Posted on March 19, 2010 by editors
Beginning tonight, Sweet Bird of Youth will be presented at the Queen Anne Hotel.
It was soon after the new year began that Diane Bailey approached the Queen Anne Hotel on a scouting mission. The veteran actor and director was looking for just the right Victorian hotel in which she could bring to life the classic Tennessee Williams play Sweet Bird of Youth.
As she entered the historic old hotel at Sutter and Octavia, she knew she had found the perfect place. “I walked in and the lobby was so grand — with curtains framing the doorway into the parlor,” she says. “It was just so gorgeous. It looked so authentic to me.”
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Posted on March 15, 2010 by editors
SF Weekly reviews local rapper DaVinci’s debut album:
The song “What You Finna Do?,” released earlier this month by Fillmore District rapper DaVinci, opens with a vocal sample from the 2001 PBS documentary The Fillmore. It condenses the gentrification process the area underwent from the 1960s into one slogan, lamenting, “Basically, after the urban renewal, it was basically Negro removal.”
As the gloomy beat kicks in, DaVinci starts to rap, eventually coining his update on the situation: “Down the corner of the street used to be the spot/Till they replaced all the liquor stores with coffee shops.”
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Posted on March 11, 2010 by editors
Fillamento's Iris Fuller in yet another kind of candy store.
There she is, the Queen of Fillamento, with a glue gun in one hand and a bag of jelly beans in the other, a nice Jewish girl making a sign celebrating Easter candy. Iris Fuller is back — not quite in the neighborhood, where she ran the much-beloved Fillamento emporium for two decades, but not far away. She’s lending her retailing magic to a friend who owns Sweet Dish, a candy store at 2144 Chestnut Street in the Marina. And what a sweet dish it is: Candy of all kinds and exquisite chocolates for the connoisseurs, plus Mitchell’s ice cream in the back. This may be worth a trip down the hill.
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Posted on March 9, 2010 by editors
Soon after the February issue of the New Fillmore hit the streets, with its report on the discovery and delivery of a manzanita plant in the Presidio thought to be extinct, the phone rang.
“There’s another one,” the caller said. “I’ll show you.”
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Posted on March 7, 2010 by editors
Sheba is located in the Fillmore Jazz District at 1419 Fillmore.
SINCE SHE AND HER SISTER opened Sheba Piano Lounge on Fillmore in 2006, Netsanet Alemayehu has created a distinctive ambiance with a sophisticated design, live music and a menu offering authentic Ethiopian dishes.
Much of what makes the food special is the spices — the cardamom, berbere, mitmita and oregano — Alemayehu imports in suitcases with the help of her family in Ethiopia. “It’s the same, only different,” she says of Ethiopian oregano. “It makes a lot of difference in the taste.”
Now Alemayehu has branched out and started selling the spices — and incorporating them into new cocktails and small plates.
“It’s nearly impossible to find a lot of the Ethiopian staple spices in San Francisco,” she says. “People have been asking for them. Since I get so many rare things directly from my family in Addis Ababa, I thought it was a good idea to sell them to the public so it’s easier for home chefs to create Ethiopian dishes.”
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Posted on March 6, 2010 by editors
Q & A | ROSE ROLL
R ose Roll, a local resident and occasional contributor to the New Fillmore, is involved in creating the Bay Area News Project — a new nonprofit venture funded by neighborhood philanthropist Warren Hellman that is being heralded by some as a reinvention of journalism.
With The New York Times signing on as a partner, momentum seems to be building for the Bay Area News Project. Can you describe what it is in a nutshell?
The Bay Area News Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan publicly supported news organization. Our mission is to stimulate innovation in journalism, foster civic engagement and fill the gaps in reporting Bay Area civic news at a time when newspapers have had to make severe cuts in their coverage for economic reasons. We’re just getting started, but in time our professional newsroom will generate original, in-depth coverage of Bay Area topics including government and public policy, the arts and cultural affairs, education and the environment, as well as neighborhood news and events. Our primary channel will be online and mobile, but we expect also distribute our news through print (via The New York Times), radio and television. Our goal is to launch in late spring of this year.
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Posted on March 6, 2010 by editors
A neighborhood party today from 1 to 5 p.m. will celebrate the grand opening of the newly renovated Hamilton Recreation Center. There’s a new and improved playground, tennis courts and basketball courts — plus a new swimming pool with water slides. The celebration will include food, entertainment and arts and crafts. Hamilton Rec Center is located at 1900 Geary between Scott & Steiner.
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Posted on March 5, 2010 by editors
The Planning Commission voted unanimously yesterday afternoon to allow the new restaurant Baker & Banker, at Bush and Octavia, to operate a self-service bakery.
“We’ve been working on trying to create a neighborhood space,” said chef Jeffrey Banker. “The bakery will be a big part of our success.”
Banker’s wife and business partner, pastry chef Lori Baker, will be the mastermind of the bakery operation, offering for take-out the breads and desserts served in the restaurant during dinner. The restaurant is open every night except Monday for dinner at 1701 Octavia Street. The bakery will operate around the corner through a kitchen entrance on Bush Street from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Baker and Banker had hoped to open at 7 a.m., but ran into opposition from the Pacific Heights Residents Association.
“It’s the classic commute mess,” said Paul Wermer, a director of the residents association. “Anything that would encourage people to stop or slow down [on Bush Street during the morning commute] is a bad idea.”
Wermer said the association supported the bakery as long as it did not open before 9 a.m. The Planning Commission unanimously agreed.
EARLIER: Back where they belong
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Posted on March 4, 2010 by editors
Sarah Armstrong: People can help.
By Sarah Armstrong
Teenagers have a reputation for sleeping in, getting in trouble and spending a lot of money. But I know we have the potential to do much more.
Now 14 and an eighth grader at Convent of the Sacred Heart Elementary School on Broadway, I have gone to school in Pacific Heights and lived nearby in the Marina for most of my life. I know there is a perception that the youth here live in a bubble and are self-absorbed and unaware of important issues in the world.
I want to help break that stereotype and encourage young people to make a difference. My friends, who are also teenagers, started an organization in Santa Barbara called Hands4Others, and I have recently started a San Francisco chapter. I’ve had a passion for community service since I was very young and once I learned of the devastation that a simple thing like having dirty water could cause, I wanted to help.
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Posted on March 3, 2010 by editors
KQED reports on a new dance theater production about San Francisco’s Fillmore District being created by choreographer Jacinta Vlach and saxophonist Howard Wiley.
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