News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
PHOTOGRAPHY | LUCY GRAY When I was 10, my parents divorced — and I watched with fear and admiration as my mother got her first job so she could support five children. That made me sensitive to the subject of working mothers. It wasn’t surprising that later, as a photographer with children, I would try…
BOOKS | ERIN C. MESSER In 1981, the poet Latif Harris was working at — and living above — Browser Books in its former location a block up from the current store on Fillmore Street. Harris was behind the front counter when, he says, “the most beautiful woman in the world” walked into the store.…
FILLMORE’S LEGENDARY Vivande Porta Via was reborn for a night as chef-owner Carlo Middione and his wife Lisa were celebrated on April 16 at a dinner of Vivande classics at Luce restaurant at the InterContinental Hotel. “It was a packed house, full of regulars and friends, some who traveled from quite far to be there,”…
“An enchanting and wildly original place” By MARK FANTINO The kitchen phone rang. It was concealed on metro shelving between a mound of recipe binders camouflaged in a thin veil of flour, clipboards clamped with stacks of checklists, inventories and ordering forms, plus all of Carlo Middione’s published cookbooks. Just to the right was a…
By CHRIS BARNETT Trendy Blue Bottle Coffee has confirmed it may open a cafe in the storefronts previously occupied by Tully’s Coffee and Juicy News magazine shop at 2453 and 2455 Fillmore. The new landlord reportedly intends to demolish the wall between the stores and combine them into a single space. Several real estate sources claim…
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…
HOLLYWOOD COMES to the neighborhood April 10 when a new film, Man From Reno, has its San Francisco premiere at the Sundance Kabuki Theater. Actually, Hollywood is coming back to the neighborhood, since much of the film was shot nearby at the Majestic Hotel and on the streets of Japantown. It’s the story of a famous…
FIRST PERSON | CAROL FIELD Juicy News is moving down the hill to 2181 Union Street — the very place, longtime locals will remember, where Minerva’s Owl Bookshop was located for many years. Minerva’s Owl was actually created three blocks east at 1823 Union in 1964 from what was originally a coal yard. I founded the…
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…
FROM VOL. 1, NO. 1, in May 1986 until her death in 1999, historian and preservationist Anne Bloomfield, a neighborhood resident, wrote a column every month for the New Fillmore called “Great Old Houses.” Many of her columns were collected into the 2007 book, Gables & Fables: A Portrait of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights, with…