At 11 a.m. on October 31, the day starts at the door of Noe Valley Pet Company at 1451 Church Street. The Howl-O-Ween pet parade leaves from there, heads up Comerford Alley between 27th and Duncan, turns onto Sanchez Street and winds over to Noe Café at the corner of 26th for the Pet Costume Contest. Dogs of every size are welcome, along with their people, costumes preferred. Prizes go to originality, attention to detail, and stage presence.
None of that is on 24th Street. Most of Noe Valley's Halloween happens a few blocks off the commercial strip, and each piece belongs to a different group: a pet shop, a slow-street coalition, a parish school, and a block association across Dolores that files its own closure paperwork. Because Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, those pieces add up to a full day. The Noe Valley Voice's October issue put it plainly: "the festivities will be going on all day."
The square gets the week before
The Noe Valley Town Square has the run-up to Halloween, and this year it doubles as a birthday. The square officially opened in October 2016. The Noe Valley Association, the community benefit district that serves as the square's fiscal agent, turns 20 this year. Here's what's left on the Town Square calendar this week and next:
- Friday, October 23, 5 to 6 p.m. Noe Music in the Square brings the Hot Club of San Francisco and its Manouche jazz, with the Vibe Truck and Haystack Pizza on hand.
- Saturday, October 24, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The joint anniversary disco party, which is also a sendoff for District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman.
- Tuesday, October 27, 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. The Noe Valley Night Market closes the street, with more than 40 booths, face painting, balloon art, a bounce house, and Lambert Moss as emcee.
The Saturday party matters beyond the cake. It debuts the square's new lighting: 75 bulbs that the Voice reports will be 50 percent brighter and better suited to nighttime performances. A $25,000 grant to the Noe Valley Association paid for the upgrade. It came from Avenue Greenlight, a nonprofit launched in 2020 to improve commercial corridors around the city. The Voice reports the lights were designed to make more evening events possible, and the Night Market three days later will be the first market night under them.
Saturday's plan, per the Voice: CK the DJ spinning disco, pop, world, and house; a large cake donated by Noe Valley Bakery; prizes from local merchants; and best-outfit awards for anyone who shows up in disco gear. Mandelman leaves office in early January because of term limits, after eight years representing the neighborhood. The Town Square notes that its events depend on weather and details can change, so check the calendar the day of.
On Halloween itself, 24th Street steps back
Noe Valley Merchants Association President Kristen McCaffery told the Voice that 24th Street merchants will hand out candy, "but we're not planning anything special this year." Her reason: on a Saturday, the street will already be packed with weekend crowds.
The one organized moment on 24th Street comes a day early. McCaffery noted that the St. Philip's parade "likely will march on 24th Street on Friday morning," which means October 30. If you want to see costumes on the main street, Friday morning is likely your best chance. On Saturday, the action moves south and east.
The Saturday relay, block by block
Put the Voice's listings in time order and Halloween becomes a relay. Each leg has its own host and its own stretch of pavement.
| Time | Where | Who's behind it |
|---|---|---|
| 11 a.m. | Noe Valley Pet Company, 1451 Church St., up Comerford Alley to Sanchez, ending at Noe Café, 26th and Sanchez | Noe Valley Pet Company's Howl-O-Ween parade and Pet Costume Contest |
| Around 3 p.m. | Sanchez Street between Clipper and 27th | Halloween Stroll on Slow Sanchez, which Resilient Noe Valley describes |
| All day | 24th Street storefronts | Individual merchants handing out candy |
| 5:30 to 8 p.m. | Fair Oaks Street, closed to traffic | Fair Oaks neighbors, via an SFMTA street-closure application |
The first two legs share ground. The pet parade ends at the corner of 26th and Sanchez, and a few hours later the stroll starts on the same street, between Clipper and 27th. A member of Resilient Noe Valley told the Voice the stroll will continue as a "low-key" tradition "where families just come out to enjoy a walk in costume." The Voice predicts "little bunnies, cowboys, and Valkyries" on Sanchez starting around 3 p.m. No stage, no schedule beyond a start time, and no sponsor beyond the slow street itself.
That's the shape of the day. The middle of Saturday runs on a pet shop's route and a slow-street walk, about five blocks from the commercial corridor, and the evening belongs to a single street on the other side of Dolores.
Fair Oaks runs on barricades and neighbors
Fair Oaks Street is the closing leg, and it has the longest paper trail. In October 2009, the Noe Valley Voice told trick-or-treaters to "cross Dolores Street to the picturesque Fair Oaks Street." It quoted the treasurer of Fair Oaks Neighbors describing "an extraordinary Halloween celebration," with the street closed in the evening and older students from Jamestown Community Center hired to watch the crossings. That year the group closed Fair Oaks from 21st to 27th. Many homes were fully decorated, and the treasurer said she had "stopped counting at 1,500 pieces" of candy the year before. Festivities started around 5:30 p.m. Those details describe 2009, not this year's plans.
The 5:30 start has held. This October's Voice says Fair Oaks will close to traffic between 22nd and 26th streets from 5:30 to 8 p.m., "for that last chance to score treats." As of mid-October, SFMTA's special-event listing showed an entry called "Fair Oaks Halloween" for October 31, 5:30 to 8 p.m., marked "Application In Review." That entry names a shorter stretch, Fair Oaks between 22nd and 23rd. So the exact length of the car-free blocks depends on what the city approves this week. The 5:30 start is the same in both sources.
The closure process explains why Fair Oaks looks like a block party and not a city event. Under SFMTA's trick-or-treat street closure program, a community group or group of residents tells the agency which streets and hours it wants to close and pays a fee between $56 and $320, depending on how many blocks it covers and how early it applies. The applicants also have to talk with the neighbors on those blocks, provide and set up barricades at each end, and keep at least one adult at every barricade. The city signs off, and neighbors do the rest of the work, from the candy to the person standing at the barricade at 7:45. The process is spelled out on SFMTA's page. This post is general information, so any group thinking about a closure for its own block next year should confirm the details with the agency.
Planning the day from your front door
The relay makes a full Saturday easy to plan without driving anywhere. Here's an order that follows the Voice's times:
- Late morning on Church Street. Get to 1451 Church before 11 a.m. if a dog in your house has a costume, and follow the parade through Comerford Alley to Noe Café for the contest.
- Midday on 24th Street. The corridor will have its usual Saturday crowd plus merchants handing out candy, with no formal event to plan around.
- Mid-afternoon on Sanchez. Head back to Sanchez between Clipper and 27th around 3 p.m. for the costume stroll.
- Evening on Fair Oaks. Cross Dolores for the 5:30 to 8 p.m. closure, the one leg built around trick-or-treating door to door.
If you live on or near Fair Oaks, the closure rules matter for more than candy. SFMTA's program closes the street to through traffic and deliveries, keeps garage access for people who live on the block, and lets emergency and paratransit vehicles through. A grocery delivery or a rideshare pickup scheduled for 6 p.m. that Saturday should go to the nearest open cross street.
For anyone keeping score across the whole week, the Town Square hosts three gatherings in five days, and Halloween is spread across four other groups and roughly a dozen blocks. Friday jazz, the Saturday disco party under new lights, and the Tuesday Night Market are the square's events. October 31 belongs to Noe Valley Pet Company, the Slow Sanchez walkers, the merchants with candy bowls, and the neighbors on Fair Oaks holding the barricades.
At Deason Group, we follow how Noe Valley's blocks actually work, from which street closes on Halloween night to which corner the Town Square's new lights reach. If you'd like to talk about the neighborhood, your block, or what's next for your home, contact us.
