Growing Up in San Francisco

  2016

  St. Mary’s Chinese School announces closure—yet another in a long line of Catholic elementary schools to close in recent years, including St. Elizabeth, Corpus Christi, St. Paul, St. Paul of the Shipwreck, All Hallows, Sacred Heart and St. Dominic, with St. Anthony remaining open following a merger with Immaculate Conception; Joe’s of Westlake reemerges from a remodel with the new name “Original Joe’s–Westlake” to rave reviews as former patrons continue to use the old familiar name; BART acknowledges that much of the system “has reached the end of its useful life,” with passenger loads far exceeding planned system capacity.

  20

  WHATEVER HAPPENED TO …?

  Whenever San Francisco natives and expatriates gather today, the inevitable question will arise, “Whatever happened to…?” the many restaurants, bakeries, theatres, retail stores and more that we once knew and loved so well. These were the businesses that drew their customers from across the boundaries of their local neighborhoods, and we thought that they would be with us forever. As the saying goes, nothing is certain but death and taxes. Here are some of the places that we flocked to in days gone by:

  ADELINE BAKERY. From one shop on West Portal Avenue to a citywide chain supplying morning coffee, pastry, doughnuts and more, the last of them closed early in the new millennium.

  AHERN BROTHERS BAKERY. Located on Van Ness Avenue at Jackson from 1938 to 1990, it was everyone’s favorite place for a wide variety of freshly baked pies and other treats. I spent many a Thanksgiving morning in line there, picking up dessert for our family’s celebrations.

  ALEXANDRIA THEATRE. With an Egyptian motif, it anchored the corner of 18th Avenue and Geary beginning in 1923. It was remodeled to Moderne style in 1941, converted to three screens in 1976 and closed in 2004. The property remained vacant for a full decade until it was sold in 2014, and there are now ongoing discussions of possible future uses.

  ALHAMBRA THEATRE. The classic Moorish towers have marked this spot in the Polk Gulch business district since 1926. The theatre was converted to twin screens in 1976, back to a single screen in 1988 and then closed in 1998. It is now a fitness club that still shows movies on the big screen.

  ALIOTO’S. Classic Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant since 1925 continues to turn out spectacular meals under the leadership of the fourth generation.

  ALL STAR DONUTS. This tiny bakery with the big neon sign operated on Chestnut Street in the Marina District for nearly thirty years, from the mid-1980s until 2014, opening early enough each morning to pull in a clientele from all over town.

  AMAZON THEATRE. Opened on Geneva Avenue in 1928, it operated until 1969, when it became the Apollo Theatre, and later began showing Filipino films until it closed in 1980. The building remained vacant for some time and has since been converted to a Walgreen’s drugstore.

  AMERICAN CAN COMPANY. A business that once employed thousands of San Franciscans in manufacturing jobs in a plant at 3rd and 20th Streets, the space now houses office condos.

  ANNA’S DANISH COOKIES. A holiday favorite with many San Franciscans since the shop opened on 18th Street between Valencia and Guerrero in 1935. New owners moved the operation to San Mateo in 2003, but the quality is still excellent.

  AVENUE THEATRE. Located on San Bruno Avenue between Felton and Paul Avenues in the Portola District, the theatre had a loyal following, particularly during the war years. Succumbing to the expansion of television, a new owner converted it to silent films in the 1960s. Closed as a theatre in 1984, the building now houses a church.

  BAGDAD BOWL. Moving from its pre–World War II location at Ellis and Fillmore to 26th Avenue and Noriega in the Sunset District in the late 1940s, it survived longer than many other similar locales but was demolished for a financial services office in 1980.

  BANK OF AMERICA. Founded in San Francisco by A.P. Giannini in 1904 and the salvation of many small customers after the 1906 disaster, when money was loaned with little more than a handshake. Many branches remain, but a 1998 merger with North Carolina National Bank saw the closure of many branches with the corporate headquarters moving away to Charlotte, North Carolina—thus eliminating the bank’s offices in many iconic buildings, including 550 Montgomery Street, 1 Powell Street, 1 South Van Ness Avenue, 55 Hawthorne Street, 400 Castro, 785 Market, 1455 Market Street and a much-diminished presence at the 555 California Street tower once known as “World Headquarters.”

  BARONIAL BAKERY. Classic Taraval Street bakery operated for decades by Willie and Wilma Nabbefeld. Following the couple’s 1971 retirement, the shop and its equipment were sold to a new owner, who continued the business for only a short time. A Chinese restaurant now occupies the spot.

  BERNSTEIN’S FISH GROTTO. Popular Powell Street restaurant that operated from 1912 to 1981, with the façade of an old sailing ship. Today, a retail store with a bland façade occupies the site.

  BLUM’S CANDIES. The firm began making candies at Polk and Sutter Streets in the late 1800s and expanded into a popular chain with stores around San Francisco for decades, including Polk Street, Union Square, Stonestown and other locations, most of which included in-store dining on lunch items and baked goods Their coffee crunch cake still has legions of devoted followers, even though the chain folded in the 1970s.

  BRIDGE THEATRE. Opened in the late 1930s with a reference to the nearby Golden Gate Bridge, in later years, it became a spot for international films. It closed in 2014 and became a training facility for San Francisco Baseball Academy.

  BRUCE BARY. Iconic prep clothing shop for men and boys that was operated by Willard Segal from the 1950s to the early 1980s, with locations in Stonestown and also near the University of California in Berkeley. Changing times and fashions brought about its closure.

  CADILLAC BAR & GRILL. From its beginnings on tiny Holland Court, near 4th and Folsom Streets, in 1982, the concept grew into a well-loved lunchtime and after-work spot. Expansion of the Moscone Convention Center brought about its closure in 1999, though the founder reestablished the business in 2015 at the Twitter Building (formerly Western Furniture Exchange and Merchandise Mart) at 9th and Market Streets.

  CAESAR’S ITALIAN RESTAURANT. Opening in 1956 at Bay and Powell Streets in North Beach, there was seldom a quiet day for this restaurant. Changing tastes and a gradual departure of loyal customers from the city—“People who would come in every day for lunch now come in once a month”—brought about its closure in August 2012, and the site remains vacant today.

  CANDLESTICK COVE. Small neighborhood apartments and a shopping district constructed during World War II for employees of the nearby shipyards. The area survived until the 1950s, when it was demolished for construction of the new Candlestick Park on nearby landfill. With the park’s 2015 demolition, the old neighborhood name is being resurrected by a new housing community in the area.

  CANDLESTICK PARK. Opened in April 1960 to mark the San Francisco arrival of the Giants baseball team two years earlier, the new stadium had difficulties early on with weather. Suffering by comparison to other major-league stadiums, the Giants left after 1999 for improved facilities at SBC Park—later, PacBell Park and now, AT&T Park. The final concert, including an appearance by former Beatle Paul McCartney, took place in 2014, and demolition soon began, with new housing and retail planned for the site.

  CAREW & ENGLISH FUNERAL DIRECTORS. An old San Francisco firm that predated the Fire, the firm was located for most of the twentieth century at Masonic and Golden Gate Avenues. It merged with Halsted–N. Gray (also with roots in nineteenth-century San Francisco) in 1989.

  CARL’S BAKERY. Opened at 18th and Guerrero Streets in the Mission District in 1950 by Carl and Mabel Reichmann, Carl’s quickly became a citywide destination, especially for cakes. After many years, Mr. and Mrs. Reichmann retired and sold the business to Dick Amondoli, who ran it until 1991, when he sold it to Charles Walter and Roman Michno. The final set of owners supplied breads, pastries and other baked good to appreciative customers until 1998. By then, the triple
threat of fewer customers, rising rent and competition from supermarket bakeries brought about the closure of a beloved institution.

  CHEVY’S MEXICAN RESTAURANT. Founded in 1981 by San Francisco financier Warren Simmons, the chain grew to thirty-seven locations in California. In 1993, the restaurants were sold to PepsiCo subsidiary Taco Bell, and when PepsiCo decided to exit the restaurant business in 1997, the firm was again sold. The new owners eventually closed several locations, including the popular branch at Stonestown Galleria.

  COCA-COLA BOTTLING PLANT. Located at 1500 Mission Street near South Van Ness Avenue, the building was originally constructed for an auto dealer in 1925 and was acquired by Cola-Cola and then remodeled into a Streamline Moderne style in 1941. The company employed hundreds of workers to run the production line, which was visible through the large plate-glass windows to passersby for more than forty years. The property was then owned by Goodwill Industries, which sold it in 2014 for well over $50 million to a high-rise housing developer.

  COLISEUM THEATRE. Opened in November 1918 at 9th Avenue and Clement Street, the location was one of the city’s largest neighborhood movie houses, with more than two thousand seats. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake severely damaged the building, and it sat vacant for years until it was renovated into housing units with ground-floor retail early in the new millennium.

  CORONET THEATRE. One of San Francisco’s newer theatres, the Coronet opened in 1949 as a second-run neighborhood house but was later converted to first-run with reserved seating. It hosted such blockbusters as Oklahoma!, Around the World in 80 Days, Ben-Hur and Funny Girl. For many San Franciscans who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, it will always be remembered as the home to Star Wars—complete with lines of fans camping out on the sidewalk.

  CROCKER BANK. An old-time San Francisco bank with ties to Charles Crocker, one of the “Big Four” of transcontinental railroad fame. By the early 1960s, it was known as Crocker-Anglo, and then after a merger with Los Angeles–based Citizens National Bank, it became Crocker-Citizens. By the early 1970s, it had become known as the “Crocker Bank” with the iconic theme song “We’ve Only Just Begun.” It was eventually acquired by British-based Midland Bank in 1981 and then by Wells Fargo in 1986. The final tie to the past is the Wells Fargo branch at 1 Montgomery Street, known as the Crocker Office branch.

  CROWN ZELLERBACH. The Zellerbach Company was established in San Francisco in 1870. In 1928, it merged with Crown Willamette Paper to become Crown Zellerbach, and the new firm continued to grow for most of the twentieth century. In 1959, the firm built one of San Francisco’s largest post–World War II office buildings, a twenty-story modern high-rise with a ground-level plaza surrounding it—a new architectural innovation for San Francisco. The firm continued in business until December 1985, when it was announced that it would be split up and sold in a hostile takeover.

  DAGO MARY’S. Located at the corner of Donahue Street and Hudson Avenue just inside the entrance gate to the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, this popular restaurant managed to survive long after the shipyard was closed. Drawing a faithful clientele, including many from city hall for leisurely Friday lunches, the place finally bit the dust in 2007, a full decade after the surrounding area was earmarked for new home construction.

  DANCE YOUR ASS OFF!. A well-known Columbus Avenue dance venue in the mid-1970s, the location was memorialized in the Armistead Maupin series “Tales of the City.” The crowd was so enthusiastic in various dance moves that broken legs and arms were a fairly frequent outcome on a lively Friday or Saturday night. The dance vibes died down decades ago, and many of the regulars are now Social Security recipients.

  DAVID’S DELI. A classic Jewish delicatessen continuously operating on Geary near the city’s live theatres since the time Ike was in the White House.

  DOGGIE DINER. A Bay Area–based fast-food chain that operated from 1948 to 1986, specializing in hot dogs and fries. So beloved was the iconic image of a seven-foot-tall dachshund head with large eyes, towering over each of the outlets, that one sign was restored, placed in the center median of Sloat Boulevard near the San Francisco Zoo and declared a city landmark in 2006.

  EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS. The last known survivor of the 1906 earthquake and fire, William Del Monte, died in January 2016, just days prior to his 110th birthday.

  EL CAPITAN THEATRE. Built in 1928, “The Cap” was one of San Francisco’s largest theatres, with elaborate neon signage spelling out the name in bright colors, lighting up one by one. It suffered the usual fate of declining attendance in the the 1950s and closed in 1957. In 1961, the auditorium itself was demolished for a parking lot, but the intricate Spanish Colonial Revival façade facing Mission Street was preserved, though the glow of all that neon is long gone.

  ELEPHANT WALK. In 1974, an old pharmacy at 500 Castro Street became the Elephant Walk Bar and Restaurant near Harvey Milk’s original camera store. An instant hit, it became the scene of a violent confrontation on the night of May 21, 1979, following the verdict in the city hall killings. The location continued to draw steady crowds until a fire in 1988. Four years later, the building owner reopened the bar as Harvey’s.

  EL REY THEATRE. Opened in 1931 and surrounded by homes and easy MUNI access, the location thrived for years. However, by 1977, crowds had declined considerably, and it was closed as a movie house. The location soon became the Voice of Pentecost Church, but in 2016, it was announced that the congregation had defaulted on mortgage payments, and the building was sold at auction to a group of investors for just over $1 million—about the price of a nearby single-family home. The future of this neighborhood anchor remains unclear.

  EMPORIUM. The once-great department store, located at 835 Market Street, opened for business in 1896, selling everything “from a needle to an anchor.” Generations of San Franciscans recall its heyday in the era before branch outlets opened in suburban shopping malls in the 1950s. The store had the city’s best Santa, a massive toy department at the back of the fourth floor and a Christmastime attraction known as “Roof Rides”—carnival-style entertainment on the roof of both the downtown and the Stonestown stores. The place vanished into the mists with other long-gone retailers in 1995.

  FILLMORE AUDITORIUM. Built in 1912 at the southwest corner of Geary and Fillmore, the Majestic Dance Hall operated as a neighborhood spot for years. Renamed the Fillmore Auditorium in 1954, the site became known as the home of San Francisco rock music under Bill Graham from 1965 to 1968. Owing to encroaching neighborhood demolitions by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, Graham relocated his site to Market and South Van Ness, calling the new location Fillmore West. In 1994, the original Fillmore reopened as a music venue.

  FLEISHHACKER POOL. A civic improvement donated to the people of San Francisco in 1925 by banker-philanthropist Hubert Fleishhacker. With a capacity of 6.5 million gallons of heated seawater, it was one of the largest outdoor pools in the world—so big that lifeguards patrolled in rowboats! Sadly, other entertainment destinations came along in the post–World War II era, and the city began neglecting maintenance, citing rising costs and declining attendance. After a January 1971 storm damaged pool equipment, it was converted to a freshwater pool for its final year but was closed that fall. The space remained vacant for years, until ownership was granted to the San Francisco Zoo in 1999. The old pool was filled with rock and gravel and paved over for a parking lot. The pool house, once filled with dressing rooms and laundry operations, became an encampment for the homeless until it was destroyed by fire on December 1, 2012. The burned-out shell was demolished, but the ornate arched entrance was saved and is slated to be preserved.

  FOX THEATRE. San Francisco’s grand movie palace was built on Market Street near the civic center in 1929, just as the “talkies” were sweeping the country. The Fox was the epitome of class and style, a place to get “dressed up” when visiting. Although the place had a tough time in the depths of the Great Depression, closing for a few months in the early years, it came back magnificently l
ater in the 1930s and was a treasured part of the city scene through the late 1950s. Changing tastes and the influx of television started signaling financial troubles. In November 1961, San Francisco voters went to the polls and overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have had the city take over ownership and management of the site as a convention and an entertainment venue. At that point, the writing was literally on the wall, and the beloved icon met the wrecking ball early in 1963, just as San Franciscans were beginning to understand how the past was slipping away slowly but surely.

  FRANCISCAN HOBBIES. Established on Ocean Avenue in the Ingleside just after World War II, it served the needs of model railroad enthusiasts, airplanes, battleships, racecars, action figures and everything else that is manufactured for collectors. The business was done in by changing times and tastes and the rise of the Internet, which makes finding obscure items much easier than visiting store after store. It was a good sixty-eight-year run for the owners and their loyal customers.

  GALAXY THEATRE. One of San Francisco’s newer movie houses, a four-plex costing $7 million, built on Van Ness Avenue in 1984 but closed in 2005 and demolished in 2011.

  GATEWAY CINEMA. From 1967 to 1998, the Golden Gateway development was home to a small theatre that showcased art, independent, classic and foreign films—always with an April program featuring the 1936 film San Francisco. Today, it is home to live performances.