News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
Glady Thacher started four nonprofits in her oversized living room — and they’ve helped people live better lives By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS Soon after her graduation from Smith College in the late 1940s, Glady Thacher took on the traditional roles of supportive wife and mother then mandatory for most women. But she quickly decided there was…
WHEN MEMBERS of the staff at Browser Books launched a successful Go Fund Me campaign last year to help assure the future of the beloved bookstore, they promised new efforts were coming to bring renewed life to the 40-year-old Fillmore Street fixture. Already additional staffers have come on board, book readings have begun and a…
BOOKS | NORA JACKSON When you compile a “best of” book from a neighborhood newspaper that’s outstanding to begin with, you’re bound to get an impressive result. Our Town: Best of the New Fillmore packs into one volume the New Fillmore’s shiniest nuggets, and the stunning final product leaves even a longtime resident like me…
NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — much in the news during the fight over funding a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border — came under fire for having a “high perimeter wall” and “gun-toting security” around her home in Pacific Heights. A group called President Trump Fans posted: “Walls for her house are OK…
MIA SIMMANS, manager of the Fillmore Farmers Market since last May, is a true believer — both in farmers markets and in the music that makes the Fillmore market unique. Her cred on both scores is impeccable: For the last seven years, she’s been both a vendor and musician at several of the farmers markets…
ARCHITECTURE | BRIDGET MALEY The imposing and somewhat out-of-place building at the southeast corner of Steiner and Pine Streets was completed in 1932 as a Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co. switching station, a function that continues today. Designed by architect Edwin V. Cobby, the building both blends in to the streetscape, with its neutral terra…
NEIGHBORHOOD BUSINESSMAN Agonafer Shiferaw has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging fraud and deceit at the Fillmore Heritage Center. It charges that Mayor London Breed, Supervisor Vallie Brown and other city officials violated laws and engaged in other wrongdoing that has cost roughly $100 million in failed public and private investments — and “contributed…
By SHELLEY HANDLER After popping up for four months at 2029 Fillmore, the just-one-dress women’s boutique Zuri has now put down permanent roots a block south at 1902 Fillmore in the small storefront that was home to Narumi Japanese Antiques for nearly four decades. The clothing company sells mainly one style: a loose-fitting, below-knee-length frock…
By BETTY MEDSGER Elizabeth Derby Middione — Lisa to her many friends on Fillmore, where she and her husband Carlo owned Vivande Porta Via for many years — died early on Christmas Eve after a long illness. She was two weeks shy of her 96th birthday. She was a member of two noted American families.…
WHEN BUSH STREET resident Palmer Sessel still wore a tie and worked in the Financial District, he liked to get out of the office midday and think things over. One day he walked by the historic Monadnock Building on Market Street and was struck by the cast of notable San Franciscans looking down at him…