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Period piece: The San Francisco prostitute march of 1917

10.26.11 - 2:53 pm | Lucy Schiller |
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Prostitutes at Church: "Prostitutes Attending a Church Meeting in the Barbary Coast District," Jan. 25, 1917
Drawing of Paul Smith from the May 14, 1916 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle
"Busy nighttime scene on Pacific St. in the Barbary Coast District," 1913
"Group of women sitting together, Barbary Coast," 1890. All photos via SF Public Library
"The Ladies, Barbary Coast," 1890

One morning in January 1917, 300 prostitutes marched into the church of their biggest detractor, Reverend Paul J. Smith. They were ready to show the anti-vice crusader what they were made of. The women were organizing in the face of what had become a decades-long dwindling of their rights, spearheaded by the reverend himself.

The world’s oldest profession flourished in brothels all over the city during the Gold Rush, thanks to all those lonely 49ers. But sex work has never been uncontroversial -- and the local practice quickly accumulated its own critics.

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Halloween 2011

Boo! Ghost hunts, spectre detectives, zombie flicks, a haunted map of SF, complete halloween events, and more to scare the pants off ya. 

10.26.11 - 11:29 am |
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Ghost Hunt! On this week's cover, the spirits of Johnny Venetti, Jasmine Donaldson, and Jackie Andrews haunt meddling kids Caitlin Donohue, Marcus Banshee, and Walter Gomez on the Kink.com Armory's Upper Floor (NSFW). Photo by Matthew Reamer, concept by Mirissa Neff. 

This year we're doin' it up (f)right for halloween with an issue full of ectoplamic boo-ness. Fear our terrifyingly bad puns!Read more »

A quick and spooky guide to haunted San Francisco

Join us as we delve into the sctoplasmic mysteries of our fair peninsula with this spectral map and slideshow

10.26.11 - 10:34 am | Lucy Schiller |
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Sutro Baths (No. 1)
Lincoln Park Golf Course (No. 2)
Columbarium (No. 3)
Stow Lake (No. 4)
Pioneer Mother statue at Stow Lake (No. 4)
San Francisco Art Institute Bell Tower (No. 5)
USS Hornet with ghost fleet (No. 6)
Manrow House (No. 7)

"Even in their graves Californians are happy," posits a 1922 Chronicle article. "[Ghosts] don't go at all with a land of sunshine and flowers." This may have been a slight simplification. With a history full of calamity and a climate ruled by fog, San Francisco seems a good spot for a haunting or two. In fact, our city holds a multitude of spooky spots. From golf course to aircraft carrier, some of San Francisco's less expected haunts continue to incite shivers. (Lucy Schiller)Read more »

The great Pacific Heights Ghost Hunt

Trailing Alta Plaza spooks with tour guide Jim Fassbinder

10.26.11 - 10:27 am | Lucy Schiller |
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With his bedazzled fanny pack, kerosene lantern, Civil War-era boots, calf-brushing leather jacket and windswept gray mane, Jim Fassbinder looks like any weathered San Francisco character. Listen to him wax poetic on Mary Ellen Pleasant or Gertrude Atherton, though, and you'll realize you're talking to a man with a serious passion. To Fassbinder, these gals aren't only appealing for their work as (respectively) an abolitionist and a feminist novelist. Their lingering spirits are the real draw.Read more »

45 years of printing the news and raising hell

10.19.11 - 5:19 pm | Tim Redmond |
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Volume One, Number One, Oct. 27, 1966
Dec. 19, 1967, an investigative report into the unfairness of local draft boards
Feb. 7, 1968, the untold story of the Examiner and Chronicle business merger
Jan 17, 1974, the nation's first local "best of" issue starts a national trend
June 18, 1968, kicks off a decades-long campaign against the "Manhattanization of San Francisco."
May 22, 1969, "The dicks from Superchron" shows how the Chronicle hired private detectives to tail critics of KRON-TV's relicens
Nov. 15, 1974, how the growing gay community was building an out-of-the-closet culture.
Aug. 18, 1978, "The ins and outs of buying a house, paying taxes, having kids"
Jan. 10, 1979, how Dianne Feinstein "moved in for the kill against the elderly, the artists and SF's architectural heritage"
March 28, 1979. A disco haters dance guide; need we say more?
May 23, 1979, how the DA bungled the prosecution for the murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone.
Jan. 13, 1988, the largest-type headline in Guardian history exposes how Feinstein was selling the city to PG&E
Oct. 18, 1987, our election issue demonstrated the stakes in the mayor's race.
Oct. 25, 1989, we report on the Loma Prieta earthquake — and how it caught the city unprepared.
Dec. 3, 1997, we feature a young, up-and-coming band called Sleater-Kinney
Jan 17, 2001, an investigation into the improper incarceration of John Tennison led to his release from state prison
July 26, 2006, renowned artist Mona Caron presents a futuristic image of a new San Francisco in our Best of the Bay issue
May 20, 2009, a piece on Afro-Surrealism features a new design that restores the original logo

 

When the Bay Guardian produced its first issue in October, 1966, the paper described itself as "a fortnightly journal of news, analysis and opinion." Circulation was soon running at 20,000 copies. Read more »

Period Piece: A Carnegie library reopens in the Marina

10.14.11 - 12:38 pm | Lucy Schiller |
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Period Piece is Lucy Schiller's recurring feature on the hidden histories of San Francisco. Give her a shout at culture@sfbg.com if you know of some hot dirt on olden times in the city

About a hundred years ago, Andrew Carnegie was giving away most of the money he had amassed from a gargantuan steel empire. Eight libraries in San Francisco directly resulted from Carnegie’s efforts, including the Marina's Golden Gate Valley branch – the recipient of a much needed facelift that concluded last week. Read more »

Period Piece: Life and death at the Columbarium

10.05.11 - 3:28 pm | Lucy Schiller |
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The Columbarium. Guardian photo by Lucy Schiller
Urns at the Columbarium. Guardian photo by Lucy Schiller
Urns at the Columbarium. Guardian photo by Lucy Schiller
Interior of the Columbarium. Guardian photo by Lucy Schiller
Interior of the rotunda at the Columbarium. Guardian photo by Lucy Schiller
Interior of the Columbarium. Guardian photo by Lucy Schiller
Wall made of gravestones at the Columbarium. Guardian photo by Lucy Schiller
Interior of the Columbarium. Guardian photo by Lucy Schiller
Exhuming bodies at the site of the Columbarium in the 1930s. Photo courtesy SF Public Library
Exhuming bodies in the 1930s. Photo courtesy SF Public Library
Exhuming bodies at the site of the Columbarium in the 1930s. Photo courtesy SF Public Library
The Ocean Beach seawall, made of gravestones. Photo courtesy SF Public Library
Richmond District cementaries. Photo courtesy of SF Public Library

“This place scared the crap out of me,” says Emmitt Watson, caretaker, historian, and tour guide at the San Francisco Columbarium, the only nondenominational spot in San Francisco to be laid to rest. “When I opened the doors, the first thing I saw were two raccoons.”

The Columbarium is a remnant of an earlier era in San Francisco, an era when everything west of Laurel Heights was pretty much a huge graveyard. Built in 1898, the building with a stone rotunda was a landmark in a sea of headstones. Read more »

Period Piece: Mission Creek houseboat community rocks with the tides

09.30.11 - 10:59 am | Lucy Schiller |
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China Basin and Mission Creek Channel, 1955. Photo courtesy San Francisco Public Library
Mission Creek houseboat community. Photo by Lucy Schiller
Mission Creek houseboat community. Photo by Lucy Schiller
Mission Creek houseboat community. Photo by Lucy Schiller
Mission Creek houseboat community. Photo by Lucy Schiller

Period Piece is Lucy Schiller's recurring feature on the hidden histories of San Francisco. Give her a shout at culture@sfbg.com if you know of some hot dirt on olden times in the city

Few wander into Mission Creek’s small houseboat community. It’s hard to find, unless you live in the luxury condos across the channel or are tailgating in a nearby parking lot for a Giants game. But tucked under the I-280 ramp floats a tiny neighborhood, an undiscovered fixture of San Francisco. Read more »

Legends of the underground

Gehenna's Mike Apocalypse doesn't care what you think

09.27.11 - 5:00 pm | Emily Savage |
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emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC "There are people like us who decide we no longer want to deal with what is fed to us through commercial forces," says infamous hardcore singer Mike Apocalypse, "We strive to create new things — if I couldn't create new music, I would fall apart in a month's time."Read more »

San Francisco Smut Map

SEX ISSUE: A peep at our fair city's filthy-gorgeous history

09.20.11 - 10:20 pm | Michael Stabile |
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culture@sfbg.com

SEX ISSUE 2011 In 1969, San Francisco became the first city in the country to permit the exhibition and sale of hardcore pornography. Although "permit" isn't exactly right. The city's vice squad (with the help of Supervisor Dianne Feinstein) fought it every step of the way. But by the time a rag-tag band of hippies with cameras began harnessing the Free Speech movement to challenge obscenity laws, San Francisco had already become, in the words of the New York Times, "a sort of Smut Capital of the United States."Read more »