The four churches of St. Dominic

Posted on December 28, 2024 by editors
Photograph of St. Dominic’s Church by Alex Mizuno

ST. DOMINIC’S CATHOLIC CHURCH is celebrating 150 years in the neighborhood — and 100 years in its landmark Gothic home — with the publication of a new book, Radiating the Joy of the Gospel in the Heart of the City.

The book captures key moments in the life of the church in words and photographs. These excerpts tell the story of the four buildings St. Dominic’s has occupied.

The First St. Dominic’s Church

As early as 1863, the Dominican Order bought a square block bounded by Steiner, Bush, Pierce and Pine Streets for $6,000. On June 29, 1873, Archbishop Joseph Alemany blessed the first St. Dominic’s Church at the corner of Bush and Steiner Streets, the site of the present church.

The original priory building was located at the corner of Steiner and Pine Streets, with the entrance on Steiner. This is where the Dominican friars lived as a community.

An article in The Monitor, the official publication of the archdiocese, described the territory around St. Dominic’s when the church was first founded: “At that time the Western Addition was a waste of sand dunes on the outskirts of the city. Of residents, there are very few in the district, and its houses, some of them small ranch houses, were far apart. Old fathers have told of how they went over the hills on horseback for provisions, and the old residents of the city of how they came to it from the Mission, in buggies and on foot, by ways made almost impassable by the drifting sands.”

The second St. Dominic’s Church was first authorized in 1880.

The Second St. Dominic’s Church

Within a short time, the area grew. The little church of St. Dominic, though still new, was proving inadequate for the growing needs of the people. Although the plan of the first church provided for the addition of a transept, the decision was made to move it to another part of the block and transform it into a parish hall, while an entirely new church would occupy the original site at the corner of Bush and Steiner Streets.

The second St. Dominic’s Church was first authorized on April 18, 1880. Even before the plans for the church had been approved, the first church was lifted and moved to about the middle of the Pine Street side of the block.

After the laying of the cornerstone in 1883, work on the new church languished for some time. These were years when money was hard to come by on account of the gradual depletion of the Comstock Lode in the Nevada mines and the consequent depression in San Francisco.

Archbishop Patrick Riordan blessed the new church on Sunday, November 13, 1887, although there were a good many parts still to be erected or installed. In September 1892, The Monitor reported: “During the past week, a number of plasterers have been giving the finishing touches to St. Dominic’s New Church. The church has a seating capacity of 2,000.”

By 1893, the church was essentially finished except for some proposed interior decoration and also for the organ. It would be five years before the organ was installed. The total cost of the church was $188,926.77.

Then catastrophe struck. On the early morning of April 18, 1906, came the disastrous San Francisco earthquake and fire. The church was destroyed. Part of one of its towers fell on the priory.

The Third St. Dominic’s Church

Less than three weeks after the earthquake, ground was broken in the middle of the Pierce Street block for a temporary church that would serve first as a church and later as a parish hall. By May 1907, the temporary church was ready for dedication.

In 1923, plans for the fourth — and current — church became final and work began.

The Fourth St. Dominic’s Church

The third church had always been considered a temporary church. As early as 1917, a sketch of the proposed interior of New St. Dominic’s Church was shown. In 1923, plans for the new church became final and work began. Early in the year it was generally assumed that at least some of the foundations of the old church could be used in the new one. In February the engineers convinced the friars that this was not feasible, so it was decided to have the old stones crushed and used in the new reinforced concrete walls. 

Plans were made to lay the cornerstone on August 5, 1923. The cornerstone was a large block of granite, the same that had rested in the foundation of the church that was destroyed.

During the next four years, the construction of the new church was the most interesting aspect of St. Dominic’s parish. The gradually rising English Gothic structure on the old site at Bush and Steiner Streets was considered a truly international church. Craftsmen, artists and technicians from the United States and Europe collaborated in fashioning the parts which together created an exquisite whole.

On February 19, 1928, Archbishop Edward J. Hanna dedicated the new St. Dominic’s.

Copies of Radiating the Joy of the Gospel in the Heart of the City are available in the parish office or may be ordered online here.

MORE:

“The St. Dominic’s Block“

“The 1989 Earthquake“

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How to live a long life

Posted on December 8, 2024 by editors
Ron Kay at his 100th birthday celebration.

By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS & JONAH RASKIN

If there’s a secret to a good long life, local centenarians Ron Kay and Arthur Roth may have found it. They are, at least, both living it.

Roth, who celebrated his 100th birthday on November 16, lives on Post Street at The Carlisle retirement home. Kay, who turned 100 last year, lives across the street at The Sequoias.

(more…)

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Fillmore is losing an icon

Posted on October 30, 2024 by editors
Ines Wilson has become a fashion advisor and media star at Invision.

FILLMORE STREET is losing an icon this week.

After a decade, Ines Wilson is leaving Invision, the optometry office and eyewear emporium at 1907 Fillmore. She has become a valued fashion advisor, helping Invision’s clients choose stylish glasses that flatter their faces. October 31 is her final day.

Wilson’s outsize personality and star quality have made her a standout not only on the street, but also on Instagram, where she has been featured in dozens of videos.

The videos resulted from a collaboration between Wilson and Luis Quiroz, Invision’s social media director. They recently shot a final video that serves as something of an exit interview for a familiar face on Fillmore.

VIDEO: Ines says: Farewell

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New on Perfume Row: Ministry of Scent

Posted on July 9, 2024 by editors
Ministry of Scent’s stylish shop is located at 2408 Fillmore Street.

By SHELLEY HANDLER

Step into Ministry of Scent, the newest addition to Fillmore Street’s burgeoning Perfume Row, and inhale. That first whiff may be a symphony of disparate yet appealing notes, or one unwavering deep and delightful tone you can’t quite put your finger on.

Either way, you’ll find this new shop at 2408 Fillmore both an adventure and an education.

First opened a decade ago as Tigerlily on Valencia Street by co-owner Antonia Kohl — and since rechristened the Ministry of Scent — this bijou black and white showcase is a smaller sister shop. The Ministry has been a passion project from the start, driven by Kohl’s own obsession with niche and indie scents. An avid collector, she realized that any trip she took would find her on the hunt for yet another unusual perfume.

In 2014 she took the leap, leaving her work in integrative design and taking a deep dive into the world of scent, opening Tigerlily. She bet on her love of niche perfumes and made that the shop’s focus. In gathering her stock, she passed over ubiquitous designer scents for independent perfumers who brought their distinctly personal tastes into play when crafting niche, often quirky, perfumes.

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After six and a half years as solo owner, Kohl teamed with formally trained perfumer Ineke Rühland, creator of the IneKE line of perfumes. Together they transformed Tigerlily into Ministry of Scent, expanding their reach with a considerably larger choice of indie scent houses and individual perfumers. Among the shop’s selection of 80-plus lines are those headed by totally self-taught scent crafters and others, like Rühland, who have deep formal training and years of industry work informing their creations. The inspirations for these perfumes range from the obvious to the wildly obscure, some encompassing entire fantasy worlds from which their scent tales spring.

Take Imaginary Authors. The foundation of this line and source of its scent names is a collection of novels, none of which actually exist, all “written” by imaginary authors. The title of each book hints at the structure of the scent housed in a box made to look like a book. Lined up, the entire collection resembles a custom-bound library, each volume the story of a place or experience held in the bottle within.

A City On Fire, Imaginary Author’s industry-award winning scent, stands you solidly in the midst of a conflagration. Dark, decidedly smoky, it is both the match that lit the fire and the smoke billowing around you. My tastes lean toward the woodsy-smoky realm, so the idea of this perfume grabbed me immediately. That first spritz did not disappoint; this is a burnt match/smothered campfire delight, just the slightest bit bitter, but pleasantly so. It holds fast to its fiery theme for at least an hour, and then, still smoky, slowly begins to caramelize, holding the smoke profile all along. It dwindles very slowly; the next morning there was the tiniest pinpoint of vaguely sweet caramel in its place.

Venturing into co-owner Ineke Rühland’s eponymous IneKE line took me on a lovely, meandering stroll from garden to shore to high-desert forest. These are all places beloved by Rühland and she brings the full force of her Versaille-trained, industry-honed skills into play to capture them in the bottle.

Her Idyllwild scent celebrates California’s high desert enclave in the dusty upper reaches of Riverside’s San Jacinto Mountains. Notes of Douglas fir and pine mark the resinous hit of forest made sharper by the desert sun, and sage brings in the leafy, dusty notes that come to life as you hike the hills. Rhubarb unites this all with a gentle citrusy tang right through the middle. And just below dust and fir forest, the scent retains a bright, gently green note that both comforts and urges you on.

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For all its serious scent-aficionado wares, the Ministry invites exploration in a relaxed and welcoming way. The staff, a group of four self-professed “scent nerds,” are at their happiest pulling samples from the simplest prompts. If all you know is that you like lavender, say the word and they will quickly gather four lavender-forward fragrances. If amber is your jam, manager Michael Ryan will show you amber woven into forms you never knew it could take. This is one place where it helps not to be too certain about what you want, because there is so much to discover, and so much of it delights.

“We looked for a long time on Fillmore Street, and the small, welcoming spot we found is perfect for us,” says Kohl. “This is such a beautiful stretch of an altogether welcoming neighborhood. We are just so happy to be here.”

I can honestly say, from watching the shoppers who lingered to sample and sniff, the delight is mutual.

Fillmore’s Perfume Row

Follow your nose down Fillmore Street’s Perfume Row.

Aesop | Australian import offering luxe proprietary skincare products, home and body fragrances, 2450 Fillmore.

Ministry of Scent | New to Fillmore, an S.F. original known for its wide selection of niche and indie scent houses, 2408 Fillmore.

Le Labo | French perfumer selling proprietary perfumes and home scents, 2238 Fillmore.

Credo Beauty | A small national chain focusing on a “clean” line of all-natural scents and beauty care, 2136 Fillmore.

Diptyque Fillmore | Paris-born scent house known for proprietary candles, perfumes and candle-related decor, 2122 Fillmore.

Byredo | Swedish perfumer popular with fashionistas offering high-end beauty products, 2000 Fillmore.

EARLIER: “The poetry of perfume“

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Now it’s Camellia Salon

Posted on May 27, 2024 by editors
Yuki Matsui now operates the salon at 1724 Fillmore, named for a favorite flower.

By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS

It might be called “The Little Salon That Could,” tucked away in the ground-floor retail space of an historic Victorian at 1724 Fillmore.

For decades it was called Citrine Salon, until the pandemic forced its closing. Beloved Citrine proprietor Rene Cohen, who had struggled to keep the business alive by adding racks of quirky fashion, shelves of high-end jewelry and outdoor haircuts — a complicated trick on cool San Francisco days — died during the shutdown and the shop was boarded up with sheets of plywood.

Enter Yukina Matsui, a soft-spoken hairstylist who moved here from her native Japan some 15 years earlier. “Yuki” saw the promise of the place. With the signing of a new lease a few months ago, Rene’s lively clutter metamorphosed into a spare, bright-lit salon now home to several stylists and Ukrainian nail artist Sofiia Pidlozna. The boards came down, a handsome wrought-iron fence went up, and a hand-painted — by Yuki — sign was hung announcing its resurrection as Camellia Salon.

“Rene had the camellia plant in the back yard,” Yuki says. “And my mom, who died over 10 years ago, loved camellias,” which flourish in Japan. It was a natural name for the new salon.

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Its home has history. When veteran real estate agent Dona Crowder bought the three-level Victorian in the mid-1980s, the ground-level retail space housed a vacuum cleaner repair shop. A second-hand clothing shop followed before Citrine Salon opened in the early 1990s. The upper floors, also dark during the pandemic, continue to serve as office space for therapists.

Camellia is on the ground floor of Victorian Square in a building relocated there.

Crowder has been part of the metamorphosis — of building and neighborhood — for decades. Born into a storied Alabama family, she came west with her mother at age 16 and never looked back. Her mother, Dottie Crowder, the only daughter of a World War I widow, “knew one person in Burlingame,” according to her daughter. But she made up for any lack of California connections with wide-ranging intelligence, energy and determination. In the 1960s she founded an independent real estate business headquartered in the Fillmore neighborhood. Dona, after graduating from UC Santa Barbara, joined her mother in the business in 1976. 

Before its purchase by Dona Crowder the building and the block between Post and Sutter had metamorphoses of their own. “Carlo Middione had the idea of creating a Victorian Square here,” Crowder says. Before Middione became the celebrated chef and owner of Vivande Porta Via restaurant on Fillmore, he worked for the Redevelopment Agency. With the help of San Francisco Heritage, which was created in 1971, he engineered the relocation of 12 Victorian houses. Among them were the salon’s building and those nearby, one of which housed Marcus Books for decades — and before that was the home of the legendary Jimbo’s Bop City when it was in its original location on Post Street in Japantown.

For years the block was tended by nearby resident Zema Daniels, known in the neighborhood as “One Hand” for his talent for shooting pool with one hand, or sometimes as Mr. Hands. “For years, ‘One Hand’ kept the street clean,” says Crowder. “He would be out with his bucket and brooms, cleaning the sidewalks.”

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“She was such a sweetheart,” Crowder says of her longtime friend and tenant Rene Cohen, owner of Citrine. Camellia owner Yuki and Rene never met. But so strong was the spirit of her predecessor that Yuki has taken pains to keep it alive. She moved Rene’s azaleas and other plants into freshly prepared new garden plots and relocated the lemon tree into a sunny corner where it now thrives. The backyard garden abuts a totally renovated parking lot, also managed by Crowder.

In early May, the block suffered a blow when a two-alarm fire broke out across the street in the Jones Senior Home building. That forced the evacuation of about 100 residents and shut down the Burger King on the corner. There were several injuries, but no fatalities.

Burger King quickly reopened, but no one is predicting when all of the apartments will again be habitable. Given the resilience of the renovated buildings in Victorian Square, however, and the quiet determination of Yuki and her friends at Camellia Salon and her nearby neighbors, the future of the block looks to be in good hands.

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Sunrise at Alta Plaza

Posted on May 8, 2021 by editors
Photograph by Robert Starkey

By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS

While most of his neighbors are still asleep, Robert Starkey can be found roaming Alta Plaza Park, searching for new angles to photograph the dawn.

“Walking to Alta Plaza to photograph the sunrise I get exercise, connection with nature, the unconditional love of dogs — and a feeling of accomplishment,” he says. He shares his photographs of the sunrise on Flickr with those who slept through it.

The sunrise photography project began in January after Starkey moved from Sonoma County back to San Francisco. It was occasioned by the darkest period of his life. 

“My entire body collapsed with Stage 4 bone cancer,” he says. “I was in hospitals, nursing homes and care facilities for a year and a half, and lost everything.” When he finally recovered, he was offered a place to live in a friend’s home near Alta Plaza.

“One of the most important aspects of my healing is to find purpose in each day,” he says. Shooting the sunrise and sharing the photographs helps provide that purpose.

Photograph by Robert Starkey

Photography has been a lifelong passion for the committed globetrotter. Sunrise at Alta Plaza is only the latest of his photographic obsessions. His work in series began in earnest when he moved to the Oakmont community in Sonoma County. 

“I found myself in the middle of 12,000 acres of protected land, with wildlife everywhere to photograph,” he says. “Also at Oakmont there is a polo field, where I found I could photograph beautiful sunrises.”

Now he is inspired by the sunrise at Alta Plaza.

“This morning it was clear, with beautiful blue skies when I left home,” he says. “But about the time I got to the park, the fog had rolled in and the temperature dropped about 20 degrees.” Still, he managed a few great photos of the fog-infused sunrise before heading back home to warm up.

“I keep thinking I’ll run out of new perspectives,” Starkey says, “but that hasn’t happened yet.”

Photograph by Robert Starkey

MORE: Robert Starkey’s photographs on Flickr
FROM THE CHRONICLE: “The light in darkness on Nextdoor“

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Pacific Heights Health Club ends its 35-year run

Posted on November 4, 2019 by editors
A retractable roof in the weight room has been one of the club’s distinctions.

PACIFIC HEIGHTS HEALTH CLUB, with its lofty-sounding name and low-key vibe — where designer workout garb is not required — will close its doors for the last time on November 27, the day before Thanksgiving, at precisely 3 p.m. 

Amy Lang, who took ownership of the club 15 years ago and appointed herself chief motivating officer, announced the move in a letter to members on November 1.

“San Francisco has changed. Retail has changed. The fitness industry has changed,” Lang said in an interview. 

The club’s personal training program will continue in the fitness center of the nearby 2000 Post Street apartments, between Steiner and Pierce.

Lang intends to focus, mostly in online sessions, on coaching women from 45 to 55 interested in weight loss — especially those in tech, who share her work roots.

A longtime neighborhood institution, the urban gym at 2356 Pine, just west of Fillmore, has gone through a number of incarnations. It opened in 1984 — when the city had only six health clubs — as a men-only club that offered massages, a hot tub, and was staffed with locker room attendants. It was frequented by a number of celebrity clients, including, for a time, John F. Kennedy Jr.

David Kirk opened the front part of the club to women when he took ownership in 1990. A dozen years later he opened the entire club to all. 

Fleeing a worklife in finance and tech, Amy Lang took over as owner in 2004, adding a cheeky sense of marketing along with yoga, Zumba and Pilates classes. Later she discontinued the classes and focused on small group training for older people, a change that didn’t sit well with some of the regulars. 

“It created a bit of a kerfuffle,” Lang acknowledges, but also revealed a deeper truth. “It was then that I realized the club is a better place for a person who is a do-it-yourself type of exerciser,” Lang says. “I didn’t know you don’t morph a health club into what you want it to be. But what I’ve learned now allows me to do what I’ve always wanted to do.”

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Little Free Library lives on

Posted on July 14, 2019 by editors

The Little Free Library (and doghouse) at 2418 Pine Street.

To Our Dear Little Neighborhood:

When a disturbing event occurs, it’s the ordinary, everyday heroes who step up to save the day.

Our neighborhood’s Little Free Library was violently attacked and toppled on May 29. It stood in front of our home at 2418 Pine Street, on one of the city’s bustling public sidewalks. While the destruction may not qualify as a true tragedy, the Little Free Library served an entire neighborhood — and beyond — in our big little town of San Francisco, and was a true loss.

The library’s grand opening took place last fall, accompanied by a ceremonial ribbon-cutting and all-around good cheer among our neighbors and friends. For months, the library worked its magic on children and adults who wanted to share what they had read and borrow what others submitted: mysteries, spy novels, romances, the adventures of Harry Potter, science, psychology — you name it. It became a meeting place for exchanging ideas as well as books. Kids and parents stopped by daily to peruse the latest titles, and dog walkers paused to grab a biscuit from the library’s little doghouse.

The Little Free Library on Pine Street had become part of the connective tissue helping to bind our neighborhood together, and its absence was felt immediately. Neighbors began commiserating with us and with each other. Our front door bell rang steadily, with people offering encouraging words of support and expressing their sympathy for the loss of the beloved lending library. Neighbors and anonymous well-wishers left notes and sent emails explaining their personal feelings of loss — and volunteered their time, help and funds to once again raise our book house. Some passersby actually broke into tears as they viewed the fallen library and tried to make sense out of the senseless.

“I was so saddened to see your library broken on the ground this morning,” a neighbor wrote. “The little library added beauty to our neighborhood and it is shameful that people are not respectful.” Another said: “Hi, neighbor. I saw what happened when I walked by and was tearful. I am so sorry this happened.”

The outpouring of concern, caring and love was inspiring, unexpected in its volume, and so heartwarming.

A crisis, even a relatively small one such as this, has a way of giving a clean window through which to view the world — a kind of reset button in a cosmic sense. The cement pedestal that secured the Little Free Library appeared strong, but it turned out to be vulnerable and capable of being destroyed. In contrast, our neighbors — even from beyond our familiar few blocks — turned out to be the real pillars of strength, resilience and fortitude. The human spirit rose above the tragedy and wound up strengthening our bonds and furthering a sense of community.

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who expressed their love and support. It is the people who make this world go around. Evil recedes and love wins.

THE MEYERS FAMILY

P.S. The Little Free Library is back up and ready for book and conversation sharing once again.

P.P.S. Library hours are: “Always open.”

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24 years on retreat

Posted on June 1, 2019 by editors

“What I like about it most is I’m really in charge of my own ship,” says Judith Skinner.

FILM | JESSICA BERNSTEIN-WAX

My mother’s friend Judith Skinner started a Tibetan Buddhist retreat in her Pacific Heights apartment in 1995. At the time, she thought it would last the traditional three years, three months and three days.

Almost 24 years later, she remains on retreat, a Buddhist practice that involves solitude, meditation and introspection — and can take place anywhere from a remote cave to a rent-controlled studio apartment in San Francisco.

I have known Judith almost all of my life. As a child, I visited her at the Ewam Choden Tibetan Buddhist Center near Berkeley, where she lived for many years. When Judith started her retreat, I thought three years sounded like a long time to lead a mostly solitary existence.

As her retreat extended for more and more years, I started to get curious. What did she do all day? And why had she dropped out of “normal life”?

To find out, I spent about a year and a half filming her on my days off and weekends. The resulting short documentary, On Retreat, will screen at this year’s SF DocFest, the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival. It screens on June 8 at 12:15 p.m. and on June 11 at 7 p.m. at the Roxie Theater.

You might think documentary footage of someone on a meditation retreat would be about as visually exciting as watching paint dry. But Judith is an engaging San Francisco character.

To help finance her retreat, she worked as a gardener for many years. Now in her 70s, she follows a simple daily routine involving Buddhist practice, writing and trips to Cal-Mart in Laurel Village.

She has almost no belongings and owns just one fork, but still manages to look sharp every day. She goes for regular haircuts at Patrick Richards Salon on Sacramento Street, where she tended the flower boxes for years.

Rather than focus primarily on the logistics of Judith’s retreat, my film explores her reasons for going on retreat in the first place and why she’s continued for so long.

“My friends tease me that retreat is the all-purpose excuse: I get out of everything,” Judith told me laughingly during one of our interviews. “On a deep level, what I like about it most is I’m really in charge of my own ship.”

Judith truly does seems to be content with her quiet, somewhat isolated life. She credits Buddhist practice and her retreat with making her a calmer, less reactive person.

Despite her solitary lifestyle, Judith says she hasn’t felt lonely these last 24 years. The retreat and the city of San Francisco have been her constant and familiar companions.

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A rabbi and a priest walk into a neighborhood

Posted on May 1, 2019 by editors

Rabbi Lawrence “Larry” Raphael at Congregation Sherith Israel.

A memorial service for Rabbi Lawrence Raphael will be held on May 4 at 6 p.m. at Congregation Sherith Israel, located at 2266 California Street. His friend Father Xavier Lavagetto recalls their time in the neighborhood.

I WELL REMEMBER when Rabbi Larry Raphael came to Sherith Israel. I was pastor at St. Dominic’s Church, and we had an immediate connection: We both faced the challenge of repairing buildings, while what we wanted most was to build up our people.

I admired greatly his courage; he stepped out of academia into the fray of leading a congregation that faced a daunting challenge. But it would never be enough to retrofit the synagogue; he wanted to strengthen his people.

From our first meeting, it was apparent that he had a passion for learning that shined, invited and blessed. Learning is not something static; Judaism is a living dynamic, a conversation ultimately with the God who always walks with his people. He shared his passion and set his people’s hearts and minds ablaze. He made Sherith Israel a light on the hill, and it shed light on this priest from St. Dominic’s in the valley below.

To be on a panel with him was an adventure. It was the insights that he brought that made every conversation a light in the darkness. His was a passion for people that welcomed even those on the margins. In a world that is too eager to build walls, he built bridges.

His care for the larger community was real. I pray he saw it in us, too. The rule at St. Dominic’s was simple: If Rabbi Raphael asks, the answer is yes!

— Fr. Xavier Lavagetto OP

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