News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
The first parklet in the neighborhood — in front of Delfina Pizzeria at 2410 California Street near Fillmore — is now accepting visitors. It’s a new public space that offers a spot to pause in the sunshine. EARLIER: “Parklet sprouting on California Street“
ORNITHOLOGY | Monte Travis From my ninth floor office near Lafayette Park, I’ve been watching a pair of red-tailed hawks engage in aerial courtship flights since early this year. In late March I saw the hawks carrying sticks to a large nest high in a eucalyptus tree in the park, undertaking a little remodeling. A…
When architect Michael Murphy came home to San Francisco after a decade in London, his fresh eyes gave him a new appreciation for the city’s architecture — especially the modern buildings that often get overshadowed by the showier Victorians. So he began creating a series of prints celebrating some of his personal favorites, including several…
Crowds gather outside Delfina Pizzeria on California near Fillmore nearly every day at noon and nighttime. They’re waiting for a table, preferably one of the coveted spots out front. Soon the waiting may be more convivial — and the odds of snagging an outside table considerably improved — when the Fillmore Stoop is completed. It’s…
ARCHITECTURE | JOHN FIELD Although I’ve lived in Pacific Heights for many years and designed homes here, I never thought of myself as a Pacific Heights architect. When I was asked recently how many houses in the neighborhood I have designed, I had to stop and think. I’d never counted them. There must be 20…
Q & A | VASILIOS KINIRIS Zinc Details has turned 20. How did it all begin? I was fresh out of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California at Berkeley and simply had an idea and some very strong feelings. At the university, Wendy Nishimura and I had developed an understanding and…
ART | JEROME TARSHIS Joan Brown (1938-1990) may have thought of herself as an unclassifiable artist. “This Kind of Bird Flies Backward,” the survey of her paintings at the San Jose Museum of Art, positions her as one who portrayed women’s lives, beginning with her own. Curators need to say something, but it’s an idea…
Neighborhood resident Theophilus Brown — one of the great figures in 20th century California art and one of the pioneering members of the Bay Area Figurative Movement — at 92 is still in his studio every day. A new exhibition opening tonight, “Theophilus Brown: An Artful Life,” presents work from throughout his long and successful…
By Kellie Ell A once vibrant mural on the south side of the Boom Boom Room at Fillmore and Geary is now covered in gold, hot pink and white spray paint and other graffiti. Looming above, the next-door National Dollar store has painted its name and a parade of products it sells — soda, crackers,…
By Wanda M. Corn Alice Babette Toklas met Gertrude Stein in the fall of 1907. She had come to Paris from San Francisco with her next-door neighbor, Harriet Levy, and had enough money to last her a year, although she hoped an inheritance from her grandfather’s estate would allow her to stay longer. Little did…