The band U2 might want to live “Where the Streets Have No Name,” but for some residents of an unnamed street smack in the middle of San Francisco, it’s been hell getting an Uber, a pizza delivery or an ambulance. And it’s especially hard trying to sell a home that potential buyers can barely find.

That’s why some residents — and one enterprising real estate agent — have been trying to get Google, Apple and the city to get their street, informally named John’s Way, on the map. They’ve had some luck with Google and Apple, but you know what they say about fighting City Hall.

The street is really a private dead-end alley in between Market Street and Corbett Avenue in the Twin Peaks neighborhood. The alley has garages and parking spots for residents.

The six residents on the Market side of the alley have Market Street addresses and front doors facing Market. But finding and getting to them is extremely difficult because of a unique set of circumstances. There’s no parking or sidewalks beneath them, and they sit atop a giant retaining wall accessed by a steep zigzag ramp.

It’s much easier to access the homes from the alley, so they use their back doors as front doors. Visitors, delivery people and house hunters would have an easier time finding them if they had a John’s Way address, but they can’t get one because it’s not on city maps.

The homes on the other side of the alley have Corbett Avenue addresses and most of their homes face Corbett, which is easy to find and relatively accessible. But there are two apartment complexes and one home on the alley that have Corbett Avenue addresses but no direct access to either Corbett or Market. Their only access is John’s Way.

Greg Tarbox lives in that home. “It was awkward at first,” Tarbox said. He has found ways to direct delivery people to his home, although some still get lost. Whenever he needed an Uber, he’d give an address on nearby Clayton Street and wait there.

“It’s a unique setting,” Tarbox said. “It’s a little like Barbary Lane,” the fictional street in Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City,” he said. “It’s that spirit. People cooperate.”

The alley is jointly owned and maintained by 17 property owners whose land touches it. Each year the city sends one property tax bill for the alley and the owners divvy it up. Unlike the owners of the infamous Presidio Terrace, an upscale private street that was auctioned off by the city for nonpayment of property taxes but later returned to owners, the owners have never been seriously delinquent.

In 1985, John Pletz, an owner who has since died, asked a deputy in the tax collector’s office what would happen if the taxes weren’t paid. In a letter to neighbors he wrote, “As unbelievable as this sounds, he replied, ‘The property will be sold at auction and probably a developer will buy the property and build an apartment or condominium units.’”

In 2015, his wife, Barbara Pletz, called the San Francisco Fire Department to discuss getting emergency services to homes on the alley. On two occasions, ambulances called for Pletz and her husband had trouble finding their Market Street address. Before retiring, she was director of San Mateo County’s emergency medical services.

“The Fire Department had no idea the alley was there. They were happy to find out about it,” Pletz said. “They had each shift come down the alley, see how it was laid out, how’d they get a hose to it. They thought it was a really good idea to give it a name.”

On behalf of residents, Pletz asked the city how they could get the alley named and put on the map. She was told it would cost $2,500 to apply for a name and the Board of Supervisors would have to approve it. Installing a street sign would cost extra.

However, “even if you go through the trouble of naming this alley it will not appear on our maps since it is a private lot, and only the fronting property owners have easement access rights,” Javier Rivera of the Department of Public Works wrote in a 2015 letter to Pletz. He added, “How these two landlocked parcels (the apartment complexes) were allowed to be developed is beyond me.”

Taking matters into their own hands, the residents named the alley John’s Way in memory of John Baumann, San Francisco architect who developed the two apartment complexes and lived there for more than 50 years. They had two signs made that say John’s Way and posted them on a house and a retaining wall at the top of the alley, but the entrance is still easy to miss.

In November, Greg and Wendy Antipa put their home on the Market Street side up for sale. But their open houses attracted a sparse crowd. “People would get there and say, ‘I couldn’t find it,’ or ‘I almost got hit by a car’” walking up Market Street, said their agent, Jennifer Rosdail of Keller Williams.

“You can drive right to the house from John’s Way,” where the Antipas own a one-car garage and parking pad. But she couldn’t put it into the Multiple Listing Service with an address on John’s Way because it’s not on city maps. Rosdail decided it would help if she could get the street on the map.

“We put it in as a trouble ticket through Google Maps a whole bunch of times,” she said. “We did it with Apple Maps too.” Rosdail’s assistant had a friend whose boyfriend works at Google on the Maps product, and they talked to him. Rosdail checked the maps every day and, one day in March, found John’s Way labeled on Google Maps with a single red marker in the middle of the alley. A little later, Apple had one too.

Asked what led to that appearance, a Google spokeswoman said the company used “a number of different sources to accurately model the constantly changing real world,” including contributions from users.

Although residents still don’t have addresses on John’s Way, they can now tell visitors to put that name into Google or Apple maps and then look for their house numbers, which some have displayed on their back entrances. “Having it identified on Google Maps was wonderful,” Pletz said. “I had a Lyft come. That was the first time.”

Rosdail also contacted San Francisco Public Works about getting the street on the city map.

In an email, a spokeswoman for the department said it can’t put the alley on the map because the city has not declared it a private street, which requires a minimum of 20 feet. “Our initial review shows that the width is 14 feet. There also is a tight turn on the stretch, which we believe would be difficult at best for emergency vehicle access.”

She said the residents could hire a private surveyor to provide detailed information about the site, prove there is no problem with flooding and install a new fire hydrant. Then they’d have to submit an application for review, pay $2,500 and “we would circulate the proposal to other city agencies, with police and fire paramount.” If there are no concerns and it meets the minimum requirements, it could become a designated private street and put on the official map.

Meanwhile the Antipas, who have moved to a retirement community in Oakland, are still waiting for a buyer for their home at 3352 Market. Now listed at $2.1 million, the home has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and spectacular city views. The websites Redfin and Zillow estimate it’s worth about $2.7 million. But they don’t know the unique story of John’s Way.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender