The summer problem
On a clear Saturday the streets around the park fill with people who parked quickly and walked off with a blanket. Keys end up on the seat, in a jacket on the grass, or in a bag that went home with somebody else. We open the car where it sits. Nobody needs a tow truck on Dolores Street on a sunny afternoon.
If every key is gone, the van cuts and programs a new one at the curb, which is the whole reason the machines live in there.
The buildings around the park
Liberty Hill and the blocks off Dolores have some of the oldest doors in the city still in daily use, and some of them still have their original mortise locks. Those are worth keeping. A mortise lock from 1905 can usually be serviced and rekeyed rather than ripped out, and a modern deadbolt can be added above it so you get the security without losing the door. A locksmith who only knows cylinders will tell you to replace the whole thing. That is a shame and it is usually unnecessary.
Mission Dolores and the church blocks
Mixed buildings, some with buzzer entry and some with a gate and a key, and plenty of flats above shops where the stair door is the real lock and the flat door is an afterthought. We see both all the time.
Everything on this page is also on the Mission and Noe Valley pages, because the park is where those two meet.
