News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
SALOONS | CHRIS BARNETT In my 35 years of libational research, I’ve found few saloons where women consistently outnumber guys at the bar. One is the Elite Cafe, the eating and drinking den at 2049 Fillmore, busy since the day it debuted in 1981. It opened across the street in 1928 as the Lincoln Grill before…
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…
Neighborhood lore says the bulldozer operators couldn’t bear to push down the grotto in the school’s courtyard when St. Rose Academy was demolished after the 1989 earthquake. So they carefully left it standing — and it’s still there, amid a grove of cherry trees, in the parking lot behind St. Dominic’s Church. Covered with gnarly…
One rarely sees homes in our neighborhood selling for less than $1 million, but it happened in June 2008 at 49 Service Street, a short block near Steiner and Lombard. A one bedroom single family home closed at $675,000, setting the bar for the lowest priced single family home sold in the area this year.…
Noted French artist Daniel Levigoureux made a visit to the neighborhood last month and quickly found his way to Alta Plaza Park, where he was captivated by these Scott Street Victorians.
By MARJORIE LEET FORD Like Robin Hood and his band of merry men, Mary Risley and her crew of Food Runners take from those who have too much and give to those who don’t have enough. It all started when she realized she had a problem at Tante Marie, her cooking school: Her student chefs…
SALOONS | Chris Barnett The first long bar I ever bellied up to was reputedly the original Long Bar, inside Raffles Hotel in Singapore, birthplace of the cloyingly sweet Singapore Sling. During Fillmore’s jazz era, the Long Bar at 1633 Fillmore, next door to Woolworth’s, boasted of having one of the longest bars in the…
FIRST PERSON | Lynn Harrison “Got some new drawers, I see — finally. I don’t see how you keep ’em up.” “Barbara, didn’t I have a pair of green . . .” “Threw ’em out. Totally shot. You’ve been needing new ones since God was a baby.” Barbara Conway retired June 25, 2008, after 40…
By THOMAS REYNOLDS Sultry, soulful, swinging singer Kim Nalley remembers when she got her first big break in San Francisco. It was the early ’90s, and the manager of Harry’s on Fillmore called to see if she might fill a slot for a band that had cancelled. But Nalley was otherwise engaged. She had a…
FILLMORE HAS ALWAYS had a claim on guitarist Carlos Santana, and not only because of his many appearances at the Fillmore Auditorium. For a number of years his studio was on Fillmore Street next door to the Clay Theater. Now he’s back as part of the first special exhibition at the Fillmore Heritage Center. “A…