After 49 years, Fillmore Hardware closed its doors for the final time on the day after Christmas.
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A Fillmore love story
Posted on December 8, 2010 by editors
SHE WAS 19 when they met in New York. He was a much-in-demand illustrator twice her age.
Denise Ackle and Bill Shields became good friends, but both went on to marry other people. After she moved to California and then back to New York, they met again. This time it was different. “When I re-met Bill, that was it,” she says. “It was like falling in love with a very dear friend.”
Thus began a 40-year marriage, a loving family and a lifetime of adventurous and artistic explorations, many of which took place a few steps from Fillmore Street.
One of his early projects required a trip from New York to San Francisco. As they looked out the window of their room at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, Bill asked, “How’d you like to live in San Francisco?” “I’d love to,” Denise replied, and they went home to New York, packed up their Volkswagen bus and their two little boys and moved across the country.
A few years later they were up at Tahoe for the summer. Bill met a French visitor one afternoon and came home to ask, “How’d you like to live in Paris?” “I’d love to,” Denise replied, and they packed up the boys and moved to France for two years.
“He was always game to go anywhere,” she says. “We didn’t have much money, but we lived very well. We had such a good life.”
She bought and remodeled Victorians, becoming one of the first to increase their allure by staging them with nice furnishings and Bill’s paintings. Later they opened the Artists Inn behind a white picket fence on Pine Street. His artistic career flourished.
“He was one of those lucky people who did what he loved all his life,” she says. “And he loved this neighborhood. He loved being able to walk down Fillmore Street.”
Bill died in April, a week before his 85th birthday. He was buried on October 26 in Arlington National Cemetery with the honors due a distinguished Navy pilot.
This month the honors come closer to home, in the neighborhood Bill and Denise Shields loved and lived in for most of the years they were married. “William Shields: An Exhibition of His Art,” including paintings, drawings and sculpture, is on view at Calvary Presbyterian Church at Fillmore and Jackson. In addition to the major abstract oil paintings and pastel landscapes of the French countryside, the exhibition also includes more personal mementoes from their life together — cards and notes and wooden assemblages he created for birthdays, anniversaries and holidays.
“Happy Birthday and oh my Lordy, you’re the most beautiful lady who ever turned 40,” says one, featuring a rapturous drawing of Denise’s red hair.
“Lovely Denise,” begins another. “How come you get bolder (just cause you’re more older?)”
A reception honoring the Shields will be held in Calvary’s lounge at 2515 Fillmore on Sunday, December 12, at 11:30 a.m. The exhibition continues through January 2.
EARLIER: Fillmore loses a familiar face
A drawing by Bill Shields of his wife Denise at a street market while they lived in Paris.
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Fillmore Hardware closing after 49 years
Posted on October 28, 2010 by editors
Photograph of Fillmore Hardware by Rose Hodges
One of Fillmore Street’s iconic institutions will disappear by the end of the year when Fillmore Hardware closes its doors promptly at 5:55 for the final time.
For 49 years — since 1961 — the store has been the ultimate neighborhood-serving business. Originally twice its present size, it was a full-service hardware and glass company that furnished the materials used to renovate many of the Victorians in the neighborhood. In recent years it become a more eclectic emporium, keeping the basics but focusing more on housewares and whimsy.
“Simply put, we are tired,” owners and sisters Patti Lack and Terri Alonzo write in a letter to their customers and neighbors. “We considered staying one more year so we could celebrate 50 years in business,” the sisters write, adding, “It just isn’t worth it.” The two sisters have been running the store since their brother-in-law, Phil Dean, retired in 2005 after nearly 40 years as manager. Their father, Jim Hayes, remained actively involved in the business until his death last year at age 89.
“We never could have closed while he was alive,” Patti Lack said. “It kept him going.”
She said they will gradually sell off the store’s considerable inventory in the coming weeks and hope to be out by December 31. They own the building and have retained a broker to offer it for lease. She said they had not considered selling the store, which was started by their grandfather.
“Nobody wants to buy a hardware store,” she said. “The only reason we’ve lasted is because we own the building.”
Lack said it was an especially difficult decision given the number of people who come in regularly and tell them it’s their favorite store.
“It’s just time,” she said. “But we’re gonna totally miss it.”
EARLIER: Fillmore Phil Dean: a good egg
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From Thailand with talent
Posted on October 5, 2010 by editors
Neighborhood artist Veerakeat Tongpaiboon has a new exhibition of his dynamic cityscape paintings this month at the Thomas Reynolds Gallery, his longtime artistic home at Pine and Fillmore.
It’s the 16th year he has shown at the gallery. But this time he won’t be shuttling between his art and his day job at his family’s restaurant. Neecha, the admired and affordable Thai spot at the corner of Steiner and Sutter, closed at the beginning of August.
“I’m a full-time painter now,” he says. “It’s about time.”
(more…)
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Turning letters into treasures
Posted on October 4, 2010 by editors
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By Tessa Williams
“Serendipity,” reads an assemblage of vintage letters affixed to a wall at Timeless Treasures, Joan O’Connor’s antiques store on Sutter Street near Pierce. “Bananas,” reads another. “Slow down,” a third.
An establishment that celebrates the relationship between words and objects, Timeless Treasures specializes in vintage letters, available in a vast range of sizes, types and materials. In addition to offering the groupings for sale, O’Connor prompts customers to create their own combinations that become personal works of art.
“Words are just so powerful,” she says. “They can make us feel anything. And the color and variety of materials and sizes we put in the words adds an extra dimension.”
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The final day at Patisserie Delanghe
Posted on September 30, 2010 by editors
After 26 years of buttery croissants and sweet treats, today is the final day for Patisserie Delanghe. With no notice or fanfare, Dominique and Marie-Jeanne Delanghe will retire and take their delayed annual vacation to France. But while they’ll spend more time in their apartment on the Ile St. Louis in Paris, they will continue to live in the neighborhood.
Their corner of Fillmore and Bush will lose its French accent: The successor is a father-daughter team that will open the Fillmore Bakeshop.
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‘You gotta carry a gun’
Posted on September 26, 2010 by editors
So Ruth Dewson was told when she opened Mrs. Dewson’s Hats on Fillmore Street. For decades she has been the unofficial mayor of Fillmore Street. But she has been missing from the neighborhood in recent months, sidelined by ill health. We caught up with her at her shop and found her spirit strong and her health improving.
EARLIER: “A force of nature“
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An e-book with music
Posted on September 2, 2010 by editors
Photograph of Arthur Bloomfield by Susie Biehler
By Mark J. Mitchell
You may have read recently that New York author Pete Hamill’s new book is going straight to digital format, skipping print altogether. But the Fillmore’s own Arthur Bloomfield has beaten him to it.
Bloomfield latest book, “More Than the Notes,” made its debut online a few weeks ago and is available at no charge. In addition to his lyrical prose, it includes more than four and a half hours of music clips, enabling readers to hear the precise performances he’s writing about.
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Discovering the secrets of the score
Posted on September 2, 2010 by editors
Q & A | ARTHUR BLOOMFIELD
What motivated you to write “More Than the Notes,” your new e-book on legendary conductors of the 19th century?
When I was 11, my mother started taking me downtown once a month to the White House department store. It was where Banana Republic is now. Up on the fourth floor they had a record department. She’d buy me old Victor and Columbia albums. And she also gave me a book of record reviews. I said: “What’s the point? Isn’t Beethoven’s Fifth always the same?” She emphatically said no. In a way, that was the genesis of this book.
Even then you lived in the neighborhood?
I grew up in Presidio Heights at Clay and Locust and went to the old Town School on Alta Plaza Park. My father was a professor at Stanford Medical School, which is now California Pacific Medical Center. We would take the No. 4 streetcar along Sacramento Street, down Fillmore to Sutter, make a left and go downtown.
And those trips downtown led you to become a music critic.
In the ’60s and ’70s I was a music critic for the Call-Bulletin, which became the News-Call-Bulletin, and later for the old Examiner. I left the Examiner to become a freelance writer, mostly on music and food. I spent a lot of the 1980s researching the conductors book.
You say the book aims to clear up some of the “received wisdom” about conductors. In what way?
I had long felt there was not a book that made a sufficient distinction between conductors — nor a book that told enough about what conductors really do: What are the decisions they make about tempo, balance, etc., all of which can affect the emotion of the performance as it goes from mood to mood. What this book does, first, is tell the kind of decisions a particular conductor made. You get some sense of how his mind works. And second — and quite important — you get a good idea of the many ways in which the secrets of a score can be discovered. There’s a great quote from the English writer and pianist Susan Tomes: “The score is the map, but not the journey.”
Your book itself is something of a tome.
It’s about 100,000 words. I’ve been working on it a lot for about four years — but I’ve been thinking about it for 30 years.
And yet it’s not a book, but a website with sound clips.
The advent of the technology — to have sound clips — came at a perfect time. It’s on the cutting edge. I wasn’t accustomed to listening to music on my computer, but when I heard the sound coming out, I was ecstatic. And I had Dick Wahlberg a block up Webster Street to help. He also grew up in Presidio Heights. He uses my basement to store part of his record collection and is a great sound engineer. So I had technical help nearby I’d known forever. We had a number of sessions making the clips and decided together when the clips should begin and end. It was uncanny how often we agreed. Sometimes we worked from 78s, sometimes 33s, sometimes open-reel tapes. I had almost all of the clips in my own record library. Maybe I got a couple from Dick, but between us we had them all. Then I delivered my text and the master CD with the sound clips to the site designer and engineer. By some mysterious means, they turned them into a website. What we’ve done may be unique. Just click on the megaphone and you can play the exact passage in the exact Beethoven recording I’m writing about. It’s like a time machine.
This is your third book in recent years — and your second online book.
“The Gastronical Tourist” was published in 2002 and had a life of its own as a book. Then in 2007 we put it online. The numbers went up from practically zero to 60,000. And “Gables and Fables” — the book of Pacific Heights architectural history based on my wife Anne’s columns from the New Fillmore — was published in 2007. It’s still available at Browser Books on Fillmore.
Has it been an adjustment to see this new book online rather than on the bookshelf?
It’s been a revelation. Last night I googled the book. There’s something about turning on the screen and seeing all those cross-references. It’s satisfying — and you certainly get much better numbers. I’m a great devotee of Browser Books. I practically live in there sometimes. So it was a little wrenching at first that this new book won’t be there, or in the symphony shop. But I’ve gotten over that. And it’s free. It’s there for the tasting.
Go to “More Than the Notes“
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Walter is a girl
Posted on July 15, 2010 by editors
A few months ago we told the story of Saralee, a remarkable neighborhood cat who gave birth to 11 kittens. One of them was quickly named Walter Cronkite for what looked uncannily like the pencil-thin moustache of the legendary television anchorman. It turns out Walter was a girl cat, and now comes word of a blessed event: Walter is now the mother of four kittens, every one already adopted into a loving family. Walter’s moustache appears to be coming along nicely.
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