News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
“LET A thousand flowers blossom,” Chairman Mao supposedly said. Kaiser Permanente has taken a similar approach with the block-long empty lot at Divisadero and Geary it fought — and paid dearly — to clear for a new medical building, now delayed. Just beginning to bear first fruit in the summer sun is a new orchard…
THE LONG FIGHT to keep Marcus Books in its historic home on Fillmore Street reached another milestone — and perhaps its conclusion — when the new owners of the building locked out the owners of the bookstore May 6. An eviction notice was posted by Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. In an open letter emailed to supporters,…
PLANS HAVE BEEN UNVEILED to demolish the Shell station at 2501 California Street and replace it with a new high-end convenience store called Loop. “Loop is the next evolution in service station retail,” said Nick Goyal, one of California’s largest operators of Shell service stations, who now controls the local station and more than 100…
FILLMORE STREET CONTINUES to remake itself into a mecca of high-end fashion labels from around the world, despite the city’s professed intent to limit chain stores in neighborhood shopping districts. Partly that is because the rules limiting “formula retail” — defined as companies with 11 or more stores — do not include stores outside the…
By Barbara Kate Repa THE ONCE SLEEPY 2100 block of Sutter Street, stretching from Steiner to Pierce, would seem an unlikely spot for an urban renaissance. But in recent years the area has quietly remade itself. Even as it lost a few longstanding businesses, it has attracted an eclectic assortment of independent shops — including…
FIRST PERSON | ARTHUR STONE Roaming the neighborhood as a boy in the 1940s, I searched for small critters to join the ranks of the quacking, barking and croaking things my mother barely tolerated in her home. Today my nose leads the way as I wander about gathering things for our evening meal. My wife…
By BARBARA KATE REPA The Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco, a venerable organization with an imposing moniker, moved to the neighborhood recently in search of an updated space, better access to the community — and a new image. Iyengar yoga, a style developed by Indian yogi, teacher and author B.K.S. Iyengar, now 95, emphasizes…
By Chris Barnett THE FOUR CORNERS of the dingy intersection of Divisadero and Bush won’t win any architectural awards today, but the location is increasingly prized by investors, and all four corners are in transition. Bulldozers are rumbling over the dirt on the southwest corner, home for decades to the San Francisco Community Convalescent Home.…
THERE HAD BEEN TALK for years about cutting down the rapidly growing redwood trees in the park along Cottage Row. Suddenly one day in mid-February the five redwoods were felled, along with a massive eucalyptus tree and other smaller trees. The howls of outrage among many neighbors now seem to be giving way to acceptance.…
GOOD WORKS | Barbara Kate Repa On a sunny afternoon in late March, Christine Coppola pulled up to the Compass Family Shelter on Polk Street and opened the trunk of her car to unload an unlikely stash: a collection of combs, brushes, blow dryers, towels and hair potions and products. Coppola has worked at Renaissance…