Riley Walz, the 23-year-old OpenAI researcher known for creating viral apps that range from Shazaming Mission District vibes to making Jeffrey Epstein’s emails searchable, just pulled off what might be the most San Francisco real estate move ever: he bought an alley.

Not just any alley, either. We’re talking about “Dirt Alley”, the infamous unpaved strip in the Sunset District that composer JJ Hollingsworth accidentally purchased at a city auction last spring for $25,000, only to immediately regret it. Hollingsworth thought she was bidding on a two-bedroom duplex across the street, but due to some confusing city paperwork and a suspiciously low $1 minimum bid, she ended up with an 83-foot-long, 7-foot-wide roadway instead. The stress was real: she literally went temporarily deaf in one ear over the situation.

Enter Walz. After reading about Hollingsworth’s predicament, he reached out via snail mail (yes, really) with an unconventional proposal. She thought he was nuts at first, but when Walz and his co-owner Patrick Hultquist visited in person, they explained their vision: a collaborative community art project, like a giant quilt that the entire city could help create. The metaphor sealed the deal since Hollingsworth is literally a quilter who’d just written a concerto about patchwork.

So here’s what went down: Walz, Hultquist, and third co-owner Theo Bleier purchased the alley for $26,000 under the company name “Analysis Paralysis LLC”. They then dropped another $10,000 to have an asphalt crew actually pave the thing, because apparently “Dirt Alley” needed to lose the dirt to become “Alley”.

Now comes the fun part. The trio is planning an interactive art installation launching this spring where San Francisco residents can compete to contribute designs online. Those designs will eventually become massive vinyl stickers that’ll cover the paved alley. The whole project, property purchase, paving, vinyl stickers, and legal fees, is costing them around $50,000, which Walz points out is basically the price of a fully loaded Tesla Model Y.

The group is betting that this will become a neighborhood landmark, similar to the mosaic steps near Grandview Park. They’re also hoping to score some tech industry funding to help cover costs, banking on the fact that wealthy tech workers actually want San Francisco to be cool again.

Even Stanton Glantz, a 50-year-old neighbor who somehow missed the entire Dirt Alley drama, came out to see the paving and was genuinely impressed. For the first time in five decades, the alley actually looks decent.

Walz seems genuinely excited about the absurdity of it all. “This could never happen in any other city”, he said. “I feel like my life would be boring if we weren’t doing stuff like this”. And honestly? He’s not wrong.