Arts & Entertainment The Story Of Emperor Norton, SF's First Icon and Greatest Eccentric, On The 137th Anniversary Of His Death You’ve perhaps heard during your Bay Area residency the occasional passing reference to an “Emperor Norton”, some foppish, overdressed, Victorian-era kook whose legacy we are apparently supposed to respect. Why? Why is
Arts & Entertainment Local Toy Store Owner And Children's TV Show Host 'King Norman' Has Died: Long Live The King! PHOTOS: #KingNorman, #BayArea man know by many Baby Boomers for children's 1950s TV show, dies at 98. https://t.co/WhyjARq0mr— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) January 4, 2017 Norman Rosenberg, royalty to a set
SF News A Look At The Work Of SFFD's First Official Photographer This year marks the 150th anniversary of the San Francisco Fire Department, and in honor of that milestone the SF Public Library decided to look back at the department's first official photographer: Chet
SF News Near Old Ship Saloon, More Remnants Of Gold Rush Era Vessel Discovered The Old Ship Saloon at Pacific and Battery is so named for the Gold Rush era ship the Arkansas: That vessel ran aground in 1849 after a rough passage from New York, and
Arts & Entertainment Do You Live On A Former San Francisco Cemetery? An Interactive Map It is said that there are no cemeteries in San Francisco, but that is not true. In fact, ours was once a town full of cemeteries, before graveyards within city limits were banned
SF News 25 Years Ago Today The Oakland Hills Went Up In Flames Very, Very Fast Monday was an anniversary of a Bay Area disaster marking 27 years since the Loma Prieta earthquake and today marks a tragic and scary day as well which began three years and two
SF News From Gold Rush Almshouse To Hospital, Laguna Honda Celebrates 150 Years Of Care At 150, Laguna Honda is even older than most of the people living there. The establishment dates to 1866, and to ring in its anniversary this year, volunteers have assembled photographs and artifacts
SF News Site Of Long-Gone Gay Bars Could Stymie Mid-Market Development As Compton's Cafeteria Revival Proposed In New Building As we reported back in April, a couple of people are attempting to block a large mixed-use development on Market Street between Fifth and Sixth by saying that the long-ago sites of a
Arts & Entertainment Regarding The Real-Life Mystery Of The Maltese Falcon, A Famous Movie Prop Lost For Decades For the 1941 John Huston film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's San Francisco-set noir novel The Maltese Falcon, a book twice produced as a film before this defining version starring Humphrey Bogart as the
Arts & Entertainment Video: San Francisco As It Was In The 30s, 40s, and 50s With the past being a foreign country and all that, looking at historical footage of one's own city can have a disorienting effect — what you see is your home, and yet so clearly
Arts & Entertainment Fun Facts From San Francisco History That You've Probably Never Heard Before As we continue San Francisco Appreciation Week, we thought we could dig back into some of the lesser known fun facts about the city, a few of which are likely to surprise even
Arts & Entertainment Video: Inside SF's Cable Car Carpentry Shop Since it's San Francisco Appreciation Week, how about a look inside the cable car carpentry and repair shop that you may not have known existed here in the city. As the SFMTA's blog
SF News Ride Historic Trolley Buses On Long Lost Lines During This Weekend's Muni Heritage Celebration History buffs and lovers of all things San Francisco have a chance this weekend to get a taste of ye olden times by riding retired Muni electric trolley buses along routes that have
SF News Remembering The Hunters Point Uprising, Sparked 50 Years Ago After Police Killed Unarmed Black Teen "This is the San Francisco America pretends does not exist," the writer James Baldwin said while surveying the historically black Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood in 1963. That quote, from the documentary Take This Hammer,
SF News Identity Of 'Coffin Girl' Remains A Mystery I was just thinking the other day about the investigation into the long lost identity of the deceased three-year-old girl found mostly preserved, 140 years later, underneath a house on Lone Mountain in
SF News A Brief History Of How San Francisco Ended Up With Electric Trolly Buses Long before the environmental movement took off or anyone understood a thing about carbon emissions, a full 81 years ago, SF got its first emission-free electric trolly bus powered by overhead wires. As
SF News Un-Chill Cottage Row Residents Object To Zen Garden Honoring Japanese Americans As 'Favoritism' With its 22 Victorian houses from the 1860s and 70s, the secluded pedestrian side street known as Cottage Row feels as if from another era. So, too, do area residents currently objecting to
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink The History Of IT'S-IT Ice Cream Sandwiches, Born In San Francisco As the legend has it, one day in 1928, George Whitney decided to sandwich a scoop of ice cream between two oatmeal cookies at his hot dog and ice cream stand at Playland-at-the-Beach,
Arts & Entertainment Cool Interactive Map Shows 'Where The Streetcars Used To Go' Designer and coder Chris Arvin put in some major hours in the SFMTA archive to create a fun new interactive map about the many, many streetcar lines that used to fan out all
SF News Fun Fact: The Muni Metro Runs Through The Hull Of A Sunken Ship Directly underneath the bocce ball courts on the southern end of Justin Herman Plaza, at the foot of Market Street, there lay the remains of a large, three-masted ship called the Rome that
Arts & Entertainment Go Do This Thing: 'Daughters Of A Riot' At The Brava Theater At the Brava Theater this weekend, Friday and Saturday only, is a unique piece of collaborative performance being done by some notable names in SF's drag and nightlife communities. It's titled Work MORE!
Arts & Entertainment Rediscovered Historical Comics Recall San Francisco Days Of Yore Ron Henggeler, a chronicler of local ephemera in his newsletter, happened upon a 1975 volume of illustrations harkening back to Old Frisco by Albert Tolf, and you should take a look. The historical
SF News Little Girl's Well Preserved Body Found 150 Years On, Buried Beneath Inner Richmond Home Little girl, rose still in hand, found in coffin beneath #SF home. via @SteveRubeSF https://t.co/y9xaP6kv6c pic.twitter.com/M85JHQldm8— SFChronicle (@sfchronicle) May 25, 2016 Pretty much the biggest news story
Arts & Entertainment 1970's-Era Star Pharmacy, Landmark In The Early Days Of AIDS, Recreated For One Day For Castro Shoot As mentioned briefly yesterday, more shooting has been going on in the Castro for When We Rise, the ABC documentary mini-series written by Dustin Lance Black, and based in part on the forthcoming
Arts & Entertainment Video: Inside The Levi's Vault, A Literal Jeans Archive Levi's presence in markets, not to mention on Market Street, might be so ubiquitous as to fade into the background. Not for serious denim heads, as die-hard jean enthusiasts term themselves: For them,
