August Newsletter
- What's Going On? Events and Activities
- SWNA News: Equitable Shelter & Our Trees
- Street View: 1223 Howard
- SOMA Name Dropping: Harriet & Russ
This Month's Happenings
8.2 – 10-1 pm
🧰 🌿Planter Building (Volunteer Opportunity)
📍 Victoria Manalo Draves Park (Folsom & Sherman)
Itching to build something or interested in learning how? Come on out and help us beautify the children's play space at Victoria Manalo Draves Park.
Learn More
8.14 – 6-830 PM
🎥🍿SOMA Neighborhood Movie Night
📍 1140 Harrison (The Hanover Apartments)
Come enjoy snacks and watch an SF based movie with your neighbors.
RSVP
8.16 – 10-12 PM
🍎🏫 Decorate Bessie Carmichael (Volunteer Opportunity)
📍 375 7th St
Join your community in making Welcome Back posters and decorating the school for our neighborhood kids first day back to school.
Learn More
8.21 – 6-8PM
🥂Free Neighborhood Happy Hour
📍 Les Deux Amis 1288 Howard Street
Come sip and mingle at one of SOMA's newest wine bar and cafe
8.28 – 5-9 PM
🎉 SOMA Nights: Dead Night
📍 Folsom btwn Hallam & Langton
This months SOMA's night's block party theme is Dead Night so wear your best tie dye and come ready to groove.
SOMA News
Update on Equitable Shelter Distribution Ordinance
The legislation on equity for distribution of shelter and services for homelessness is one step closer to passing. There are several amendments that have been made to the legislation, of note changing the distance between sites from 1000 ft to 300 ft.
By the Numbers: The City Policy Turning SoMa's Green Alleys to Concrete
A recent framework adoption will remove 764 trees in the SoMa West CBD area. Read this thoughtful piece by Shaun to learn more about the devastating effects of these policies and how you join the fight to stop them.
Letters to SF Officials
Read our correspondence with SF officials on Neighborhood Equity & Police Boundaries
Street View: 1223 Howard The Bakery & Beyond
by David Singer
Many buildings not in the historic registers nonetheless have stories to tell. In the early 1900s at 1223 Howard Street, just a few doors from the Hibernia Brewery, was a french bakery called Golden State (or Baking); perhaps under one Louis Bascou who was accused of selling underweight loaves in 1916, and malted milk bread lacking malted milk in 1917. Under their master baker, Otto Matte, they also helped launch the Liberty Loaf, a loaf with less wheat to reduce costs in wartime. Otto Matte came from Milwaukee via Los Angeles, where he had developed bakeries, and lost almost everything in a disastrous fire. He bought the dilapidated site and modernized the plant, re-opening with a party in 1921, launching his Best Maid and RapTen breads. But by 1922 price wars led to a merger with California Baking, and another merger in 1928 into Langendorff, by which date 1223 Howard Street seems to have been a cake bakery. It's not clear when the bakery closed; there are rumors that Jefferson Airplane rehearsed there before it was converted into condos in the late 1990s. Only the lower facade remains.
SOMA Name Dropping: Harriet and Russ Street
By Cindy Casey
Harriet and Russ Streets are the result of one family.
Harriet (?-1847) was the daughter of Emanuel Charles Christian Russ, the
owner of Russ’s Gardens. Emanuel Charles Christian Russ was a silversmith, a German immigrant who had moved to San Francisco from New York City in March of 1847.
Russ quickly became one of San Francisco’s largest landowners with a
mansion at Sixth and Harrison. The family eventually founded the Russ Estate Company. They built a hotel on Montgomery Street between Pine and Bush. The hotel contained hundreds of rooms, as well as ground-floor retail stores, and
newspaper reports at the time said it hosted the who's who of California,
including prominent businessmen, politicians, and local celebrities. The
earthquake and fire of 1906 ended the hotel’s reign. In 1927, the Russ
Building was constructed on the site.
Sadly, little is known about Harriet, including her actual date of birth.