News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
LOCAL HISTORY | JOE BEYER Thanksgiving Day marks the 110th anniversary that Calvary Presbyterian Church has stood proudly at the corner of Fillmore and Jackson Streets. But it’s actually much older than that. Founded in 1854, the church’s first home was located on Bush Street between Montgomery and Sansome. In 1859, as the city expanded,…
ON ANY GIVEN NIGHT, Fillmore Street south of Geary is buzzing with street life. Stylish patrons make their way to 1300 on Fillmore for cocktails and dinner, or line up outside State Bird Provisions hoping for a coveted seat at what Bon Appetit magazine anointed as the best new restaurant in the country. Concertgoers head…
By Kathi O’Leary ON A CHARMING block of Sutter Street that narrowly missed the wrecking ball of redevelopment 50 years ago, Sidney Hair Care sits among Victorian homes, small shops and the Macedonia Baptist Church. Sidney, the professional name of Betty Jean Macklin, has cared for clients of all races and walks of life at…
The Ellinwood mansion at 2799 Pacific Avenue — sitting prominently on the corner of Divisadero Street — is back on the market for an asking price of $12.5 million. The house underwent a $10 million renovation a decade ago, but was repossessed last year. Curbed reports on the multi-generational drama of the house, which was…
Up the sidewalk to the imposing Victorian mansion at 2007 Franklin Street — the historic Haas-Lilienthal House — walks a group of senior travelers who call themselves road scholars. They are greeted by a gentleman in a vested suit and bowler hat, carrying a silver-headed cane, who welcomes them inside. It’s not John Gaul’s home,…
On November 18, 1978 — 33 years ago today — 918 people from the Peoples Temple died in Jonestown. Most had followed Rev. Jim Jones to Guyana from the Fillmore. The Peoples Temple stood on Geary Boulevard just west of Fillmore Street where the post office is now located. In a new book of poems…
SALOONS | CHRIS BARNETT A t the Boom Boom Room, the divey-looking 78-year-old live music club on Fillmore at Geary, the best seat in the house is off limits to customers. The tufted red leather booth, with its perfect view of the band and dance floor, is permanently reserved for legendary blues guitarist John Lee Hooker,…
SALOONS | CHRIS BARNETT So did swashbuckling blues guitarist John Lee Hooker really own the Boom Boom Room as a side gig? If you believe the sign above the door, he did. And if you listen to the current owner, Alexander Andreas, he did. But don’t bet your booty on it. Fillmore jazz genealogists Elizabeth…
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…
St. Dominic’s School closed for the final time at the end of the school year after more than a century of educating economically disadvantaged children in the neighborhood. Yet the future for both the school and its Gothic home on Pine Street, erected in 1929, seems filled with promise. The school has been known as…