News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
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…
By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS “You have to say: ‘This is the end. It’s time to go home,’ ” says Jiro Nakamura, with a shy smile. Sadly for the neighborhood, that means the end of Narumi Japanese Antiques, Nakamura’s tiny jewel box of a shop at 1902 Fillmore Street. Narumi has been the go-to place for antique…
By BARBARA WYETH There was a brief time on the San Francisco art scene when artwork done on color Xerox copy machines was hot — the latest thing, de rigueur for experimental and accomplished artists, and for novices as well. The Fillmore was right at the center of all the excitement. The neighborhood had a…
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 | MICHAEL SCHWAB The poster for the 2018 Fillmore Jazz Festival is the fourth jazz image Michael Schwab has created for the Fillmore festival. All four now hang as banners on the street. Are you a jazz fan? Sure. I’m not an aficionado, but as a kid, back in southern Oklahoma, I…
LOCAL HISTORY | JOE BEYER For nearly a century, three lamp posts on the sidewalk in front of Calvary Presbyterian Church have added enlightenment on the busy corner of Fillmore and Jackson. The two on either side have plaques attached dedicating them to the memory of Katie Flavel, who apparently died on August 19, 1910.…
ONE OF THE best-known and longest-operating businesses on Fillmore Street is shutting its doors at the end of April. Zinc Details, at 1633 Fillmore, will end its 28-year run and its space is expected to become an outpost of Orange Theory, a nationwide fitness club. “I’ve met amazing people through our store,” says Vasilios Kiniris,…
By FRANCINE BREVETTI If you are a tribal man of Niger intent on wooing a lady, you will likely wear a Wodaabe tunic at the Geerewol festival. “That’s where the handsome men of the tribe compete in a contest of endurance and beauty,” explains Shiffen Melaku. Your sister would have embroidered this ritual robe for you…
By KEITH HOWELL Rhonel Roberts’ first love was music. But painting is his passion. The two came together for the Fillmore resident in a series of artworks he created celebrating great jazz musicians — Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles and South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela. His career took off when…