News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
A neighborhood icon with historic roots experiencing a renaissance — that was the cause for celebration in mid-July at the Elite Cafe. It was a 30th anniversary party for the Elite, held more than 80 years after its well-preserved Art Deco home first opened in 1928 as the Lincoln Grill. But the rejuvenated Elite and…
WHILE 30 YEARS can be more than a lifetime in San Francisco’s ever-changing restaurant world, Fillmore’s venerable Elite Cafe on July 14 will celebrate three decades of serving up New Orleans cuisine in its historic Art Deco home. And that’s only its third incarnation. The woody, warm and welcoming spot at 2049 Fillmore is rich…
FIRST PERSON | Charlie Greene The corner of Jackson and Fillmore was the center of the universe when I was growing up at 2449 Jackson Street in the 1950s and 60s. You could get anywhere in the city on four Muni bus lines — the 22-Fillmore, 80-Leavenworth, 3-Jackson and 24-Divisadero — plus the Washington-Jackson cable…
A rt patrons Michael and Sarah Stein lived in the Fillmore, then primarily a Jewish neighborhood, before they joined his sister Gertrude and brother Leo in Paris in the early 1900s. So did Gertrude Stein’s longtime companion, Alice B. Toklas. The Stein family owned and operated some of San Francisco’s many cable car lines, which Michael…
For more than 40 years, the School of Dentistry of the University of the Pacific has called the neighborhood home, providing no-cost and low-cost dental care through its clinics and enlivening the area with more than 1,100 students, faculty and staff. But that may soon change. School officials have signed an agreement to leave their…
DISPATCH | Elizabeth Moore Last year the New Fillmore reported on the reversal of the decision to close Stuart Hall High School in San Francisco in the July 2010 article, “Elite private school will live on.” Just short of a year later, there is another tremendous example of the same community coming together, this time to…
On Billionaires Row, the stretch of Broadway that runs along the top of Pacific Heights, Larry Ellison is suing his millionaire downhill neighbors Jane and Bernard von Bothmer over some runaway redwoods and an acacia that block Ellison’s views of the bay. According to the complaint, the dispute has been going on since 2008. The…
Travelers through the swank new terminal two at San Francisco International Airport will find friends from the neighborhood to bid them hail and farewell. Birds from Alta Plaza Park are part of an ingenious new piece of interactive musical art created by longtime neighborhood resident Walter Kitundu for a children’s play area. It’s intended for…
MUSIC | Anthony Torres I first heard Charles Unger play when I stepped into the Sheba Piano Lounge on the way home from Yoshi’s one night. As I walked in, I was immediately struck by the intonation of the tenor sax and the ease with which Unger and his band, The Experience, moved through Carlos…
ORNITHOLOGY | Monte Travis When I saw a golden crowned hummingbird up at Alta Plaza Park near the tennis courts, I was confused. I was unaware of any species that sports a golden crown. But then I watched as she dipped her bill into the long red tubular-shaped flowers adorning the bushes and witnessed the…