Oska stirs chain store fight on Fillmore

Posted on March 3, 2013 by editors

Photograph at Fillmore and California by Dickie Spritzer

By Barbara Kate Repa

SPURRED BY CONCERNS that the local shopping district is losing its charm and uniqueness as corporate labels gobble up real estate on Fillmore Street, some business owners are now attempting to block a newcomer — Oska, a German-based clothing company — from moving into the neighborhood.

The charge is being led by Miyo Ota, owner of Mio, the women’s boutique at 2035 Fillmore. She has filed an appeal of a building permit issued earlier to refurbish the space at 2130 Fillmore just left vacant by Jet Mail, where Oska intends to open a boutique. The action suspends the permit until the San Francisco Board of Appeals hears testimony on the issue at City Hall on March 20.

UPDATE: At its March 20 hearing, the Board of Appeals allowed the landlord’s permit to make upgrades to the building’s foundation to go forward. A second permit allowing Oska to build out the interior, which was also challenged, will be heard by the board on May 15.

FURTHER UPDATE: At its May 15 meeting, the Board of Appeals ruled 4-1 that Oska is a chain store and must go through the city’s conditional use process before it can open on Fillmore Street.

Ota’s resolve to act against the retailer, which boasts more than 50 stores around the world, was stoked while on a recent buying trip to Paris, where she was strolling through the formerly quaint Marais district. “I was shocked at what I saw there — it feels like Soho on weekends,” she says. “Now there are the same old chains there you see everywhere.”
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Photographer made his mark on Fillmore

Posted on March 3, 2013 by editors

A new book tells David Johnson's story and includes many of his photographs.

A HANDSOME NEW BOOK — melodiously titled A Dream Begun So Long Ago — chronicles the life of photographer David Johnson from his childhood, shuffling through the care of various adults in segregated Jacksonville, Florida, through his on-and-off relationship with the art of photography. Now it’s firmly on again as the 86-year-old relishes his recognition as one of the foremost historical chroniclers of black life in San Francisco and the Fillmore community in particular.

In the book, told in the first person and written with his wife Jacqueline Annette Sue, Johnson reminisces about his early days under the tutelage of Ansel Adams — and the day in 1946 he climbed up on a scaffold to take what would become an iconic photograph of the neighborhood called Looking South on Fillmore. Excerpts from the book follow.

I work in the darkroom alongside Ansel Adams as he produces very large black and white landscape murals. As I watch him working, we have a conversation about print quality as he applies some developer to a print. I say laughingly, “I thought you were a purist,” meaning showing the photograph just as it was taken. Ansel chuckles and says, “Yes, but I am not an absolute purist.”
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The crime of his childhood

Posted on March 3, 2013 by editors

Josh Miele commutes on BART between his home in Berkeley and his work on Fillmore.

JOSH MIELE can often be spotted on Fillmore Street, taking a lunch break or coming and going from his work as a scientist at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute at 2318 Fillmore. In a powerful story published today, The New York Times tells how a neighbor’s attack with sulfuric acid blinded and disfigured him when he was 4 years old.

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b. patisserie: pastry heaven

Posted on March 1, 2013 by editors

Photographs of b. patisserie by Amanda Hibbert

By MICHELE MANDELL

Its unassuming storefront and the all-lowercase spelling of the new b. patisserie at 2821 California Street, near Divisadero, might convey a self-effacing vibe, but there is nothing small about Belinda Leong’s tres chic pastry shop, which opened just before Valentine’s Day.

Leong’s impressive pedigree includes stints with Michelin-starred heavyweights Manresa and Gary Danko, where she was pastry chef for nearly a decade. She also spent a year in Paris working with the legendary Pierre Herme, dubbed the “Picasso of Pastry” by French Vogue.

Pastry lovers will be in heaven here. The lengthy marble display counter is not only a showstopper, but a technological marvel. Each section of the single-level surface can be set at a different temperature to keep every item at its best. For instance, lemon tarts are in a chilled section, while croissants are displayed in a room-temperature section. The case was custom-built in Paris and is the only one of its kind in the U.S.

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When I and thou were young

Posted on March 1, 2013 by editors

Photograph of Solstice by Daniel Bahmani

FIRST PERSON | Kevin Blum

It’s last call for Solstice Lounge.

After a successful 10-year run, the neighborhood favorite at 2801 California and Divisadero will be closing its doors for good on Saturday, March 2. The landlord, who also owns Rasselas and Sheba Piano Lounge on Fillmore Street, proposed to raise the monthly rent by several thousand dollars. Despite being a successful Pacific Heights fixture, Solstice would have to sell many more raspberry mojitos and Kobe beef sliders to cover the rent hike. Consequently, Matt Sturm and Leslie Shirah, who also own the Fly Bars on Divisadero and Sutter Streets, have decided to shutter Solstice.

For me personally, Solstice’s closing marks the end of an era. I moved to the neighborhood at the same time the restaurant and bar opened. I was in my mid-20s. City life was exciting and new. My friends and I were all young and carefree. Solstice immediately became our social nucleus. We would meet at the bar weekly without worrying about curfews, spouses or babysitters. We would go there on first dates, blind dates or last dates. Most of the time, we were just trying to find dates.
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Little library now lending

Posted on February 11, 2013 by editors

The Little Free Library on Suttter Street: It's a neighborhood thing.

A MINI-TREND to establish individual Little Free Libraries, begun in the Midwest in 2009, has led to the creation of thousands of libraries throughout the United States and in at least 17 other countries.

And now there’s a Little Free Library in the Fillmore.

Bibliophiles who pass by 2223 Sutter Street, near Scott, will find a hinged wooden cabinet bearing a sign: “Little Free Library. Take a book or leave a book.” Many do.

Local resident Michael Scdoris built the library, which can hold up to 50 books, from material scavenged during morning walks with his dog.

“I’ve gotten a great response and numerous letters from people,” he says. “I’m finding out what people in the neighborhood like. Children’s books are gone instantly — and so is any how-to book.”
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Puppy love

Posted on February 1, 2013 by editors

Photograph of Gaston by Susie Biehler

“We’ve begun to long for the pitter-patter of little feet — so we bought a dog. Well, it’s cheaper, and you get more feet.”
— Rita Rudner

FIRST PERSON | David Landis

It all began when we put up the Christmas tree in December. My partner Sean Dowdall is a cafeteria Catholic and I’m a Jewish wannabe. Neither of us is very religious, but we love a good celebration. So each year we deck our gay Christmas tree — a white one with pink balls coupled with a big pink ornament from a Parisian department store that always makes our Scott Street neighbors stop and stare.

This year, after the tree was trimmed, Sean turned to me and said, “I just can’t go through Christmas without a dog.”

About four months earlier, we had lost our beloved American Eskimo dogs, Shasta and Whitney. Not only were they part of the family, but they were also fixtures in the neighborhood. Having lasted almost to 18 (Shasta) and 17 (Whitney), they outlived many generations of dogs at Alta Plaza Park, their daily dog park of choice. We had seen many of Alta Plaza’s dogs come and go: Simon, Latte, Regina, Ruff, Molly, Bruiser, Panda, Banks and old Rose, to name a few. But Shasta and Whitney rallied on. And at Peet’s on Fillmore, while we sipped our cappuccinos, passersby couldn’t help but be seduced by their gorgeous white manes and fox-like smiles.

When they passed away, we found ourselves living a very different life: no daily walks to the park, no romps on the beach at Crissy Field — and nobody paying attention as the two of us sat on the bench outside Peet’s. The quiet in our house was deafening.

Then came Gaston.
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The upstairs-downstairs chef

Posted on January 16, 2013 by editors

Charles Phan and his family have dinner above OTD on their ping-pong dining table.

SUPERCHEF CHARLES PHAN “doesn’t have to go far to raid his restaurant pantry for ingredients,” The New York Times reports, since the family lives in an apartment above his Out the Door restaurant on Bush Street.

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Jet Mail, 300 others getting a new address

Posted on January 3, 2013 by editors

Kevin Wolohan and Ed Tinsley are moving Jet Mail from Fillmore to 2184 Sutter.

By Donna Gillespie

FILLMORE STREET will soon lose a landmark, a warm and friendly neighborhood destination that still offers meticulous, old-fashioned mailing services — a place that’s so much more than just somewhere to mail a box. After 22 years, Jet Mail is moving.

The good news is that it’s not going very far. January 31 will be Jet Mail’s last day at 2130 Fillmore Street. But on the next day, at 8 a.m. on February 1, the shop will reopen five blocks away — at 2184 Sutter Street, near Pierce.

Owner Ed Tinsley says the move was prompted by rapidly rising rents.

“The rent is too high right now, and it will soon go up,” says Tinsley. “We needed to find a place where the rent was more manageable that allows us to survive as a business.”
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One-of-a-kind dolls in a one-of-a-kind shop

Posted on December 5, 2012 by editors

STORY & PHOTOGRAPHS by Carina Woudenberg

He’s been a San Francisco resident for more than 30 years, but Jiro Nakamura still makes a yearly trek home to Japan to search for treasures for his shop on Fillmore Street.

The treasures include dolls — crafted hundreds of years earlier in many cases — and puppets, tea ceremony gear and kimonos fit for all occasions. They are offered at Narumi, a tiny shop at 1902 Fillmore that Nakamura named for a bakery his parents started in Japan.

He says he prefers antique Japanese dolls because they contain far more detail, especially in the hands and faces. “In old times, they had more time to make each piece,” Nakamura says.
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