The promised land: right here

Posted on April 25, 2010 by editors

Photograph of Moses in Yosemite by Richard Mayer

Among the work now under way at the Sherith Israel temple at California and Webster is the restoration of the stained glass windows. In the grand western window, “Moses Presenting the Ten Commandments to the Children of Israel,” Moses is depicted on the granite rocks at the gateway to Yosemite, with Half Dome and El Capitan in the distance, rather than in Sinai. For this modern Moses, California is the Promised Land.

UPDATE: The windows are removed

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Brautigan’s library finds a home

Posted on March 30, 2010 by editors

The Presidio Branch Library on Sacramento Street, now undergoing renovation, became legendary in literary circles after author Richard Brautigan used it as the setting for his imaginary library of unpublished manuscripts in the novel, The Abortion.

In Brautigan’s novel, published in 1970, the library was always open for authors to personally deposit their manuscripts. Through the years, quite a few writers took the story literally and submitted manuscripts or asked if the library really existed.

The Presidio library maintained a small display about Brautigan’s novel, but never actually accepted manuscripts. But in 1990 one of the author’s fans opened the Brautigan Library in Burlington, Vermont, and accepted several hundred manuscripts. That arrangement ended in 2005 when negotiations were announced to bring the manuscripts to the Presidio Branch Library. But it never happened.

Now the manuscripts have found a new home. The Brautigan Library will become a permanent collection in the Clark County Historical Museum in Vancouver, Washington. Brautigan was a Washington native.

Local aficionados, including library volunteer Marcia Popper, continue to push for an expanded display about the Brautigan connection when the renovated Presidio Branch Library reopens in late 2011.

EARLIER: A homecoming for Richard Brautigan

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Uncovering a red brick beauty

Posted on February 11, 2010 by editors

At Pine and Steiner, the new home of the California Pacific Medical Center Foundation.

After a year behind scaffolding and decades under paint, the red brick beauty of a building at Steiner and Pine was unveiled Wednesday afternoon when the scaffolding came down.

Inside it houses the California Pacific Medical Center Foundation. But it’s the outside that commands attention, now returned to its original appearance in 1897 when the building was built for the telephone company. It’s been sitting empty for years, and at one point hospital leaders considered selling it to nearby St. Dominic’s Church. Instead they decided to create a home for the foundation and other administrative offices. When rebuilding began early last year, it was unclear how extensive the restoration would be, and the plans assumed the brick building would be painted once again.

“It was a good surprise,” says Eric Stein, the hospital’s director of space and property management. “It’s beautiful brick. It was meant to be exposed.”

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Zen and the art of the public bath

Posted on June 3, 2009 by editors

The communal baths at Kabuki Springs & Spa.

By Donna Domino

“There’s a very special energy here,” says Kathy Nelsen, longtime director of the Kabuki Springs & Spa, explaining why the cultural fixture has endured for nearly 40 years. “The communal baths are really what differentiates us. We have some of the only ones in California and the U.S.”

Nelsen, who has carefully nurtured the Kabuki’s distinctively spiritual environment for the last decade, says another thing that sets the Kabuki apart is a deep respect for the body. She describes a recent women’s night to make her point.
(more…)

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A library of unpublished manuscripts

Posted on February 2, 2009 by editors

An architectural rendering of the renovated Presidio Branch Library.

In its literary star turn, the Presidio Branch Library, at 3150 Sacramento Street, was transformed into a fictional repository for unpublished manuscripts placed on the shelves at all hours of the day and night directly by the writers themselves.

Yet except for one easily overlooked display case near the checkout desk, there is no evidence the library was used regularly by noted Bay Area writer Richard Brautigan and incorporated into his novel, The Abortion.

That may change now that the historic Carnegie library, which has been serving local readers since 1921, is about to be remade. Planning is in the final stages for a $2.4 million renovation of the library.
(more…)

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The Majestic: living up to its name

Posted on January 1, 2009 by editors

Photograph by Susie Biehler

SALOONS | Chris Barnett

Cars streak south on Gough toward the freeways. Unless snagged by the red light at Sutter, they pass a majestic Victorian hotel with landmark status and, to locals, a rollercoaster reputation for service, style, cuisine and cocktails.

Built in 1902 as the private home of railroad baron and state senator Milton Schmidt, it morphed into the Hotel Majestic two years later. Spared from a fiery death when the 1906 inferno rampaging west from downtown was stopped two blocks away at Van Ness, it now lays claim as the city’s oldest continuously operated hostelry.

Today, after its bar and restaurant have opened and closed countless times and hotel managers have come and gone, the 56-room Majestic is enjoying something of a renaissance. It’s worth a visit just to meet the new cast of characters.
(more…)

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‘Thank God for Browser Books’

Posted on November 1, 2008 by editors

Browser Books: cozy

By DONNA GILLESPIE

Book lovers discouraged by the proliferation of chain stores and websites deserve a leisurely afternoon at Browser Books.

It’s an old-fashioned bookstore that emanates warmth — wood paneling and music greet you as you enter, and there are lamp-lit nooks that beckon patrons to sit and read. Carefully chosen classics line the shelves, but better-quality popular books can be found here as well. If a staffer recommends a book, it’s likely some forgotten gem, not something everybody’s already reading.

At 2195 Fillmore, next door to Peet’s Coffee, Browser is a bright, inviting spot that offers a cozy respite hours after the other shops on the street have gone dark.

“We have more books per square inch than anyone around,” says owner Stephen Damon. Just don’t come in asking for a romance novel or a western — Browser doesn’t carry them. “We’re very selective, very literary,” says Damon. “I keep important books.”

Browser’s story is interwoven with the colorful history of the neighborhood. The store was founded in 1976 a block north of its present location, just beside the Clay Theater, where Carlos Santana’s band also recorded, Beat poets read their poems and a head shop once flourished.

“This is a great neighborhood for a literary bookstore,” Damon says. “We have a loyal clientele.” Damon treasures an in-person review he received from local author Alice Adams. “Thank God for Browser Books,” she told him. “I didn’t think bookstores like this still existed.”

Browser is open every day until 10 p.m. — even if it’s New Year’s Day. The store closes only on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

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‘Our Lady of the Parking Lot’

Posted on September 1, 2008 by editors

In the parking lot behind St. Dominic's Church is a shrine to Our Lady.

Neighborhood lore says the bulldozer operators couldn’t bear to push down the grotto in the school’s courtyard when St. Rose Academy was demolished after the 1989 earthquake. So they carefully left it standing — and it’s still there, amid a grove of cherry trees, in the parking lot behind St. Dominic’s Church. Covered with gnarly vines watered by an underground spring, the grotto is a place of quiet contemplation dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. To locals she has become “Our Lady of the Parking Lot.”

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Pets Unlimited celebrates 60 years

Posted on May 14, 2007 by editors

One fateful day in 1947, a scruffy dog wandered into the yard of a Pacific Heights home. Mrs. Carter Downing took the dog to the city pound, where she learned his prospects for survival were slim. Wayward pets were put to sleep unless adopted quickly.

Bobby, a Jack Russell terrier rescued from a burning building, was adopted by Janette Gerl.


Horrified by the thought, she decided to take the dog back home — and to adopt all the other dogs at the pound and start an impromptu adoption service.

Other animal lovers joined the cause, including her friend and Pacific Heights neighbor Alice Coldwell. Fueled by tenacity and gumption, they worked to raise awareness of pets who needed loving homes.

Thus began Pets Unlimited, the San Francisco institution at Fillmore and Washington, which celebrates its 60th anniversary in May 2007.
(more…)

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The Arts & Crafts movement started here

Posted on May 4, 2007 by editors

Photographs of the Swedenborgian Church by Jim Karageorge

ICONS | LESLIE M. FREUDENHEIM

From 1876 to 1910, a group of creative and pioneering men and women in Northern California sought an architectural expression appropriate to the region. They rejected Victorian excess, preferring simple homes of natural materials. Their aspirations went beyond architecture to advocate a sensibility and a way of life.

The cradle of the movement was the Swedenborgian Church at Washington and Lyon Streets. Its leader was the modest but charistmatic Swedenborgian minister, Joseph Worcester, a serious student of architecture who inspired a quiet revolution as he turned Californians, and eventually Americans, toward the ideals of the Arts & Crafts movement and a return to a simpler life in harmony with nature.
(more…)

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