Posted on March 4, 2011 by editors
Photograph of Browser Books by Kathi O’Leary
BOOKS | KEN SAMUELS
A customer walks into Browser Books on Fillmore and approaches the counter with a sly smile on his face. “Hey,” he says, “are you guys happy that Borders is closing in Union Square?”
“I’m not happy for the people who lost their jobs,” I reply, “but it doesn’t surprise me.”
I tell him I’ve been following the stories of Borders’ financial troubles in the newspapers and in Publishers Weekly. Borders was hit hard by the rise of online bookselling and was slow to respond to the challenge. In addition, a megastore in a megaspace like Union Square has a huge overhead that must be crippling in these tough times.
“I understand that,” he says, “but does it help you?”
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Posted on March 3, 2011 by editors
A fter retiring as a high school English teacher, Eleanor Burke decided she needed a project to keep busy — and an excuse to explore the city she’d called home all her life.
A few years earlier she had sketched architectural highlights of Russian Hill and published a small guide to the neighborhood. So she decided to expand her horizons and take on the rest of the city. After all, she’d lived in seven of its neighborhoods and knew most of the rest.
Or so she thought. Read more »
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Posted on February 20, 2011 by editors
Naturally they’ll have a green living roof on the new eco-conscious assembly building now nearing completion behind Drew School at California and Broderick Streets. But they’ll also have a vertical garden created by Parisian botanist-artist Patrick Blanc — a rock star among gardeners credited with inventing the concept and planting gardens on walls around the world.
Blanc was in the neighborhood recently to unveil Drew’s new vertical garden, which consists of thousands of plants that are all native California species. First the dirt was removed from the roots of the plants, then they were stapled to a three-story felt wall that is automatically watered several times daily. The 1,720 sq. ft. garden — Blanc’s largest in the U.S. — faces Broderick Street and is visible from the sidewalk.
“What was very interesting for me,” Blanc said, “it was a school much involved in artistic work. For me, it was important to have receptive students for a new kind of work with plants.”
Blanc spoke to students about the project and also lectured to a sold-out crowd at the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, which has its own living roof. The firm that completed the academy’s roof is also creating a 2,630 sq. ft. green roof on the school’s new building.
Read more: “The Dirt”
The vertical garden (left) is on a new wing that replaces a three-story Victorian.
Filed under: Art & Design, Home & Garden, Landmarks | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 18, 2011 by editors
“I couldn’t do this without him,” Elena Basegio-Carpenter says of the Fillmore Bakeshop she and her father operate at the corner of Bush Street.
“I wouldn’t do this without her,” her dad Doug tells Chronicle reporter and neighborhood resident Julian Guthrie.
Read more: “No loafing around”
Filed under: Food, Drink & Lodging | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 15, 2011 by editors
The Egyptian flag still flies proudly at the former consulate at 3001 Pacific Avenue.
Ex-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak might consider moving to the neighborhood, suggest our colleagues at the Bay Citizen, since the Egyptian government has a lovely clinker-brick mansion with a fascinating history sitting empty at 3001 Pacific Avenue. It formerly housed the Egyptian consulate in San Francisco.
Filed under: Locals, Politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 15, 2011 by editors
Many in the music world are still scratching their heads about the Grammy Award for Best New Artist that went to bass player Esperanza Spalding Sunday night. But not jazz fans in the Fillmore, who know her from her performances at Yoshi’s.
EARLIER: At Yoshi’s, beauty and the bass
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Posted on February 10, 2011 by editors
Fillmore’s newest establishment — originally to be called Sweet Jane, but now just plain Jane — is open for business at 2123 Fillmore. And there’s nothing plain about it.
This location has been home to many other sweet shops: most recently the Bittersweet chocolate cafe and earlier Sweet Inspiration and half a dozen others. But it never looked like this. Impeccably remodeled, it’s stylishly black and white, and the upstairs aerie now sports upholstered chairs. For now it’s sweets and coffee from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. But lunch is coming soon — and the all-day menu may be extended into the evenings later, once there’s beer and wine.
Owner Amanda Michael and her family — including daughter Jane — live just around the corner and intend to make this decidedly a neighborhood spot.
Filed under: Food, Drink & Lodging, Locals | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 4, 2011 by editors
Neighbors check for the latest news posted on the door of the shop.
On January 3, Salvador Valesco was in his upholstery shop at 2108 Sutter Street — as he had been for 30 years — working a little, talking a lot, cracking jokes with passersby. But as the first week of the new year unfolded, his neighbors began to realize they hadn’t seen him for a few days.
Read more »
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Posted on February 4, 2011 by editors
New restaurants or food businesses are prohibited on upper Fillmore Street unless they replace a similar establishment. But that would change under legislation proposed by new District 2 supervisor Mark Farrell.
Farrell made good on a campaign promise to propose changes to city law that would allow new food-related businesses on Fillmore to be approved by the Planning Commission. Farrell said the move is intended to enhance the economic vitality of the neighborhood commercial district, defined by ordinance as the area from Jackson Street south to Bush Street.
At its January 13 meeting the Planning Commission unanimously endorsed the effort to remove the ban, which has been in effect since 1987.
“Along upper Fillmore Street and elsewhere in the city, restaurants and bars were identified as volatile uses which could multiply and upset the commercial equilibrium by forcing out critical neighborhood services,” according to a Planning Department report on the history of the ban.
In fact, the prohibition has led to a decline in the number of eating and drinking establishments on upper Fillmore. In 1987 there were 32 restaurants; today there are 24. Then there were 8 specialty groceries; today there are 2. Under the legislation new bars could be allowed, but only in full-service restaurants.
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Posted on February 1, 2011 by editors
PHOTOGRAPHY | THOMAS REYNOLDS
Singer James Brown may have been the hardest-working man in show business, but David Johnson is surely the hardest-working 84-year-old in the photography business.
In recent months he’s had four major exhibitions — mostly photographs from the heyday of the Fillmore’s jazz era — including one in Atlanta and another at the San Francisco International Airport. He’s featured in a new book, The Golden Decade, celebrating the circle of post-war photographers who studied with Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts. He’s just returned from the screening of “Positive Negatives,” a new documentary on his photographic career, at the San Diego Black Film Festival. And he’s newly married for a second time.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” he says with the warm and easy smile of a man who realizes that fate is treating him kindly. “It’s been a long journey. You never know what life is going to bring, but sometimes it’s an opportunity.”
Read more »
Filed under: Art & Design, Locals, Neighborhood History | 1 Comment »
