News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
In the late 1980s, while driving down Geary Street in San Francisco, designer Tony Duquette discovered an abandoned and vandalized synagogue. He immediately purchased the building. After thoroughly remodeling and updating the structure [located on Geary near Fillmore where the post office now stands], Tony began creating a new exhibition named the Canticle of the…
By Donna Gillespie While wandering through the haze of sizzling teriyaki burgers and listening to the pounding of Taiko drums at the Nihonmachi Street Fair last month, you might have been asked to sign a petition supporting the event, or seen people wearing stickers that said “Save Our Festivals.” It was a response to a…
“Fillmore Street Lights Its Lamps,” the Chronicle reported on December 24, 1896. “Crowds Throng the Walks,” the headlines announced. “Brilliant lights and colors abound — a dazzling spectacle with an accompaniment of music.”
LOCAL HISTORY | JOE BEYER It won’t be long now before the fading neon sign proclaiming Deovlet and Sons Furniture on the shuttered storefront at 1660 Pine Street gives way to the wrecking ball and a pair of condominium towers begins to rise. But for 67 years, Deovlet and Sons — known as “the Friendly…
In 2005 it snowed in the neighborhood on the hottest day of the year — and 15,000 people showed up to watch world-class skiers jump down the Fillmore hill. The ski jump is back, but this year it won’t be on Fillmore. Organizers have announced that the event will move to AT&T Park, where a…
One fateful day in 1947, a scruffy dog wandered into the yard of a Pacific Heights home. Mrs. Carter Downing took the dog to the city pound, where she learned his prospects for survival were slim. Wayward pets were put to sleep unless adopted quickly. Horrified by the thought, she decided to take the dog…
LANDMARKS | ANNE BLOOMFIELD Hiding behind the trees at Pacific and Baker is a beautiful Georgian Revival house, all brick walls, white trim and fascinating roofline, the work of architects Bliss and Faville, who almost cornered the luxury market in Pacific Heights. The mansion’s trim peaks in a broad entrance with an interrupted pediment over…
Calvary Presbyterian Church opened on Fillmore Street — its third location — with a community Thanksgiving service in November 1902. The church moved to Fillmore from Union Square to make way for the construction of the St. Francis Hotel. Much of the Powell Street church — including all of the pews and over a million…
Then as now, the intersection of Fillmore and Post was also the intersection of two neighborhoods. Japanese-Americans had returned from the internment camps of World War II to find that, in their absence, African-Americans had arrived in record numbers as part of the war effort. What had been Japantown had been transformed into an all-night…
Fillmore Street quickly became “the new Market Street” after the earthquake and fire of April 18, 1906, which devastated most of downtown San Francisco. Businesses had to find temporary locations elsewhere, and Fillmore Street was largely untouched by the catastrophe. Businesses crowded into existing buildings, sharing whatever quarters they could find. This photograph, taken two…