News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
PHOTOGRAPHY | THOMAS REYNOLDS When Gerald Ratto was a student at the California School of Fine Arts in the 1950s, he would hang out in the Fillmore with his camera and a bottle of brandy, which sometimes made it easier to make friends. “I wasn’t documenting anything,” he says. “I was just photographing the people…
FIRST PERSON | BUD JOHNS Consider me a sucker for commemorative plaques. One reason London is among my favorite cities is its many buildings with blue ceramic plaques noting the famous people who lived there. I find it impossible not to pause and read them. So it was inevitable I would stop my car when…
By Chris Barnett The price on the wine list looks like a proofreader’s mistake. But celebrated chef Charles Phan of Slanted Door fame — and owner of the new and wildly popular Out The Door Vietnamese bistro on Bush Street, just off Fillmore — is selling a 2008 sauvignon blanc from Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley…
Story and photographs by CARINA WOUDENBERG Half a block up Pine Street from Fillmore, behind a perfectly maintained white picket fence, stands the Artists Inn. A flag flies in the breeze, but there is no sign of what lies behind the pale blue and white facade: three former art studios that a decade ago were transformed…
LOCALS | THOMAS REYNOLDS In the springtime came the annual invitation to stop by the corner of Alta Plaza Park and tour the elegant home of interior designer John Wheatman. Hundreds of current and former clients walked through on May 3, a cool, grey Sunday afternoon, to admire the treasures Wheatman has acquired and the…
When in-your-face filmmaker Michael Moore walks in the door with his crew, the usual response is fear. But when he wheeled up to Fillmore’s Elite Cafe on a recent Thursday evening and alighted from a black SUV with dark-tinted windows, diners at the sidewalk tables stood and applauded. Moore had just come from the Clay…
Story and photograph by JEAN COLLIER HURLEY This is a story about kindness, determination, beauty — and an unusual bougainvillea plant. Over the years, the front yard of the little house at 1923 Webster Street had become a junkyard, its wooden fence a dilapidated eyesore. The kindly owner, who had raised her family there, was too…
By THOMAS REYNOLDS When the first Monday in October arrives and the United States Supreme Court takes the bench after its summer recess, all eyes will be on the newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor. But Lisa Middione, co-owner with chef Carlo Middione of Vivande on Fillmore Street, will be thinking instead of two justices from the…
Traditionally the housing market falls off significantly in the summer months, then picks up again from Labor Day through the beginning of the holiday season. This summer, however, the market is showing unusual signs of strength, due to three factors: increased inventory, a stabilizing economy and continued low interest rates. Ironically, the highest priced home…
By Tess Minsky Life and times have presented Kirk Webber with plenty of opportunities to test his mettle — or to turn toque and run from Cafe Kati, the restaurant he founded nearly 20 years ago. He got robbed eight times, went through some tumultuous personal periods and, most recently, survived a bout with an…