Grab Bag #75
San Francisco stories about pencils, haunted houses, drive-ins, and one man wandering.
You know how these always start...
Guess Where
Old Betty is ready at the grill once you park.
You can get this one. Where and when is our “guess where” photo in San Francisco history? Answer below the Friends-of-Woody-line yonder below.
Woody News
I started San Francisco Story because my important San Francisco Heritage work advocating for the city’s special places ironically didn’t include much time for the fun stuff of researching and writing about history.
This email gave me that outlet on weekend mornings as I’d dip into old newspapers, photo repositories, and my eroding memory to write something for all of you to receive on Wednesdays. (I randomly picked that day, figuring you might have heightened attention mid-week.)
When Nancy (W.O.W.) and I celebrated our 30th anniversary in July we cooked up a scheme to retire from our respective busy jobs together so that we could travel and do random crazy things together before we become too fragile or skittish to try.
Lo, it has come to pass: yesterday, SF Heritage announced I will be stepping down as its president & CEO at the end of the year.
I believe SF Heritage is in a good place for this change. I am not so egotistical to think it can’t chug on without me, but I care very much about its mission and will continue to help as needed and as I am available around my sojourns to island paradises. Because special cities like San Francisco need special nonprofits like San Francisco Heritage to fight for their historic places and cultural communities.
What does this mean for you San Francisco Storians and Friends of Woody? Well, probably not much. Maybe I’ll actually have time to answer your email (I’m down to 2,064 in my personal in-box). Maybe I will plan some in-person walks and events for you. Maybe I will do a little better job writing these stories…
I am trying not to immediately book up the free time I don’t have yet, but while Nancy and I are rolling on the Flam Railway in Norway, drinking a bowl of milk tea in Ulaanbaatar, or strolling the Rambla in Montevideo, I might also write some books and focus more on my lucrative poetry career.
Here’s the latest, published in Frogpond, volume 49:2:
in the heart
of the hoarder house
sun beam
I know you didn’t sign up for all the above, so let’s get on to the regular Grab Baggery.
Haunted House Survivor on Fulton Street
I know I am days late to share something Halloweeney, but I laughed when I came across this map accompanying a San Francisco Call article from the 1890s:
Would you like your home to be known in the neighborhood not by your address or your name, but as the “Haunted House?”
The article detailed damage from an October 3, 1893 fire which started in Louis Landler’s mill and lumber yard at Divisadero and Grove streets and spread up the block almost to Alamo Square. Buried in a mid-story paragraph is the only mention of the spooky label: