News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
ART | Jerome Tarshis Fifty years ago a reader of the national news media might think North Beach was San Francisco’s only artistic bohemia. But even during the heyday of the beat poets, upper Fillmore offered not only upscale living but fertile ground for art and literature. The artist Wallace Berman’s first apartment in San…
By THOMAS REYNOLDS For years, the dog walkers in Alta Plaza Park watched the construction site at the top of Jackson Street. Two townhouses disappeared, opening a view of the bay. Then one sleek glass and steel home was built where two had been. Yet the view to the bay remained. Architect Olle Lundberg, the…
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…
Upon entering Addison Fine Arts at Jackson and Buchanan, one might reasonably wonder: What are paintings of this quality by artists of this caliber doing in a neighborhood gallery? They are, in fact, part of gallerist Steven Platzman’s mission to enrich the cultural holdings of the city. He aims to do that by placing significant…
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…
Michael Schwab is one of the leading graphic artists of our time, in part because of his award-winning logos and posters for Apple, the Golden Gate National Parks and many others. Now his work is coming to the neighborhood: He created the poster and street banners for the 2006 Fillmore Jazz Festival. “I love San…
By BONNIE WACH SF Weekly Even here in the inventive food capital of the world, where unusual couplings are not merely accepted, but hoisted high on diners’ shoulders and paraded around like conquering cuisine heroes, a chef can once in a while go too far. We are indulgent, but we do have to draw the…
LOCALS | DAVID ISH It is a misleading moniker to call Bill Shields a neighborhood artist. He is indeed an artist who lives less than a block from Fillmore Street. But his work and his life have extended well beyond the neighborhood. Although born in San Francisco in the Presidio, where his physician father was…
LANDMARKS | ANNE BLOOMFIELD Observe at the corner of Pine and Scott a low brick fence, a hedge and a row of cypresses. Nothing can be seen behind them except more trees and hints of a rather large white house, an excellent Italianate specimen, it develops. No, we are not out in the country, somewhere…
LANDMARKS | ANNE BLOOMFIELD A year after the Queen Anne house at Pierce and Pine was built — we’re talking 1887 — it was photographed for a newspaper series titled “Artistic Homes of California.” Except for minor details, the picture might have been taken today: It shows the same sinuous brackets at the entry and…