News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
SALOONS | CHRIS BARNETT The Queen of Sheba, the Old Testament tells us, was a stunning Ethiopian temptress who dazzled King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. with a caravan of camels laden with gold, jewels and spices to promote lively trade between Israel and Arabia. A mere 31 centuries later, the co-owner of Sheba…
WHEN SHE’S NOT at her day job in a medical office near Fillmore, singer-songwriter Candace Roberts can often be found on the stage or in a cabaret. Her recent music video, “Hello Ed Lee” — an adaptation of Adele’s mega-hit “Hello” — is a plaintive cry to the mayor of San Francisco about what she calls…
LANDMARKS | BRIDGET MALEY “The large frame dwelling which for so many years stood at the northeast corner of Sutter and Mason Streets has been removed to the south side of Washington between Buchanan and Webster, where it is being remodeled and improved by Dr. Merritt, daughter of the late Adolph Sutro.” So reported the…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 —…
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…
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…