Alamo Square/Divisadero: The new "It" 'hood

The SF Weekly may think it's the heart of the new "It" neighborhood in SF, but, between Turk St. and Haight St., Divisadero St. has a lot of empty storefronts. If we're so cool, why is that?

Michael Ondaatje ("The English Patient") has done his part by putting our neighborhood on the literary map with his new novel, "Divisadero."

On the other hand, Cafe Abir, the social heart of the neighborhood at Fulton and Divisadero, has been closed for weeks to those who like to start the day with a cup of Draino-strength coffee and the daily newspapers, as Abir does some remodeling behind the opaqued plate glass windows. We hope they don't ruin that special space with some misguided "improvements."

And then there's the Harding Theater. A few years ago, David Tornheim and his Central City Progressives went to great lengths to save this derelict, architecturally undistinguished, commercially unviable eyesore of a building. Now, as Supervisor Mirkarimi feared at the time, it's still a big blight on the neighborhood, another hollow symbolic victory for city progs.

Some context in the Observer.