News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
By KATHY JOSEPH BALISTRERI It all started during lunch at La Mediterranee last year. I had written the rough draft of a novel about the crazy, particular, sometimes heroic and sometimes downright despicable people who discovered electricity, but I was stumped on what to do next. Should I try to get a publisher? Start a blog? Hire an…
By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS “Our congregation reflects San Francisco,” says Senior Warden Gordon Park-Li of historic Christ Episcopal Church Sei Ko Kai, which graces the corner of Pierce and Clay Streets across from Alta Plaza Park’s grand staircase. On any given Sunday, its small, warm sanctuary welcomes Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans and Americans of assorted…
CRIME WATCH | DONNA GILLESPIE I was walking to the Walgreens at Fillmore and Bush when I heard running footsteps behind me. It was 4:25 in the afternoon on the Fourth of July. I turned to see a group of young people, perhaps 20 or more, bolting up the hill. As they surged past me,…
AFTER OUR FRIEND William died, we helped empty his house and put it on the market. His downstairs tenant was moving, and the pregnant cat that lived mostly under the house and on the street was left without a home. It turned out no one wanted a pregnant cat — not the nearby Pets Unlimited,…
CONTRARY TO EARLIER PLANS, California Pacific Medical Center now says it will scale back its operations in the neighborhood when a new state-of-the-art hospital opens next year on Van Ness Avenue. Patients are expected to move into the new hospital in early March. The current hospital will then concentrate on ambulatory care for patients who…
FLASHBACK | BARBARA WYETH Every time I walk past the corner of Fillmore and Pine, I am transported back to the Brown Bag, the stationery store that was a mainstay on the northeast corner for many years. Back in the day, I owned a small business in North Beach, but was struggling. I met Dawn,…
By RANDALL ANN HOMAN The sign for the Elite Cafe, glowing again after a fire left it damaged and dark for months, is a beacon from a time when Fillmore Street was awash with neon signs announcing the street’s vibrant nightlife. Earlier this year, Jim Rizzo of Neon Works put up scaffolding and gave the…
Q & A | KIM NALLEY Jazz diva Kim Nalley and her band return as headliners at the Fillmore Jazz Festival again this year, appearing on Saturday, June 30, at 4:30 p.m. on the California Street stage. It all started for you on Fillmore Street, right? Yes. I was cleaning houses and I got a…
By JASON OLAINE Artistic Director, Fillmore Jazz Festival Throwback is a term usually used in a positive way to refer to a bygone era that conjured great memories, which is what this year’s Fillmore Jazz Festival means to conjure up — positive memories of a time when all seemed right with the world: the mid-1990s.…
Q & A | JASON OLAINE Jason Olaine returns to San Francisco to book the Fillmore Jazz Festival when he’s not booking Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. You’re throwing us back this year to the 1990s — where were you back then? Well, 1993 was really the beginning of what would be my…