News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
THE CREW AT Curbside Cafe had no idea, but they were about to celebrate the restaurant’s 40th anniversary with the person who started it all. Lee Burns came for dinner on Saturday night, May 26, just as he had 20 years earlier, and 20 years before that, when he and partner Manuel Pena (above) opened…
A PROPOSAL TO tear down the historic St. Dominic’s School and replace it with a modern new pastoral center over a 59-car below-grade parking garage got a chilly reception from the Planning Commission on May 24. The project came before the Planning Commission with a recommendation from its staff that the proposal be rejected as…
LANDMARKS | BRIDGET MALEY One of San Francisco’s most impressive interpretations of Gothic-inspired architecture, St. Dominic’s Catholic Church, at the corner of Steiner and Bush Streets, is the fourth ecclesiastical structure to stand on this site.
A PUBLIC APPEAL | CATIE DAMON We need the help of the neighborhood to ensure that people continue to make memories at Browser Books, as they have for decades. With the proliferation of online shopping and e-books, it has been challenging to keep Browser’s doors open. When the recession hit in 2008, we almost closed,…
FIRST PERSON | CATIE DAMON Browser Books, the literary landmark on Fillmore near the corner of Sacramento, was originally located one block north, beside the Clay Theatre, in a building that had also been a head shop and a recording studio for Carlos Santana’s first album, called simply Santana and released in 1969. How my…
MONTY HAS A SWAGGER. It’s a swagger of self-assuredness, a wiggle. It’s the wiggle-swagger that only a noble and confident West Highland Terrier can have. That was exactly the swagger he wiggled on his recent Big Day Out. Monty’s best friend, Alison Carlson, was having work done on their home in the neighborhood. Contractors were…
By ANTHONY TORRES Years ago, when I first came to San Francisco, a friend took me to see live jazz at Rasselas, located at that time on the corner of Divisadero and California. That night, Robert Stewart played some incredibly hard R&B-inflected jazz that was incendiary. In 1999, Rasselas moved to 1534 Fillmore Street, creating…
By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS Along with the usual playground noise at Cobb Elementary School, at 2725 California Street near Scott, it’s possible to hear something else: the roar of Tiger pride. That’s because the students at Cobb, Tigers all, are justifiably proud. The vibrant brick red school, which underwent a $7 million modernization a few…
NEIGHBORHOOD ICON Kelly Johnson, a steady presence on the corner of Fillmore and Sacramento for many years, plans to die in early May. Wracked by terminal illness, he has invoked California’s new End of Life Option Act. After a final few weeks of celebrating with friends, he says May 7 will be his last day…
Kelly Johnson, who established the S.F. Dance Theater on Fillmore Street, remembers his onetime neighbor around the corner, coppersmith Armenac Hairenian.