Brautigan’s library finds a home

The Presidio Branch Library, now under renovation.

The Presidio Branch Library on Sacramento Street, now undergoing renovation, became legendary in literary circles after author Richard Brautigan used it as the setting for his imaginary library of unpublished manuscripts in the novel, The Abortion.

In Brautigan’s novel, published in 1970, the library was always open for authors to personally deposit their manuscripts. Through the years, quite a few writers took the story literally and submitted manuscripts or asked if the library really existed.

The Presidio library maintained a small display about Brautigan’s novel, but never actually accepted manuscripts. But in 1990 one of the author’s fans opened the Brautigan Library in Burlington, Vermont, and accepted several hundred manuscripts. That arrangement ended in 2005 when negotiations were announced to bring the manuscripts to the Presidio Branch Library. But it never happened.

Now the manuscripts have found a new home. The Brautigan Library will become a permanent collection in the Clark County Historical Museum in Vancouver, Washington. Brautigan was a Washington native.

Local aficionados, including library volunteer Marcia Popper, continue to push for an expanded display about the Brautigan connection when the renovated Presidio Branch Library reopens in late 2011.

NY Times: A homecoming for Richard Brautigan

Uncovering a red brick beauty

At Pine and Steiner, the new home of the California Pacific Medical Center Foundation.

After a year behind scaffolding and decades under paint, the red brick beauty of a building at Steiner and Pine was unveiled Wednesday afternoon when the scaffolding came down.

Inside it houses the California Pacific Medical Center Foundation. But it’s the outside that commands attention, now returned to its original appearance in 1897 when the building was built for the telephone company. It’s been sitting empty for years, and at one point hospital leaders considered selling it to nearby St. Dominic’s Church. Instead they decided to create a home for the foundation and other administrative offices. When rebuilding began early last year, it was unclear how extensive the restoration would be, and the plans assumed the brick building would be painted once again.

“It was a good surprise,” says Eric Stein, the hospital’s director of space and property management. “It’s beautiful brick. It was meant to be exposed.”

Zen and the art of the public bath

The communal baths at Kabuki Springs & Spa.

By Donna Domino

“There’s a very special energy here,” says Kathy Nelsen, longtime director of the Kabuki Springs & Spa, explaining why the cultural fixture has endured for nearly 40 years. “The communal baths are really what differentiates us. We have some of the only ones in California and the U.S.”

Nelsen, who has carefully nurtured the Kabuki’s distinctively spiritual environment for the last decade, says another thing that sets the Kabuki apart is a deep respect for the body. She describes a recent women’s night to make her point.

A library of unpublished manuscripts

An architectural rendering of the renovated Presidio Branch Library.

In its literary star turn, the Presidio Branch Library, at 3150 Sacramento Street, was transformed into a fictional repository for unpublished manuscripts placed on the shelves at all hours of the day and night directly by the writers themselves.

Yet except for one easily overlooked display case near the checkout desk, there is no evidence the library was used regularly by noted Bay Area writer Richard Brautigan and incorporated into his novel, The Abortion.

That may change now that the historic Carnegie library, which has been serving local readers since 1921, is about to be remade. Planning is in the final stages for a $2.4 million renovation of the library.

‘Thank God for Browser Books’

Browser Books: cozy

By Donna Gillespie

Book lovers discouraged by the proliferation of chain stores and websites deserve a leisurely afternoon at Browser Books.

It’s an old-fashioned bookstore that emanates warmth — wood paneling and music greet you as you enter, and there are lamp-lit nooks that beckon patrons to sit and read. Carefully chosen classics line the shelves, but better-quality popular books can be found here as well. If a staffer recommends a book, it’s likely some forgotten gem, not something everybody’s already reading.

At 2195 Fillmore, next door to Peet’s Coffee, Browser is a bright, inviting spot that offers a cozy respite hours after the other shops on the street have gone dark.

“We have more books per square inch than anyone around,” says owner Stephen Damon. Just don’t come in asking for a romance novel or a western — Browser doesn’t carry them. “We’re very selective, very literary,” says Damon. “I keep important books.”

Browser’s story is interwoven with the colorful history of the neighborhood. The store was founded in 1976 a block north of its present location, just beside the Clay Theater, where Carlos Santana’s band also recorded, Beat poets read their poems and a head shop once flourished.

“This is a great neighborhood for a literary bookstore,” Damon says. “We have a loyal clientele.” Damon treasures an in-person review he received from local author Alice Adams. “Thank God for Browser Books,” she told him. “I didn’t think bookstores like this still existed.”

Browser is open every day until 10 p.m. — even if it’s New Year’s Day. The store closes only on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

‘Our Lady of the Parking Lot’

In the parking lot behind St. Dominic's Church is a shrine to Our Lady.

Neighborhood lore says the bulldozer operators couldn’t bear to push down the grotto in the school’s courtyard when St. Rose Academy was demolished after the 1989 earthquake. So they carefully left it standing — and it’s still there, amid a grove of cherry trees, in the parking lot behind St. Dominic’s Church. Covered with gnarly vines watered by an underground spring, the grotto is a place of quiet contemplation dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. To locals she has become “Our Lady of the Parking Lot.”

Pets Unlimited celebrates 60 years

One fateful day in 1947, a scruffy dog wandered into the yard of a Pacific Heights home. Mrs. Carter Downing took the dog to the city pound, where she learned his prospects for survival were slim. Wayward pets were put to sleep unless adopted quickly.

Bobby, a Jack Russell terrier rescued from a burning building, was adopted by Janette Gerl.

Horrified by the thought, she decided to take the dog back home — and to adopt all the other dogs at the pound and start an impromptu adoption service.

Other animal lovers joined the cause, including her friend and Pacific Heights neighbor Alice Coldwell. Fueled by tenacity and gumption, they worked to raise awareness of pets who needed loving homes.

Thus began Pets Unlimited, the San Francisco institution at Fillmore and Washington, which celebrates its 60th anniversary in May 2007.

Arts & Crafts movement started here

Photograph of the Swedenborgian Church by Jim Karageorge

By Leslie M. Freudenheim

From 1876 to 1910, a group of creative and pioneering men and women in Northern California sought an architectural expression appropriate to the region. They rejected Victorian excess, preferring simple homes of natural materials. Their aspirations went beyond architecture to advocate a sensibility and a way of life.

The cradle of the movement was the Swedenborgian Church at Washington and Lyon Streets. Its leader was the modest but charistmatic Swedenborgian minister, Joseph Worcester, a serious student of architecture who inspired a quiet revolution as he turned Californians, and eventually Americans, toward the ideals of the Arts & Crafts movement and a return to a simpler life in harmony with nature.

Get those lamps while you can

Photograph of Forrest Jones by Dickie Spritzer

It’s a secret workshop tucked behind a disappearing door at the back of the store. Inside are rows and rows of jars, metal caps and electrical sockets.

But this is no mad scientist’s laboratory. From this hidden room come tasteful lamps that illuminate some of the finest homes in Pacific Heights — at prices far lower than those of lesser lamps. This is the domain of French lampmaker Philippe Henry de Tessan, who estimates he has created 12,000 lamps in this space during the last two decades.

He’s the owner — along with namesake Forrest Jones — of the emporium offering housewares and home accessories at 3274 Sacramento Street. It has been in business since 1974, and has become the place to go for unique lamps and a wide variety of lampshades.

Temple scaffolding only the start

Photograph of Temple Sherith Israel by Dickie Spritzer

The unsightly scaffolding that surrounds Temple Sherith Israel at the corner of Webster and California streets is as repugnant to the synagogue’s leadership as it is to neighbors and passersby, they say, but it is not going away anytime soon.

The scaffolding was erected to protect pedestrians from shards of sandstone falling from the facade. David Newman, president of the congregation, said it is the nature of sandstone to flake over time as water gets into it. The building’s major problem, however, is not with the sandstone facade but with the unreinforced masonry it covers. The building dates from 1904 and survived the 1906 earthquake, but the city deems it insufficiently reinforced.

Newman said the working drawings necessary to apply for a building permit are being prepared and will probably be ready midyear. The congregation is in the early phases of a major capital campaign to pay for the work. The main project will consist of drilling vertical holes in the walls and filling them with steel and concrete, then tying them across the top. The repairs to the exterior sandstone walls will be carried out as part of the reinforcement project.

Temple Sherith Israel served as San Francisco Superior Court for a time after the 1906 earthquake. It was there that political boss Abe Ruef was tried and convicted of corruption and sentenced to San Quentin.

“It’s a special building,” Newman said. “It’s more than our home. It’s an architectural treasure.”