Opening night at Via Veneto

FIRST PERSON | Andre Bolaffi It was a Friday night in January 1990, exactly 20 years ago. We had been in our new home on Bush Street for five years. My wife Janice suggested we walk up Fillmore to the Clay Theatre to see a French film, “Claudine-Claudel,” about Rodin, his work and his mistress. [...]

My tenants, the Black Panthers

FIRST PERSON | Bud Johns Consider me a sucker for commemorative plaques. One reason London is among my favorite cities is its many buildings with blue ceramic plaques noting the famous people who lived there. I find it impossible not to pause and read them. So it was inevitable I would stop my car when [...]

A life lesson at the bus stop

This note was posted at the 1-California bus stop at Sacramento and Buchanan, across the street from California Pacific Medical Center, on the day after Christmas. You were standing here, waiting for the bus, and so was I. I asked if you worked at the hospital, and you said: “No, I have cancer. I went [...]

At Aqua Forest, underwater gardening

FIRST PERSON | Gary Neatherlin Years ago I began experimenting with aquariums. I have several — freshwater and saltwater — in my apartment above Fillmore Street. So I was pleasantly surprised when a friend told me about an unusual aquarium display at a relatively new store, Aqua Forest Aquarium, located just down the street at [...]

A red-tailed hawk at Alta Plaza

FIRST PERSON | Walter Kitundu For seven months I chronicled the life of Patch, a red-tailed hawk who lives in and around Alta Plaza Park, capturing her transition from immature bird to adult.

A skirt with a past — and a future

By Barbara Kate Repa When retrieving the dry cleaning recently, I ran into an old friend: a brightly colored skirt, freshly cleaned and snaking down the automated trolley at Perfect Cleaners on Fillmore. The unusual combination of colors, the nubby silk fabric and the jaunty scalloped waistband all were unmistakable. It had been my skirt [...]

Diary of a spring chick

By Biscuit the Chick Hello. You may have noticed me flapping around in the window of your local Marc by Marc Jacobs boutique on Fillmore Street recently. And you might well be wondering how a fuzzy yellow fella like me snagged a spot in the retail industry.

‘I just have this thing about bread’

FIRST PERSON | Pascal Rigo One morning not very long ago, I was eating breakfast with my family. We were sitting around the kitchen table in our apartment, which is above our bakery on Pine Street.