News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
By CHARLES FRACCHIA He was born and grew up in public housing on Potrero Hill. When his parents could no longer take care of him and his brother, he was sent to a Catholic orphanage in Eureka. After a stint as a seminarian he attended St. Ignatius High School, where his Jesuit teachers noticed he could…
THE NEIGHBORHOOD HAS lost one of its most familiar faces: Charlie, the large golden doodle known for relaxing on the sidewalk outside Peet’s at Fillmore and Sacramento, has died. Charlie always put smiles on the faces of passersby with his unusual size and gentle demeanor. He was a frequent customer at George, his favorite destination, and also…
By BARBARA KATE REPA Victoria Dunham is bucking the trend. At a time when many small businesses with unique offerings have been priced out and forced off Fillmore Street, the proprietor of the HiHo Silver jewelry store at 1904 Fillmore has just opened a second shop next door, doubling her retail space. “I live in…
CULTURE BEAT | PAM FEINSILBER It’s fitting that Randall Kline, founder and executive artistic director of SFJazz — the largest jazz-presenting organization on the West Coast — lives near Fillmore Street. In the 1940s and ’50s, when the neighborhood was teeming with clubs, bars and after-hours joints, it was revered by jazz musicians and fans. Now…
LOCALS | FRANCINE BREVETTI There was no place to put “1,000 Monks.” Artist Andrea Speer Hibbard was frustrated when trying to find a store or a gallery to exhibit the giclee prints of her drawing. Until she walked into Poetica Art & Antiques on Sacramento Street. There she found the proprietor, the expansive Traci Teraoka,…
LOCALS | BARBARA KATE REPA Longtime locals Suzanne and George Burwasser practice the fine and gentle art of neighborliness. Together for more than half a century, most of that time only a few doors from Fillmore Street, they have made it a priority to shop local and get to know the people who live and…
CULTURE BEAT | PAMELA FEINSILBER Maestro — and neighborhood resident — Nicola Luisotti opens the San Francisco Opera’s summer season this month, conducting eight performances of Verdi’s heart-wrenching Rigoletto. Italian to his core, Luisotti, who’s been music director of the opera company since 2009, is particularly renowned for conducting the works of his most famous…
Text & Photographs by BARBARA WYETH Every year in the late spring, we florists at Bloomers, over on Washington Street near Broderick, get to share in the time-honored, all-American ritual of prom. For 40 years, Bloomers has been providing flowers for families in the neighborhood and beyond. The mother who got her wedding flowers may call for…
BOOKS | MARK MITCHELL Walking down Fillmore Street, I often run into people who have lived here for a while, most of whom know me from my many years here. We’ll chat about the Giants and the weather and then they’ll ask, “How’s the writing going?” Anyone who has spent any time around me knows…
LOCALS | FRANCINE BREVETTI A customer walked in to the lighting shop on Divisadero with a vintage lamp from England shaped as a young boy flying. It had been crudely repaired. Each hand held a socket. The arms had been amputated to rewire the lamp, then glued back badly, with wiring pasted on the outside.…