Noe Valley Town Square spent its first ten years as a Saturday-morning place. For its 10th birthday it is getting stage lighting. The $25,000 anniversary grant is paying for 75 programmable bulbs designed to be brighter than the old ones and to react to live music. That spending shows where the square is headed. Its first decade was built around tomatoes at 8 a.m. Its second is being set up for 5 p.m. and later.
The October 2026 calendar already shows the change, and the November and December dates continue it.
A plaza that began as a parking lot and a farmers market
The square at 24th Street, between Sanchez and Vicksburg, used to be a gas station and then a parking lot owned by the Noe Valley Ministry. In the October issue of the Noe Valley Voice, Matthew S. Bajko traces how the lot became the home of a weekly Saturday farmers market after Real Food Company's 24th Street store closed in 2003.
When the church decided to sell, neighbors campaigned to keep the site as a park and a permanent home for the market. The city bought the parcel for $4.2 million, and the Town Square opened three years later, in October 2016. The Voice describes what it became after that: an outdoor dining spot, a children's play area, and the neighborhood's default venue for events.
The Saturday market is still the base of the square's week. It runs 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., according to the Town Square's events page. Everything else on the calendar has been built around it.
Where the anniversary money went
The new lighting is paid for by a $25,000 grant from Avenue Greenlight. The nonprofit launched in 2020 to help businesses across San Francisco by improving commercial corridors, and its board is made up of members and former presidents of merchant groups from around the city. The grant went to the Noe Valley Association, the community benefit district that maintains the 24th Street streetscape and acts as the square's fiscal agent. Avenue Greenlight had already funded the square's music series and neighborhood promotion by the Noe Valley Merchants & Professionals Association.
Avenue Greenlight's reasons are on the record. Deputy executive director Elise Jacobsen told the Voice:
"Lighting has been a huge priority for the board because it just improves the aesthetics of an area. We find it helps bring people out to a neighborhood's commercial corridor at night."
That is the core idea behind the project. The grant is less about the plaza than about the 24th Street storefronts around it, and about giving people a reason to be on the street once the farmers market has packed up.
The installation is by Joshua Hubert of Glow Fidelity, a lighting studio based in West Oakland. Hubert also installed the square's current lights nearly seven years ago. He compared the new setup to his SPECTRA-SF project at Civic Center: 1,271 bulbs spread across 1.6 acres of rooftops on the Main Library and the Asian Art Museum, which pulse in waves.
The Noe Valley version is much smaller but follows the same idea. The Voice reports that it was designed to:
- change colors or appear to dance in response to music performed in the square
- run themed lighting packages for the holidays and for occasions like Pride Month in June
- brighten the stage area and the pergola on the west side of the square
"All the lights can be programmed and scheduled," Hubert told the Voice. He also gave the practical reason: "The new lighting is going to be essentially brighter, so people will be able to have more nighttime events there."
Moira Leslie Crawford, who oversees community events at the square, said the system has 75 bulbs and will be 50 percent brighter than what it replaces. In the same Voice piece she said it would give better light for nighttime performances, and she named the event she had in mind: "To have stage lighting is important for the Noe Valley Night Market and other events."
The October calendar was already tilting toward evening
The square's October 2026 events flyer shows that its programming had moved toward evenings before the new lights arrived. Of the five one-time events listed, four started at 4:30 p.m. or later.
| Date | Start time | Event |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, Oct. 6 | 6:00 p.m. | Fleet Week performance by the 1st Marine Division Band, plus San Francisco Fire Credit Union's 75th-anniversary celebration with a vintage fire truck |
| Sunday, Oct. 18 | 10:00 a.m. | S.T.E.A.M. in the Square for kids ages 2 to 6, hosted by SF Tikes Academy and SF S.T.E.A.M. Academy |
| Friday, Oct. 23 | 5:00 p.m. | Fridays at 5 with the Hot Club of San Francisco, alongside the Vibe Truck and Haystack Pizza |
| Saturday, Oct. 24 | 6:30 p.m. | 10th-anniversary disco party |
| Tuesday, Oct. 27 | 4:30 p.m. | Noe Valley Night Market |
The recurring morning class is going the opposite direction. Free Sunday yoga with Yoga Flow SF ran 11 a.m. to noon through October, and the flyer says it resumes April 11, 2027. So for the winter, the square's regular daytime schedule is down to the Saturday market, while the evening events keep going under lighting built for them.
The Night Market shows why the lighting money went where it did. The October flyer described it as a street-closure market with more than 40 booths of food, drink, jewelry, ceramics, clothing and toys, plus face painting, balloon art and a bounce house. Emcee Lambert Moss ran live music and dancing all evening. Local News Matters covered the August 25 edition, with its live entertainment and food and artisan vendors near the Town Square. That is a lot of activity to light after dark, and Crawford's quote shows the new system was planned with this market in mind.
A birthday party that was also a handoff
The anniversary party was scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 24, and it was celebrating four things at once. It marked ten years of the Town Square and 20 years of the Noe Valley Association. It was a sendoff for District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who leaves office in early January after eight years because of term limits. And the new lighting was set to debut that night.
The planned program included CK the DJ playing disco, pop, world and house music, a cake donated by Noe Valley Bakery, and prizes from local merchants for the best disco outfits. Rhythm & Motion planned to open the night with a flash mob of its Pride routine set to Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," followed by an open disco dance. The dance group has offered free monthly outdoor classes at the square since 2022, according to the Voice.
Every one of those pieces is local. The bakery, the merchants donating prizes, the dance studio and the benefit district all fed into a single evening in the plaza. The lighting grant is meant to make that kind of evening routine.
What's on the square through December
Here is what is confirmed for the rest of the year:
- Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.: the Noe Valley Farmers Market, every week.
- Tuesday, Nov. 24: the Noe Valley Night Market. Funcheap's listing gives the hours as 5 to 8 p.m. and says it's free. The October edition ran 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. on the square's own flyer, so check noemerchants.com for the final hours.
- Tuesday, Dec. 29: the last-Tuesday series is advertised through this date. Organizers note that recurring dates can change, so confirm it closer to the day.
- Sunday, April 11, 2027: free Sunday morning yoga with Yoga Flow SF returns.
The Sunday Music in the Square series has continued into the fall. Its Nov. 1 show was scheduled to feature Liberty Street, a trio of Alie Halla, Ron Gerston and Al Carlson. The square publishes a monthly calendar on its events page and runs a mailing list for updates. That list is the most reliable place to hear about holiday programming, including whether the themed light packages Hubert described make an appearance in December. Events are free, open to the public, and held weather permitting.
The Nov. 24 Night Market will be the first scheduled after the clocks change, and the first since the anniversary party where the new lights were set to debut. It's the event Crawford named when she explained why stage lighting matters, and it will be held after sunset.
I grew up in this city, and 24th Street at night has a different feel when the square is lit and full. If you live a few blocks from it, or you're curious how the plaza's evening schedule affects the street around it, Kate Stoll is happy to talk it through over coffee from one of the cafés on 24th Street. Schedule a consultation.
