News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
Neighborhood physician Dr. Eduardo P. Dolhun is with a team of doctors in Haiti treating earthquake victims. Here is a portion of his first dispatch from the front: “Within a matter of minutes we were presented with a wide assortment of severe illnesses, all of them traumatic and now nearly six days old. “The first…
Story and photographs by CARINA WOUDENBERG Half a block up Pine Street from Fillmore, behind a perfectly maintained white picket fence, stands the Artists Inn. A flag flies in the breeze, but there is no sign of what lies behind the pale blue and white facade: three former art studios that a decade ago were transformed…
LOCALS | THOMAS REYNOLDS In the springtime came the annual invitation to stop by the corner of Alta Plaza Park and tour the elegant home of interior designer John Wheatman. Hundreds of current and former clients walked through on May 3, a cool, grey Sunday afternoon, to admire the treasures Wheatman has acquired and the…
By THOMAS REYNOLDS When the first Monday in October arrives and the United States Supreme Court takes the bench after its summer recess, all eyes will be on the newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor. But Lisa Middione, co-owner with chef Carlo Middione of Vivande on Fillmore Street, will be thinking instead of two justices from the…
By Joanne Weir It all started several years ago when an invitation arrived in my mailbox on Pine Street beckoning me to the launch of a spiffy new tequila in a sexy square bottle. It took place at Tommy’s, the well-known tequila bar out on Geary, and was mostly men who were sniffing and swirling…
LOCALS | JAMES CARBERRY “I was standing right here when it hit,”says Ed Nahigian, the veteran owner of San Francisco Boot & Shoe Repair, occupying his usual position behind the front counter where he greets customers. It’s the same place he was standing shortly after 5 p.m. on Tuesday, October 17, 1989, talking to a customer who…
By Syed Ali Bud Martinez comes to work most Monday mornings at the garage at the Shell gas station at California and Steiner Streets, just as he has for more than 50 years — and more than a decade after he sold the station and vowed to retire. In 1952, he started working at the…
By Donna Gillespie THERE’S A PLACE in the neighborhood where you can hear a ripping yarn, linger for the latest news and rub shoulders with other locals such as maestro Michael Tilson Thomas, director Wayne Wang and a Getty or two — all while shipping holiday gifts to the relatives back home. In small towns…
“What should I see?” It’s the question the eminent film critic and historian David Thomson is asked most often — sometimes even as he walks his dog in Alta Plaza Park or runs errands on Fillmore Street. Now, more than three decades after he published his landmark Biographical Dictionary of Film, Thomson has responded to…
By MARJORIE LEET FORD Like Robin Hood and his band of merry men, Mary Risley and her crew of Food Runners take from those who have too much and give to those who don’t have enough. It all started when she realized she had a problem at Tante Marie, her cooking school: Her student chefs…