Category: Neighborhood History

By BOBBIE JO NICHOLS COOK Once upon a time on Fillmore Street, there was a store called Fillamento. If you remember it, chances are you really remember it. Perhaps you shopped there every Christmas, wandered in on your lunch break, or stopped for one little gift and emerged carrying six things you never knew you…

By JONATHAN PONTELL Being something of a history buff, photographer and storyteller, it’s not unusual to find me online looking for vintage photos of the neighborhood near our home at Broadway and Fillmore. Coming across two photos taken just a couple of blocks from our building was a lucky find. They looked like perfect pictures…

WHEN POLICE STOPPED the S.F. Mime Troupe’s performance in Lafayette Park on August 7, 1965, they sparked several revolutions — in free speech and artistic expression, certainly, but also in the enduring history of the Mime Troupe and the career of promoter Bill Graham, who would go on to become the legendary impresario of the…

NEIGHBORHOOD HISTORY | FROM SF HERITAGE From 1921 to 1972, 2066 Pine Street was home to the Madame C. J. Walker Home for Girls and Women, a community service organization named in honor of one of the United States’ most successful African American businesswomen and philanthropists.  The Walker club provided lodging and services to African…

By HANNAH BLAZEI If you look closely at The Fillmore’s sign you will see an apple at the bottom. You also can find apples as a main theme in the Bill Graham mural on Post Street. That is because Graham famously always handed out free apples at his Fillmore shows. It was a unique symbol…

FLASHBACK | BARRY GARELICK A few weeks before the Vietnam war ended, I met the poet ruth weiss without knowing who she was. The meeting occurred at Minnie’s Can-Do Club in the Fillmore district of San Francisco on one of the weekly open-mic poetry nights. A melange of all sorts of people with all sorts…

SF HISTORY | WOODY LaBOUNTY TODAY IS THE 119th anniversary of the 7.9 magnitude tremor that remade San Francisco. The quake brought down and damaged buildings. It also set off numerous fires. Important infrastructure was crippled, leaving the city mostly helpless to fight a growing inferno. After three terrible days of fire and smoke, the…

WOODY LaBOUNTY traces the circuitous history of a little wooden building on the 1800 block of Eddy Street — which turns out to be the oldest frame church in San Francisco, moved twice since it was built on Market Street in 1854 as the first St. Patrick’s Church. In 1873, the building was moved west…

ST. DOMINIC’S CATHOLIC CHURCH is celebrating 150 years in the neighborhood — and 100 years in its landmark Gothic home — with the publication of a new book, Radiating the Joy of the Gospel in the Heart of the City. The book captures key moments in the life of the church in words and photographs.…