impacted by the HIV / AIDS crisis of the 1980s. Beginning in 1984, city officials began a crackdown on bathhouses and launched initiatives that aimed to prevent the spread of AIDS. Kiosks lining Market Street and Castro Street now have posters promoting safe sex and testing right alongside those advertising online dating services. In 2019, San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Rafael Mandelman authored an ordinance to create
6468-402: Was inside and outside at the same time." They have been described as embodying various material states: interior and exterior, line and volume, past and future. Asawa said "It was in 1946 when I thought I was modern. But now it’s 2002 and you can’t be modern forever." while she was developing her materiality and techniques, experimenting with manual means of visual communications. Experimentation
6552-458: Was key in finding her visual identity as an artist. While her technique for making sculptures resembles weaving , she did not study weaving, nor did she use fiber materials. Materials mattered. As a poor college student Asawa embraced inexpensive found objects such as rocks, leaves and sticks because they neither had the funds or access to good paper. Proximity and discovery was their resource. Asawa's wire sculptures brought her prominence in
6636-512: Was particularly influenced by the summer sessions of 1946 and 1948, which featured courses by artist Jacob Lawrence , photography curator and historian Beaumont Newhall , Jean Varda , composer John Cage , choreographer Merce Cunningham , artist Willem de Kooning , sculptor Leo Amino , and R. Buckminster Fuller . According to Asawa, the dance courses she took with Merce Cunningham were especially inspirational. In one class that included fellow student Rauschenberg Asawa reported that they ran down
6720-698: Was the driving force behind the creation of the San Francisco School of the Arts, which was renamed the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts in 2010. Her work is featured in collections at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Fifteen of Asawa's wire sculptures are on permanent display in the tower of San Francisco's de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park , and several of her fountains are located in public places in San Francisco. In 2020,
6804-458: Was the filming location for the movie Sister Act . Like many other San Francisco neighborhoods, Noe Valley started out as a working-class neighborhood for employees and their families in the area's once-thriving blue-collar economy. Since 1980 it has undergone successive waves of gentrification and is now considered an upper-middle class/wealthy neighborhood. It is home to many urban professionals , particularly young couples with children. It
6888-455: Was the fourth of seven children born to Japanese immigrants. She grew up on a truck farm . In 1942, her family was separated when they were sent to different Japanese internment camps as a result of isolation policies for Japanese-Americans mandated by the U.S. government during World War II. At Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas, Asawa learned drawing from illustrators interned at
6972-510: Was under reconstruction and repaving in 2014 to address a number of neighborhood concerns. The area has heavy vehicular traffic, as well as many visitors. As part of the work, the sidewalks were widened and new trees were planted. Additionally, 20 historical cement etchings covering from the inception to the area being settled to the 2010s sweeping gay marriage movement victories were installed in September 2014. A separate sidewalk installation,
7056-536: Was visiting family in Japan when her family was interned. She was unable to return, as the U.S. prevented entry even of American citizens from Japan. Nancy was forced to stay in Japan for the duration of the war. Asawa said about the internment: I hold no hostilities for what happened; I blame no one. Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the internment, and I like who I am. Asawa became interested in art at an early age. As
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