Welcome back to Photo Friday – my little way of taking a break from San Francisco Real Estate and instead blogging about our great City’s past instead. All photos are published with permission from the San Francisco History Center and San Francisco Public Library.

I have a mixed use fixer upper coming on the market in Noe Valley in the next week or two at the corner of Castro and Jersey Streets in San Francisco. (2 residential units and 2 commercial units, if you’re curious)

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And while I was talking with one of the current tenants that reside in the building, she mentioned that she had seen an old photo somewhere of the neighborhood with the building in the backgroound. So I started doing some digginig on the internet, and while I didn’t find the building itself, I found the old Castro Street cable car barns across the street on the corner where there is now a Walgreen’s and its adjacent parking lot.

According the the Cable Car Museum website:

The final branch of the Market Street Cable Railway Co. originated as a steam motor line called the Market Street Extension. Beginning at the Market and Valencia powerhouse it ran out Market to Castro Street. In response to public displeasure with this rather primitive arrangement, management decided in 1887 to convert the operation to cable and extend the line south on Castro Street to 26th Street. Accommodating the additional cars required that a small car barn be built on the corner of Castro and Jersey Streets.

From a Google clip I found of San Francisco’s Noe Valley By Bill Yenne – The Market Street Railway Company abandoned the property in 1941. The barn on the right was torn down for a parking lot and the barn on the left became a Safeway market in about 1943. In 1974 the building was abandoned and became Little Bell market in 1975. Finallym in 1988, it became a Walgreen’s drugstore and it’s been there now for almost 20 years.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s Photo Friday. Hope you have a great weekend! I hear the weather will be pretty decent so get out there and do something fun!