News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
FLASHBACK | HONEY GREEN It was October 1966, just a few days before my birthday. Bill Graham had booked an amazing show. Headlining was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, with Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Mark Naftalin, Elvin Bishop and a host of many others. The second band was the Jefferson Airplane — Marty, Jorma, Jack,…
Story & Photograph by Susie Biehler THE NEIGHBORHOOD has a classy and intimate new spot for dinner at 3228 Sacramento Street: Nico, a restaurant that reflects the renaissance currently happening in Paris, where high profile chefs are taking a step to the side and opening accessible bistros. The restaurant is named for classically French trained…
SALOONS | CHRIS BARNETT The classic neighborhood bar is an endangered species in our parts. While there is no shortage of drinking dens, most are either ear-splitting sports saloons or relegated to being parts of restaurants. But a new face in a familiar spot just might deliver the closest thing we have to the ideal…
WHEN SHE MOVED to the neighborhood six years ago, Kristen van Diggelen was an aspiring art student who had her sights set on a career as a painter. One day she wandered into Cottage Industry, the eclectic emporium at 2328 Fillmore, seeking inspiration. But she found far more. The building, with two street-level storefronts and…
SHE CAME TO California from Paris, Texas, and worked for the telephone company in Los Angeles for many years. But it was only when Ruth Garland Dewson moved north to San Francisco and opened a hat shop on Fillmore Street that she found her true home. She ran Mrs. Dewson’s Hats at 2050 Fillmore for…
CARLINA HANSEN — executive director of the Women’s Community Clinic at 1833 Fillmore — might seem an unlikely cheerleader for the onrushing changes in health care reform, which are ostensibly aimed at doing away with her clinic’s client base of uninsured and underinsured women. But rather than close its doors and declare its mission accomplished,…
PHOTOGRAPHY | Sheila McLaughlin I had a problem: I didn’t know where to borrow a cup of sugar. I’m an artist who has lived in the same flat in the neighborhood for 20 years, but I hardly knew any of my neighbors. Those who lived above had moved away. Same for those next door, across…
FIRST PERSON | RONALD HOBBS Aunt Beebee — Bertha — and I were no kin at all. She was “that nice old colored woman” who worked at the Donut Hole. Her niece, Bettye, called her Aunt Beebee. It caught on with us regulars. The joint must have served 500 cups of joe a day and…
By Nina Hatvany SALE PRICES of real estate in San Francisco’s southern neighborhoods have taken off dramatically in recent months. Noe Valley, Potrero Hill and South Beach are especially sought after by people who commute to the Peninsula, but still want to live in the city, or couples in which one person commutes south or…
PETER LUONG has created a serene oasis for those who step into his just-opened door at 2120 Sutter Street, the new home of Song Tea & Ceramics. Soft music plays. Comfortable chairs are arranged on cozy rugs near bookcases and neat white canisters line shelves along one wall, with labeled drums of teas in rows…