Posted on June 1, 2011 by editors
CRIME WATCH | Barbara Kate Repa
Battling what appears to be an upsurge in prostitution, officers at Northern Station have stepped up enforcement efforts in recent months, making a growing number of arrests on Van Ness Avenue.
In April, 88 people were arrested or cited on charges related to prostitution in the district — up from the usual monthly tally of 10 to 20, according to Captain Ann Mannix of Northern Station on Fillmore Street. Charges included prostitution, soliciting prostitution and related offenses such as warrant arrests and traffic violations.
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Posted on June 1, 2011 by editors
Schools of the Sacred Heart are in the Flood Mansions on Broadway.
DISPATCH | Elizabeth Moore
Last year the New Fillmore reported on the reversal of the decision to close Stuart Hall High School in San Francisco in the July 2010 article, “Elite private school will live on.” Just short of a year later, there is another tremendous example of the same community coming together, this time to celebrate a Schools of the Sacred Heart educator, who after 38 years of service to the community has had her contract terminated, apparently without cause. Like last year’s decision regarding the closing of Stuart Hall, this decision was made without input from the community, and it has attracted a similar outcry.
At the same time that young people are using social media to instigate social movements in the Middle East, young people at 2222 Broadway (and beyond) are using social media to instigate a social movement at home. This is a story about a little school with a big, big heart.
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Filed under: Landmarks, Locals | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 12, 2011 by editors
On Billionaires Row, the stretch of Broadway that runs along the top of Pacific Heights, Larry Ellison is suing his millionaire downhill neighbors Jane and Bernard von Bothmer over some runaway redwoods and an acacia that block Ellison’s views of the bay. According to the complaint, the dispute has been going on since 2008. The lawsuit accuses the von Bothmers of less-than-enthusiastic pruning, loss of enjoyment, loss of value and loss of sunlight, according to CurbedSF. Read more
UPDATE: Crisis averted. Days before the trial was to begin, the two sides settled, with the von Bothmers agreeing to make substantial cuts to their trees. Read more
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Posted on May 2, 2011 by editors
No more tickets: New meters on Fillmore allow unlimited parking — and take credit cards.
Parking meters on Fillmore Street and in Japantown no longer have a one-hour time limit.
As part of the rollout of the city’s new high-tech parking program called SFpark, the shiny new silver meters along Fillmore were re-programmed on April 25 to have no time limits at all. Drivers may park as long as they wish, and they can now feed the meters with their credit and debit cards.
The result is promised to be a kind of parking magic: Spurred by periodic price adjustments, traffic will move more efficiently. There will be at least one available parking spot on every block at all times. And you can download an app on your smartphone that will lead you to them.
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Filed under: Civics | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 1, 2011 by editors
By Barbara Kate Repa
Yoga.
Trance dancing.
Nurturing food from the earth.
Music by the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart.
A crowd of true believers at the Fillmore.
It sounds like the ’60s all over again. But this time, in a wholly wholesome good way, it’s a unique happening called Wanderlust coming to the historic Fillmore Auditorium on May 21.
The idea for the event came from a New York couple with California roots whose lives took some serendipitous turns. Jeff Krasno was already managing, producing and recording musicians when his wife Schuyler Grant decided to open a yoga studio.
“At the same time my music business was taking off, I also saw the growth of the yoga industry and became very close to its value and cultures,” Krasno says. “I thought perhaps we could marry the music with that progressive, social, environmental community to create a large-scale event.”
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Filed under: Body & Soul, Music | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 1, 2011 by editors
Bay Area Bird Encounters is Walter Kitundu's new interactive art piece at SFO.
Travelers through the swank new terminal two at San Francisco International Airport will find friends from the neighborhood to bid them hail and farewell. Birds from Alta Plaza Park are part of an ingenious new piece of interactive musical art created by longtime neighborhood resident Walter Kitundu for a children’s play area.
It’s intended for children of all ages.
“If you don’t feel like playing the benches, you can always sit on them,” says Kitundu of the two wing-shaped wooden seats that are also xylophones tuned to play the song of the golden-crowned sparrow.
The benches are part of a project he calls Bay Area Bird Encounters. They sit in front of a 28-foot-long mural of birds Kitundu photographed, then printed on sheets of veneered plywood and hand-carved into a wooden mosaic of 147 separate pieces. There’s a third sparrow in the mural, also a xylophone.
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Filed under: Art & Design, Locals | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 1, 2011 by editors
Charles Unger plays on Sunday nights at Rasselas.
MUSIC | Anthony Torres
I first heard Charles Unger play when I stepped into the Sheba Piano Lounge on the way home from Yoshi’s one night. As I walked in, I was immediately struck by the intonation of the tenor sax and the ease with which Unger and his band, The Experience, moved through Carlos Santana’s “Europa.” Since then I have seen them at both Sheba and Rasselas. Every time, it’s been a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
With jazz, they say it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing. These guys swing, and they do it in a way that incorporates a range of influences. The music moves and is inflected with a Latin groove and a Middle East undercurrent that creates a melancholy feel so sensuous a person can’t help but be moved.
Unger is a great player. He’s also a great guy who loves what he’s doing and does it with all the seriousness in the world. Music for him is a spiritual mission and a quest for a kind of secular redemption that he has pursued since he was a child — one that sustains him and has brought him a wealth of knowledge and experience.
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Posted on April 20, 2011 by editors
The film crew at the snowy Swedenborgian Church, with Nicole Kidman in the doorway.
Hollywood is in the neighborhood and they’re going to church — the Swedenborgian Church at Washington and Lyon. It snowed on the little church this week — or appeared to — when Nicole Kidman was filming scenes for Hemingway & Gelhorn, a new HBO film directed by Philip Kaufman, who lives just over the hill. It’s a drama centered on the romance between Ernest Hemingway and war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s inspiration for For Whom the Bell Tolls. The film also stars Clive Owens and is expected on HBO in 2012.
A preview:
Filed under: Film, Landmarks | 1 Comment »
Posted on April 20, 2011 by editors
President Obama will be back in the neighborhood tonight for dinner. By mid-afternoon preparations were in full swing on the 3200 block of Jackson Street, where Obama will dine at tech exec Marc Benioff’s compound — which stretches the full block from Jackson to Pacific and fronts on the Presidio Wall — with about 60 supporters willing to contribute the legal maximum of $35,800 each. Stevie Wonder will provide the musical entertainment.
(Fun local fact: Another name in presidential history, Monica Lewinsky, used to visit her grandmother, the artist Susi Lewinsky, on the next block up Jackson. When she came for her grandmother’s 80th birthday party while interning in the Clinton White House, the younger Ms. Lewinsky brought M&Ms with the presidential seal for all the guests.)
Obama dined in the neighborhood last May when he stopped for a fundraiser up the hill on Broadway with the Gettys.
Read more: “Inside the pricey fundraiser“
Filed under: Civics, Politics | 1 Comment »
Posted on April 15, 2011 by editors
Mothers with strollers found their way to Mudpie on opening day.
The children’s store Mudpie formally opened its doors today, bringing new life to the venerable old Fillamento space at 2185 Fillmore Street.
EARLIER: “Kids taking over a key spot“
Filed under: Retail Report | Leave a Comment »
