News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO MURALIST Mel Waters is re-creating his Harlem of the West mural on the same wall where the original stood for 12 years. In 2014, Waters painted a “Harlem of the West” mural on a laundromat wall at 1233 Divisadero Street. It was a tribute to the years when so many jazz clubs packed…
A DECADE AGO, world-class graphic artist Michael Schwab created two art posters for Union Street saloonkeeper Perry Butler: one featured a straight-up Manhattan; the other the restaurant’s signature drink, a Bloody Mary in a wine glass. Our saloon columnist, Chris Barnett, told the story: Note the last paragraph of that story: Michael Schwab has been…
Story and Photographs by CYNTHIA TRAINA In a stylishly appointed Victorian just steps from Fillmore Street, with opera drifting through rooms overflowing with art, Mark Evans spends his days transforming salvaged frames into convex mirrors encrusted with dazzle that sell for thousands of dollars. In rooms that double as both studio and gallery, he blends…
How my Pacific Heights pup sparked Pretzel Palz FIRST PERSON | KINSEY HART Every day for the past year, my dog and I have made our way to Alta Plaza Park. What started as routine walks became the inspiration for something bigger: a whimsical stationery brand that captures the magic of exploration through Pretzel’s eyes…
FIRST PERSON | THOMAS REYNOLDS Back in 2013, when the Thomas Reynolds Gallery was still in its original home at the corner of Fillmore and Pine Streets, I got a message on our still-newish Facebook page from an artist in Spain. He included his painting of our corner. “My name is Joan Longas and I’m…
“THERE’D BEEN A rainstorm,” says longtime neighborhood resident Monte Travis, a respected San Francisco attorney. “I looked out the living room window and saw this. I grabbed my camera, opened the kitchen window and took the picture. My timing was very lucky, as the rainbow proved quite ephemeral.” Travis is far more than an amateur…
AT THE TOP of Fillmore Street, the renovation of a penthouse is nearly complete. An art treasure is coming home. VIDEO by Jonathan Pontell for The New Fillmore.
NEIGHBORHOOD HISTORY | WOODY LaBOUNTY In the 1930s, the WPA’s Federal Writers’ Project put unemployed authors to work on guidebooks. The contributor to the architecture section of California: A Guide to the Golden State, had some opinions on the architectural tastes of the moneyed classes in the late 19th century: “[W]ealth meant even larger buildings with more and…
DAVID JOHNSON, who took the most famous photograph ever taken on Fillmore Street, looking south from Fillmore and Post in the late 1940s, died on March 1 at age 97. Johnson, a Florida native, first came through San Francisco on his way to serve in the navy during World War II. He returned after the…
By WOODY LABOUNTY The story: the imposing Calvary Presbyterian Church on the corner of Fillmore and Jackson streets — which seems like an ancient temple that has stood on its plot for time immemorial — was moved there from Union Square. Let’s play detective and take a before-and-after look. Read more: “One Million Bricks“