News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN The New York Times Until recently, Yonekazu Satoda says, he did not recall the diary he had written in neat cursive in the laundry building of an internment camp in Arkansas. He would eke out his entries at night amid the washboards and concrete sinks, the only private space in the…
LOCAL HISTORY | SANDY STADTFELD More than 120 years after Frank Pixley — California pioneer, businessman, former state Attorney General and longtime editor and publisher of The Argonaut — enabled the construction of a church on his family’s property at Union and Steiner Streets, it remains the vibrant home of the Episcopal Church of St.…
By GARY KAMIYA San Francisco Chronicle Fifty years ago this weekend, police prevented the San Francisco Mime Troupe from performing a play in Lafayette Park, arresting the company’s founder as 1,000 people jeered. The dramatic encounter expanded the frontiers of artistic freedom in San Francisco and indirectly launched the career of legendary rock promoter Bill…
JAZZ | MEAGHAN M. MITCHELL In 2006, internationally acclaimed photographer and professor Lewis Watts and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and writer Elizabeth Pepin Silva published Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era. From cover to cover, Harlem of the West is filled with vintage photos documenting San Francisco’s historic jazz era during…
LOCAL HISTORY | PEGGY ZEIGLER As San Francisco celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the dome of the Palace of Fine Arts is decked out in new paint and the Ferry Building is illuminated as it was in 1915. Re-creations of the expo grounds flash in the windows of the California Historical…
GARDENS | JOAN HOCKADAY The cow is gone, the windmill torn down, the pharmacy delivery trucks missing from the garage behind the house. The gas pump and the water well no longer pump at all. But some reminders of the storied past of the historic Shumate house and garden at the corner of Pine and…
By BARBARA KATE REPA Barry for Pets at 1840 Fillmore, reputedly the oldest independent pet supply store in the city, is closing at the end of April after six decades on Fillmore Street. “It comes to a point, with the demographic changes on the street, that this business just doesn’t pencil out anymore,” says owner…
LANDMARKS | BRIDGET MALEY A llyne Park, at the corner of Green and Gough Streets, is a San Francisco gem for which I have a strong affection. It’s across the street from our home. The park, adjacent to the historic Octagon House, is a little plot of green that is a daily gathering place for neighborhood…
By ROCHELLE METCALFE Independent, strong, a fighter, bold and daring, the Fillmore’s Leola King was a phenomenal woman — and a beautiful, sophisticated lady. The high yella Sepia Queen turned heads when she entered a room, divine in her furs, jewelry and glamorous outfits that fitted her style and personality. The lady was a star.…
LOCAL HISTORY | THOMAS REYNOLDS Helen Brackley and Craig Silvestri were just another young neighborhood couple with dreams of starting their own restaurant. “We both loved to cook,” says Silvestri. “So we just decided we’d open a little place with a limited menu and do crepes.” But first they had to find a good location.…