The blue bridge blues

Posted on June 18, 2016 by editors
Rendering of proposed improvements to the bridge at Fillmore and Geary.

Rendering of proposed improvements to the bridge at Fillmore and Geary.

THE NONPROFIT San Francisco Beautiful has taken on a new local project: the forlorn bridge at Fillmore and Geary. A conceptual rendering has been released by SWA Group and fundraising has begun.

“I think that we can all agree that the bridge, which spans Geary at Fillmore, has fallen on hard times and needs some new paint,” writes SF Beautiful executive director Darcy Brown in announcing the project. “Well, we didn’t think that would be enough to enhance this rather high profile transit hub that almost everyone in the entire city experiences at one time or another so, we went to the Fillmore community and asked them what transformation they wanted to see happen. We then met with our friends at SWA Group, an international design firm, to use the suggestions and create a rendering.”

Brown says of the rendering: “Beautiful isn’t it? In order to make this rendering a reality, we need all the help that we can get. The Blue Bridge belongs to all of us and in order to transform the decor from what I call mid-century prison yard to a beautiful crossing that we can all be proud of, we need contributions to match the city’s grant.”

To learn more or contribute, go to sfbeautiful.org.

Filed under: Art & Design | Leave a Comment »

Jane the bakery coming to Geary

Posted on June 17, 2016 by editors
Jane will open a bakery-cafe in the former KFC/Taco Bell at Geary and Steiner.

Jane will open a bakery-cafe in the former KFC/Taco Bell (right) at Geary and Steiner.

THE LONGSTANDING  KFC/Taco Bell at Geary and Steiner shuttered earlier this year, and now the space is getting a makeover with a new lessee: Jane. The popular cafe, which has locations on Fillmore in Pacific Heights and on Larkin in the Tenderloin, will be converting the space into a production bakery, along with a coffee shop for customers.

Read more

Filed under: Food, Drink & Lodging | Leave a Comment »

For buyers with cash, condos promise cachet

Posted on June 3, 2016 by editors
Screen-Shot

“It would be impossible to do better” than Pacific Heights, claims a promotional video.

By CHRIS BARNETT

Real estate rumors are rampaging in Pacific Heights about the new luxury condos being built at 2121 Webster Street, formerly a dental school, now christened The Pacific.

• Evan Spiegel, the 26-year-old CEO of the hot new social media site Snapchat — youngest billionaire on the Forbes 400 and the main squeeze of Australian actress Miranda Kerr — bought all four grand penthouses for $58 million or so and is combining them into two huge homes that open onto one another.

• Peter Buffett, son of mega-investor Warren Buffett and a former resident of the neighborhood — and a songwriter, composer and creator of commercials and logos for MTV and CNN — scooped up two grand penthouses to link into a single aerie with a killer view.

• Actress Michelle Pfeiffer and her television writer-producer husband David E. Kelley (L.A. Law, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal, among others) bought two grand penthouses and are moving up from the Peninsula to the city.

• Actress and social crusader Susan Sarandon toured and purchased; superstar Gwyneth Paltrow stopped by for a look.

Read more »

Filed under: Real Estate | 3 Comments »

Conjuring a musical moment

Posted on June 2, 2016 by editors

ROCK & ROLL impresario Bill Graham helped launch a new era in both music and performance when he began presenting shows at the Fillmore Auditorium in the ’60s. He also helped launch a new art form by commissioning artists to create posters to promote and commemorate the shows, a practice that continues today.

MORE: The art of the Fillmore

Filed under: Art & Design, Neighborhood History | Leave a Comment »

Survival of the fittest

Posted on June 2, 2016 by editors

PACIFIC HEIGHTS HEALTH CLUB has always been a harbinger of the times. The club, at 2356 Pine Street, just off Fillmore, opened in 1984 to men only. The entranceway was plastered with a 12-foot tickertape — a nod to owner Ken Lapan, who was also an attorney and stockbroker. Members were given free half-hour massages — and attendants opened the lockers and handed out towels. There were only six health clubs in all of San Francisco then.

PHHC-sign

A sign — and a promise — outside Pacific Heights Health Club.

In 1990, David Kirk, a former fitness trainer and sales manager at the club, bought the place, refashioning the front to include an all-women facility. It wasn’t  until 2002 that the exercise spaces were combined and members of all genders were allowed to sweat and roam freely.

In the late ’80s, John Kennedy Jr. set many local hearts atwitter when he worked out in the club while he was staying in the neighborhood. It was around the same time he was named People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.” (He also reportedly benchpressed 225.)

In 2004, Kirk sold the club to Amy Lang, a refugee from the corporate world. The place retained its quirkiness, including a weight room with a retractable ceiling for al fresco fitness. Under Lang’s stewardship, locals soon regarded it as a place they could slip in to work out without designer workout wear or already-bulging biceps.

This month, Lang announced still another metamorphosis of the club. She’s doing away with yoga and Zumba classes and focusing on small group training and Pilates — a combo she hopes will attract the burgeoning crowd of residents in the “50 and older” range.

Read more »

Filed under: Body & Soul | 2 Comments »

The Grabhorn brothers were master printers

Posted on June 2, 2016 by editors
A plaque at 1335 Sutter Street notes the building’s history.

A plaque at 1335 Sutter Street notes the building’s history.

LANDMARKS | BRIDGET MALEY

Brothers Edwin and Robert Grabhorn founded their Studio Press in 1916 in Indianapolis. They moved to San Francisco in 1919, and a few years later their enterprise formally became known as Grabhorn Press. During that time, California was becoming a hub for small, craft-driven print houses. The Grabhorn brothers soon became among the state’s most respected specialty printers.

Read more »

Filed under: Bridget Maley, Landmarks | Leave a Comment »

It’s our 30th

Posted on June 1, 2016 by editors

2016_06

IN MAY 1986, founding editor and publisher David Ish published Volume 1, Number 1, of the New Fillmore — the premiere issue.

The name was a bit of a joke. The Fillmore had forever been reinventing itself, from its roots as a Jewish neighborhood, then a Japanese neighborhood, then the Harlem of the West, which sported the New Fillmore Hotel and the New Fillmore Theater. The early ’80s brought another new era as upper Fillmore began to emerge as a bustling shopping and dining district and the surrounding area became an ever more desirable place to live.

We took over the newspaper in June 2006, so this issue also marks our 10th anniversary. It has been an eventful decade. As Fillmore Street has been transformed into a coveted location for international fashion and cosmetics brands, many of the one-of-a-kind shops and essential services that made it so attractive have been squeezed out. The street, in some ways, has become a victim of its own success.

Yet this neighborhood remains a wonderful place to live, with a rich history, a vibrant economy and many tales to tell. Thank you for inviting us into your homes every month.

Barbara Kate Repa
Thomas R. Reynolds

Filed under: Locals, Neighborhood History | 2 Comments »

Master plan for Alta Plaza: ‘Go lightly’

Posted on April 29, 2016 by editors
Improvements at Alta Plaza Park can proceed now that a plan has been adopted.

Improvements at Alta Plaza Park can proceed now that a master plan has been adopted.

A MASTER PLAN for Alta Plaza Park was approved by the Recreation and Park Commission on April 21, clearing the way for long-awaited improvements.

The plan would repair crumbling asphalt pathways, replace aging furnishings and replant, with new drought-resistant landscaping, the entrances to the hilltop park created more than a century ago by John McLaren, the visionary who also guided the creation of Golden Gate Park.

“Go lightly,” said landscape architect Jeffrey Miller, who developed the plan at the behest of the Friends of Alta Plaza Park, a neighborhood group founded in 2004. “This was the message: Maintain the park as it is. Maintain the beauty and simplicity of this park.”

A decade ago, the Friends raised the money to renovate the playground and tennis courts atop the park. Then, to conserve water and stop leakage onto the sidewalks, the city installed a new irrigation system and replanted the terraces on the south side of the park.

“It became apparent there has to be a sequence of things,” said Judith Maxwell, who lives near the park. “We learned that when the no-mow grass was put in but the leaks weren’t fixed.”

Commission president Mark Buell recused himself from the hearing “because I live within about five feet of the park.” Buell and his wife Susie Tompkins Buell live in the penthouse of the 2500 Steiner Street tower on the northeast corner of the park.

Others lauded the Friends for their extraordinary public outreach during the last decade while the plan was being developed.

“You set a new standard,” said commissioner Meagan Levitan, a real estate agent who is active in the neighborhood.

“It’s been a long road for the Friends of Alta Plaza Park,” said Phil Ginsburg, director of the Recreation and Park Department. “It is not lost on us how much you care about this piece of open space.”

VIEW THE MASTER PLAN

Filed under: Landmarks, Parks | 1 Comment »

Fillmore shops empty, but leased

Posted on April 29, 2016 by editors
The former home of Paolo Shoes at 2000 Fillmore will eventually become Space NK.

The former home of Paolo Shoes at 2000 Fillmore will house Space NK cosmetics.

W ITH THE CONTINUING onrush of national and international fashion and cosmetics brands onto upper Fillmore Street, retail space has become so sought after that corporate tenants are willing to pay rent for months while their storefronts sit empty, waiting for city permits to be approved.

A dozen storefronts north of Bush Street are now vacant, but almost all are already leased.

“It looks terrible,” said Lynne Newhouse Segal, new president of the Pacific Heights Residents Association, whose group has expressed concerns about the empty shops.

Among the stores in the works:

• Intermix, the Gap’s newest acquisition, is taking over Brooks Brothers’ Black Fleece space at 2223 Fillmore.

• 45rpm, a Japanese clothing brand, got the go-ahead April 14 from the Planning Commission to open at 1905 Fillmore.

• Space NK, a cosmetics company based in London, won approval for its plans to open at 2000 Fillmore, former home of Paolo Shoes, from the commission on April 28.

All are considered “formula retail” chain stores and require a conditional use permit to open on Fillmore. It can take many months to get the permit, although none has ever been rejected. Then building permits must be arranged and approved.

“Everything’s taking longer,” said commercial real estate broker Pam Mendelsohn, who has leased many of the Fillmore storefronts. “There’s a lot of things in process. It just takes a lot longer to get permits.”

Two of the empty spaces housed businesses owned by Starbucks Coffee. Starbucks still controls the vacant corner at 2201 Fillmore. “Unfortunately, we still have no additional details to share at this time,” a Starbucks spokesperson said. The space at 2043 Fillmore that housed Starbucks’ La Boulange has reverted to founder Pascal Rigo, who said he is contemplating a pizzeria, a rotisserie or another Boulangerie.

“We should be making a final decision within the next two weeks,” Rigo said. “We should be reopen by midsummer if everything goes well.”

Among the other businesses with leases on the street are Frye Boots at 2047 Fillmore and Ardis Coffee at 1903 Fillmore. The Mac cosmetics shop at 2011 Fillmore is being remodeled and will reopen. Blue Bottle Coffee is coming to 2455 Fillmore.

Filed under: Retail Report | Leave a Comment »

It’s a sweet and tangy neighborhood

Posted on April 29, 2016 by editors

spiceace

WHEN PERUSING THE floor-to-ceiling offerings at Spice Ace, at 1821 Steiner Street, don’t overlook the one inspired by and named for our own front yard: the Pacific Heights Blend. Its complex citrusy Asian flavoring comes from a mélange of the unexpected: lemon, ginger, orange, coriander, garlic, Aji Amarillo, chives and cardamom.

Sales associates at the spice emporium wax rhapsodic about its dual sweet and tangy qualities, its lingering ginger notes and its unique ability to brighten chicken, fish and vegetables. “It’s particularly good on broccoli,” claims one. “If you weren’t a fan of broccoli and you put some Pacific Heights Blend on it, you’d come away loving broccoli.”

Another attests the spicy blend was prompted by the flavors of the Pacific Ocean, with a nod to the historical context of the Barbary Coast.

But Spice Ace co-owner Olivia Dillon reveals that the true inspiration for the blend came considerably closer to home. “For many years, my mother (and best friend) and I lived in a penthouse in Pacific Heights with unobstructed views of the bay from almost every room,” Dillon recalls. “We had many wonderful dinners with friends and family over the years, enjoying great food as well as the view of the Golden Gate Bridge.”

And thus was born and named Pacific Heights Blend.

Filed under: Food, Drink & Lodging | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »