Sinéad O’Connor (Shuhada’ Sadaqat) has been remembered as somebody who managed to “change pain into beauty”, by her friend Liam Ó Maonlaí.

The life of the Irish singer was celebrated at a private ceremony by family and friends before the funeral cortege travelled past her former home in Bray, Co Wicklow so thousands of fans could pay their respects before a private burial.

Singer Bob Geldof, Irish president Michael Higgins and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar were also in attendance, where Muslim funeral prayers were led by Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri, an Islamic scholar and Chief Imam at the Islamic Centre of Ireland, who met the star in 2018, the same year she converted to Islam.

Sinéad O’Connor’s friends have shared moving tributes to her on the day of her funeral(The Washington Post via Getty Im)

In a eulogy he shared online after the ceremony, Dr Umar Al-Qadri said: “The more she sang and spoke about her own pain, as well as about the pervasive sins in society that she witnessed, the more her voice and her words resonated with listeners and touched their hearts. Sinead never stopped her search to know God fully, exemplifying a life marked with a deep communion with God.

“Gifted with a voice that moved a generation of young people, she could reduce listeners to tears by her otherworldly resonance.” He added: “I know that peoples of all faiths throughout the world will be praying for this beloved daughter of Ireland, among them will be countless Muslims praying for their sister in faith and humanity.

“Sinead’s voice carried with it an undertone of hope, of finding one’s way home. The Irish people have long found solace in song from the sufferings of this lower abode, and Sinead was no exception, and in sharing that solace, she brought joy to countless people the world over.” He continued: “May her family and loved ones find solace in the outpouring of love from the corners of this earth for this unique daughter of Ireland who moved so many hearts with her mighty voice and unflinching honesty as an artist, poet, and human being.

Thousands lined the streets to say goodbye to Sinéad (Getty Images)

“Sinead had a poet’s heart and, I believe, would share with us today the sentiments of the poet, Rumi when he said: ‘This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief’.”

Roads were closed so fans could line the streets to pay their respects as the hearse bearing O’Connor’s coffin passed by her former home on the seafront. As it stopped outside the property, Montebello, in the seaside town where she lived for 15 years, there was a moment of silence but for the rest of the procession, fans applauded and threw flowers. The coffin itself was covered in blue and pink flowers.

A Volkswagen camper van decorated with the Pride flag and the Rastafarian flag drove in front of the hearse, with O’Connor’s songs playing from speakers mounted on the roof including her biggest hit from 1990, Nothing Compares 2 U. Fans, some who travelled from around the world, started gathering early in the morning outside the home to wait for the cortege to pass by.

Liam Ó Maonlaí, a friend of Sinéad’s paid tribute while outside her former home(PA)

Karnamrita Dasi, 49, a singer from San Francisco, booked a flight to Ireland as soon as she heard the news of the Irish performer’s death. She visited tributes to O’Connor around Dublin and her former Irish home in the Co Wicklow town of Bray before taking part in the gathering for the funeral procession on Tuesday, singing her hits and sharing colourful roses with other well-wishers to throw on the hearse.

“The first time I heard it (news of O’Connor’s death), I didn’t believe it and I knew I had to be with people who felt as powerfully as I did about how much of an impact she made,” she said. “It feels these days like people say rest in peace on social media, and that’s the end of someone’s remembrance. I wanted to be here to offer more than that because she gave so much to me as a young girl and my generation.”

Isabelle Ferrer travelled from Dijon in France to say farewell to the singer. Speaking outside Sinead O’Connor’s former home on Tuesday morning, she told BBC News NI the singer was her “favourite ever”. “Representing women, she was far ahead of her time, a long ago,” she said.

Sir Bob Geldof (centre) attended the service for his late friend

Bono and Edge were also in attendance

Liam Ó Maonlaí, the lead singer of Irish band Hothouse Flowers, said Sinead O’Connor would be remembered as “a great artist”. She was “willing to shake the tree a little bit, to hold a mirror up to this so-called society that we’re in”, he said, “but was also somebody who changed pain into beauty”.

Despite being in Bray to pay his respects because he was friends with his fellow singer – that didn’t mean he was spared her famously direct opinions. “She was ballsy, you know,” he told the BBC. “She came to our first gig in London and she didn’t like it. She thought I was a poser, and she made it publicly known. But then she apologised to me. She was great fun, and rooted in what music means to the human identity,” he added.

Many fans laid flowers and handwritten notes, thanking O’Connor for sharing her voice and her music. One note said: “You are forever in my heart.” A pink chair was placed outside the pink-framed conservatory of the house, with pink flowers, candles and a photo of the singer placed at the base of the chair.

Campaigners for victims of church and state abuse also remembered Sinéad who was extremely vocal about abuse which was taking place and covered up(PA)

A heart-shaped floral bouquet featured a picture of the star and two Irish flags. One sign left at the wall of the property listed causes that the singer had expressed support for, including welcoming refugees. It read: “Where words fail, music speaks.”

A neighbour was also seen putting candles on the wall that separated the two properties. Since O’Connor’s death on July 26, people have been leaving flowers and paying their respects at the house, which the singer sold in 2021 and now lies empty.

The Grammy Award-winner was found unresponsive on July 26 by police at her south-east London home at the age of 56. At the time, a coroner’s court said no medical cause of death was given and a post-mortem would be conducted.

A picture of Sinéad was displayed by her coffin(AFP via Getty Images)

The results could take “several weeks” and a decision on whether an inquest will be needed will be decided when they are known, the court added. President Michael D Higgins issued a statement after confirming he was attending the funeral yesterday.

He said: “The outpouring of grief and appreciation of the life and work of Sinead O’Connor demonstrates the profound impact which she had on the Irish people. “The unique contribution of Sinead involved the experience of a great vulnerability combined with a superb, exceptional level of creativity that she chose to deliver through her voice, her music and her songs.

“The expression of both, without making any attempt to reduce the one for the sake of the other, made her contribution unique – phenomenal in music terms, but of immense heroism. However, achieving this came from the one heart and the one body and the one life, which extracted an incredible pain, perhaps one too much to bear. That is why all those who are seeking to make a fist of their life, combining its different dimensions in their own way, can feel so free to express their grief at her loss.”

O’Connor is survived by three children, Jake, Roisin and Yeshua.

The post Sinead O’Connor ‘modified ache into magnificence’ says pal in shifting tribute to late icon appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Southport Landing Villa Aerial, 444 Phelan Rd., Loleta, CA

Located in Loleta near Humboldt Bay

Southport Landing is almost magical in both its setting and its design. It is a timelessly classic property that can transport you to another time and a beautiful dimension.”

— Jon Witkop

EUREKA, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, April 26, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — Jon Witkop and Michelle Rowland of the Eureka office of Corcoran Icon Properties have just completed the completion of the historic Southport Landing mansion at 444 Phelan Road in beautiful Loleta, California. listed . Just five miles north of Eureka, the property is near the southern waterway of Humboldt Bay.

Charles Heney was the original owner of the land and it was part of his farming operations. Heney had come to San Francisco from New Brunswick with the gold rush of 1849 and then ended up in Eureka in 1855. He opened a general store and became a postmaster before buying Southport Ranch. His dream included developing Southport as a town and as a shipping point for the farming community. He built a railroad in 1885 to facilitate the transportation of goods to market. However, weather and circumstances were against the plan, and he was out of business by 1885. His son William, proprietor of the Humboldt Times in Eureka, moved to the area and completed the Colonial Revival house down a country lane, moving to Southport in 1901 with his large family.

The home sits on 2.84 acres with majestic views of the bay, pastureland and cypress forests. The three-story, 5,400-square-foot home includes eight bedrooms, four bathrooms, a study, recreation room, dining room, kitchen, laundry room, and living room — a total of 20 rooms, all with stunning views of the dramatic surroundings. Like a step back in time, the graceful staircase, the shiny patina of the wooden floors, the lighting fixtures, the detailed fittings and the spacious veranda reflect all the luxury and history of the building.

As the family grew and moved on, the house fell into disrepair for some time. Then, in 1987, a new owner restored the mansion, bringing it back to its former glory with modern wiring, plumbing, and sheetrock. Subsequent owners renovated it and opened it as a bed and breakfast in 1997.

Southport Landing is a registered historic home on the shores of Humboldt Bay, built around the turn of the century. Once a haven for weary ship captains, this early colonial residence was the center of the community of Southport, a railroad and shipping port that connected the Eel River basin to San Francisco. Now hiking, kayaking, biking, bird watching and beach combing are all easily accessible.

“Southport Landing is almost magical in both its setting and its design,” commented Witkop, Listing Agent. “It is a timeless classic property that can transport you to another time and beautiful dimension.” The home is listed at $1,275,000. Witkop can be reached at 707.515.6683 or jon.witkop@corcoranicon.com. And Rowland can be reached at 707.599.9446 or michelle.rowland@corcoranicon.com.

About the characteristics of Corcoran symbols
Corcoran Icon Properties is a 100 percent locally owned and 100 percent locally managed real estate brokerage business located in Northern California. Corcoran Icon Properties is comprised of eight partnership real estate companies and is a subsidiary of Corcoran Group, LLC, which is independently owned and operated. With 25 office locations in 10 counties, the 900+ professional sales associates are well positioned to serve loyal customers in the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, East Bay, Wine Country, Sierra Foothills and Humboldt County. Corcoran Icon Properties is a proud member of Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate, the largest international luxury real estate network, to continue growing its global network and audience for upscale homes and estates. From beautiful homes and investment properties to vacation getaways and primary residences, Corcoran Icon Properties has the experience, insight and expertise to meet and exceed client’s highest expectations. Visit CorcoranIcon.com for more information.

Melody Foster
Properties of the Corcoran symbol
+1 (650) 578-0200
email us here

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No list of iconic San Francisco figures would be complete without House of Prime Rib’s Joe Betz — one of the city’s longest-running restaurateurs. 

At 83, he’s a living history book, filled with pages that are lovingly inscribed with remarkable San Francisco tales from his time running an enormously popular discotheque in the Transamerica Pyramid to presiding over one of the city’s flagship restaurants for more than a third of a century. 

‘I do not come from a golden spoon’

House of Prime Rib’s gold-accented, wooden front doors are still locked before dinner service on a recent Thursday afternoon, when a spry gentleman wearing a crisp blue and red patterned button-up and dark denim smiles from behind its glass windows. He unlocks the entrance and welcomes me inside the acclaimed restaurant that’s been known for its well-marbled cuts of prime rib and chilled martinis since 1949.

(from left to right) Soun Manyvong, Saifon Manyvong, Terry Manyvong, and Kim Manyvong enjoy a family night out at the House of Prime Rib on the first night of its reopening, Wednesday, March 4, 2021.

Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE

San Francisco just reopened indoor dining. Here’s what House of Prime Rib was like on the first night.

Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE

A server cuts slices of prime rib at the House of Prime Rib in San Francisco, Calif. on July 6, 2022.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

San Francisco just reopened indoor dining. Here’s what House of Prime Rib was like on the first night.

Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE

Photos: Patricia Chang / Special to SFGATE
Photos: Patricia Chang / Special to SFGATE

As we walk past tables draped in white fabric and garnished with pristine glassware perfectly set, Betz invites me into one of HOPR’s wine rooms, where he sits, surrounded by thousands of dark olive bottles (some dating back to 1932) that somehow aren’t covered in a single speck of dust.

Behind a pair of soft blue eyes, the man known for his generous philanthropy during the annual HOPR Christmas Eve lunch hosted at Glide Memorial Church, unfolds his deep adoration for the Van Ness institution and describes his role in its 73-year legacy. 

San Francisco just reopened indoor dining. Here’s what House of Prime Rib was like on the first night.

Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE

“Prime rib is a comfort food. When the economy goes down, you don’t have the money to go for ‘experience food,’” he candidly said. “You want to go somewhere where you know you’ll get your money’s worth — and that’s what we are — and we stay that way.” 

Born in Bavaria, Betz began working in restaurants in Munich when he was 14 years old. Before he purchased HOPR in 1985 from its original owner, Lou Balaski, he waited tables at Hoffman’s Grill, a no-fuss diner and historic landmark at 619 Market St. between New Montgomery and 2nd streets. At just 28 years old, Betz ended up buying Hoffman’s in 1968 and became the city’s youngest restaurateur. 

“It was an American restaurant and it had a big bar. Needless to say, being there for so long at that time, it was running down,” Betz described. “… Don’t forget, I was 28 when I opened. I mean, I had very little money. I was worried how I was going to pay my bills, but I stuck it out. I had a wife and two kids, so I worked a little harder.”

Joe Betz, the owner of SF’s House of Prime Rib, poses for a photo in the wine room of the restaurant in San Francisco on July 6, 2022.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Betz said he welcomed all walks of life into Hoffman’s. It was during a time when political tensions ran high, and anti-Vietnam War protests roared loudly from Washington, D.C., and throughout the Bay Area. But despite that, Betz remembers calling down to Letterman Army Hospital at the Presidio to offer his hospitality. 

“During the time with the protests, I invited always on Thursdays at Hoffman’s, four wounded soldiers for lunch as my guest — every Thursday,” he said. “One day, a guy comes in with a wheelchair, and the guy looked at me and said, ‘Mr. Betz, do you remember me?’ and I said, ‘Maybe I should, but I’m sorry I don’t.’”

The soldier remembered as a boy, Betz visited his home with his father to watch a program on their new color TV. As he recalled the memory, it came flooding back to Betz, too. At the time, Betz said he worked two to three jobs before he purchased Hoffman’s, and recalls taking a break between one of his many shifts to pass the time at his friend’s place. 

An interior dining room at the House of Prime Rib in San Francisco on July 6, 2022.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

“He was a young kid, and then he went into the military and then he stepped on a land mine and it blew his legs,” Betz solemnly said. “So I could understand why people protest.” 

But Betz also said he respects different opinions on such sensitive topics, acknowledging that a person’s upbringing and life experiences play major roles in shaping their beliefs.

“If you come from a family who’s struggling, you may have a more different opinion about people who struggle — and you may be more sympathetic,” he said. “If you come from something with a golden spoon, then maybe you don’t understand. I do not come from a golden spoon, because I’ve been working since I’m 14.” 

While Betz said he certainly did not agree with the Vietnam War, or any war for that matter, he has always felt a duty to feed those in need — no matter their background. For him, every person who walks through his doors deserves respect.

Three generations of the Betz family serving up delicious prime rib on Christmas Eve.

Alain McLaughlin

One Sunday, Betz recalls attending service at Glide Memorial Church, where he was struck by the morning’s teachings about “hope, not class differences,” when he decided to begin donating his efforts to the organization. Now a nearly 30-year tradition, HOPR has donated thousands of meals to the community during the holidays, which includes cuts of its signature, dry-aged beef and sides such as honey-lemon broccoli, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls and eclairs.

“We serve a couple of thousand people at Christmas Eve,” he said. “We’re not just donating it, but my sons and I and my grandchildren are there serving it because I want my grandchildren to see there are two sides of the world — and people work very hard.” 

‘You could shoot a cannon through it’ 

As Hoffman’s became a Market Street staple well into the ’70s, Betz also ran all of the food operations inside the tallest building in San Francisco’s skyline at the time, the Transamerica Pyramid, including catering and a coffee shop known as the Bank Exchange. While there, Betz saw an opportunity when night blanketed the 48-story skyscraper. 

“In 1978, you could shoot a cannon through it and it wouldn’t hit anybody at night,” Betz said. “So I put a discotheque in there, and it became one of the top five in the country.” 

He dubbed this venture the Park Exchange, a gazebo-like glass structure on the ground floor with a sophisticated sound system. It launched a year after the famous celebrity-clad Studio 54 nightclub debuted in New York, and “was the No. 1 liquor seller among discos in Northern California — a whopping $64,000 a month,” according to an article from the SF Examiner in 1979.

A 1979 advertisement for the Park Exchange Supper Disco in the Transamerica Pyramid.

San Francisco Examiner

An earlier account from the Examiner reported that Betz also acquired a Rolls-Royce for the Park Exchange, where the “best-dressed couple” and “best-dressed disco lady” won the chance to be chauffeured around for the city for the day in all its luxury before ending their night at the club. 

Yet there was one stark difference between Betz’s popular dance hall and the cocaine-fueled parties at Studio 54. 

“I think the success in that one is a simple one. I don’t use drugs. I drink maybe sometimes too much, but I don’t use drugs and never did. And so, I had a very dislike for these pushers,” Betz said. “I don’t care what people do, but I had very close connections with the police department and with the narcotics [unit], so they helped me out to assure me the place was clean.” 

There were two dance floors and an enclosed game room in the center of all the action, and late-night suppers were served to keep guests well fed as they danced the night away to some of the era’s most popular music from the Bee Gees to Donna Summer.

“So you could go there with your parents, for example, or with somebody, and not worry about being in a raid,” he said. “We had some big celebrities there and big political figures because of that.” 

Notable figures included the king of Malaysia, three Saudi princes and one sultan. The governor of Guam even brought his son to Park Exchange for a college graduation party, according to the Examiner. 

As disco faded and left traces of glitter in its wake, San Francisco experienced more growth, with historic buildings being revamped throughout the city. But instead of demolishing entire landmarks, city planners would leave the facade of their presence on the outside, while they became trendy new businesses and housing developments on the inside.

Hoffman’s Grill entrance, 619 Market between 2nd Street and New Montgomery, taken on the last day of business June 29, 1984. Despite its landmark status, the building was demolished with only its facade preserved.

OpenSFHistory / wnp32.3426 / Courtesy Emiliano Echeverria

Although recognized as a historic landmark in 1981, Hoffman’s was ultimately closed in 1984 and gutted, making way for big high-rises that were erected around the Edwardian-style building. 

An article from the San Francisco Chronicle archives describes the days leading up to Hoffman’s demolishment, a mainstay at 619 Market St. since 1913. 

“Historic Hoffman’s Grill, last relic of the pre-World War I restaurants on Market Street, closed June 29 with toasts to a vanished era,” the article described. “Hearty German fare, salty waiters, generous drinks and authentic atmosphere of stained glass, murky paintings and slow fans — that was Hoffman’s.” 

Hoffman’s Grill interior, 619 Market between 2nd Street and New Montgomery, taken on the last day of business, June 29, 1984.

OpenSFHistory / wnp32.3430 / Courtesy Emiliano Echeverria

Betz was 44 years old at the time of the shift, but the end of Hoffman’s wasn’t without its silver lining. According to the Chronicle’s article, Betz and his former wife Heide received a $3 million dollar settlement to vacate the beloved restaurant so that it could make way for a new office building. 

“We were lucky that we had a great lease, so they had to buy us out,” Betz said. “So it was actually a very good ending. I miss Hoffman’s more emotionally than financially.” 

‘I live this place’ 

Back inside HOPR, the evening’s bartender starts taking inventory of his ingredients before the restaurant opens for cocktail hour at 4:30 p.m. Betz’s son, Steven Betz, is seen zipping about the aisles making sure everything is just so before dipping behind the scenes to the kitchen. 

Joe points Steven out, acknowledging that he couldn’t run HOPR without him and noting that he’s just as passionate about the family-run business as his father. The two recently flew out to Chicago in June for the James Beard Awards, where HOPR was one of five finalists in the country in the “Outstanding Hospitality” category.

A waiter takes an order from customers in the dining room at the House of Prime Rib in San Francisco, Calif. on July 6, 2022.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

“I live this place. And, I’m very fortunate I have my son here. He’s doing a great job with how things are going,” Betz said. “Steven and I went [to the awards] together, and I realized that I wouldn’t be there without him, and I’m very fortunate that he has the same interest that I have.” 

Less than a year after Hoffman’s shuttered, Betz immediately jumped back into the restaurant business with HOPR in 1985. He completely remodeled his newly purchased restaurant to bring it into a new era, where it would no longer stick to its former coat-and-tie dress code and he would also remove the high booths that boxed in its guests. 

He tore everything out from floor to ceiling, put in a new kitchen and retained HOPR’s original back-of-the-house crew and brought in some familiar Hoffman’s servers to operate the front of house. He describes the bare bones layout as very much the same as it was in 1949, it’s just been updated to give its five dining rooms a fresh look that he said is a bit more feminine in nature. 

Customers enter the House of Prime Rib in San Francisco on July 6, 2022.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

“We just recently repainted everything. It’s a constant upgrade. We don’t want to be stale,” Betz said. “When you’re around for so many years, sometimes you don’t see dirt grow. Later on today, somebody’s going to come around and change the light fixtures.” 

Before Betz took over the restaurant, he said HOPR was only churning out about 75 dinners a night. Now, the famed prime rib hotspot easily dishes out 600 plates during evening service — and that’s considered a slow night. 

“When you’re in the business, and dealing with so many people, you have to like it and you become emotional,” he said. “I’m going to be 83 in two days, and I still love what I’m doing. I don’t like it. I love it. You’re emotionally involved. It’s not just a bank account. It’s an emotion.” 

Left to right, House of Prime Rib executive chef Doug Braun and owner Joe Betz pose for a photo in the meat locker of the restaurant in San Francisco on July 6, 2022.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Betz often meets with his employees to reinforce that as long as he’s buying the best, top-quality beef in the country, he expects them to do the best they can while serving it to customers. Sides such as mashed or baked potatoes, creamed corn and spinach are all basic accompaniments that Betz says his customers are quite fond of, but there is one recipe at HOPR that is anything but ordinary. 

“What’s not basic is our house salad dressing. To make the dressing, at the base, you have to almost ferment it and from the beginning to table ready is about 10 days,” he said, before cracking a playful smile. “It’s a creamy dressing, based in sherry and apple vinegar. If I tell you the secret, I’d have to kill you.” 

And while other fancy steakhouses don’t always cater to children and the younger generation, Betz is there to welcome them to a seat at his table. He’s watched generations of families grow up through the decades, a true testament to HOPR’s longevity. 

“It’s an institution. Before my father took it over, we used to come here,” Steven said. “So as a child, before I had anything to do with the restaurant, we used to come here as children. A lot of San Francisco, I’d imagine, has done the same thing.” 

House of Prime Rib on the night San Francisco reopened indoor dining, March 4, 2021.

Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE

After nearly 40 years, Betz is admittedly his own biggest critic and says the moment a business owner doesn’t find something to perfect or to tweak, that means they’re on their way out — and he doesn’t plan to retire anytime soon. 

“My job is not to bask in glory,” Betz said. “My job is to keep things going as best as we can.” 

House of Prime Rib, 1906 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. Open Monday through Friday, 5 p.m.-10 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 4 p.m.-10 p.m.

The post How Home of Prime Rib’s Joe Betz grew to become a San Francisco icon appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Bay Area tech icon Keith Rabois announced he’s leaving San Francisco permanently — and he is criticizing the city on his way out.

Rabois, an early executive at PayPal, Square, LinkedIn and more, told Fortune he is “moving imminently” because he’s finding it “impossible to stay” in San Francisco. After living in the Bay Area for 20 years, he said he plans on moving to Florida.

“I think San Francisco is just so massively improperly run and managed that it’s impossible to stay here,” Rabois told Fortune. He told the publication other friends in his peer group have done the same, and a look at his Twitter account shows multiple tweets about the so-called San Francisco exodus.

yes https://t.co/j4kMcUCahy

— Keith Rabois (@rabois) November 19, 2020

Rabois is a legend in Silicon Valley as an investor and a tech exec. He rose to prominence as part of the PayPal Mafia, a group of early PayPal employees including Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who have since become big names in the industry.

His Glen Park residence was the subject of local headlines in 2017 when he submitted a proposed renovation to the city. Rabois bought two properties on Everson Street with plans to add a gym, basketball court and sauna to one. Neighbors were worried he was creating a tech compound a la Mark Zuckerberg and went so far as to create a website to protest his plans.

Rabois is hardly the only person to make the move from San Francisco during the coronavirus pandemic. In August, real estate site Zillow released its 2020 Urban-Suburban Market Report, which showed inventory in San Francisco rose 96% year-over-year.

“It may be tempting to credit the city of San Francisco’s inventory boom to the advent of remote work that came with the pandemic, but one only has to look at to San Jose to question that narrative,” Zillow economist Josh Clark told SFGATE in August . “The San Jose metro, which like the city of SF is dominated by tech workers, has not seen a similar rise. Two things that could drive the difference are San Francisco’s density and its smaller share of family households.”

The post Tech icon criticizes San Francisco, declares transfer to Florida: ‘Inconceivable to remain right here’ appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

In late August of last year, a ruptured water valve flooded San Francisco’s Sigmund Stern Recreation Grove with 700,000 gallons of water, destroying its meadows. The deluge spared the Trocadero Inn, but the park is still closed, leaving the storied roadhouse standing empty once more.

The Trocadero Inn – once San Francisco’s most notorious Wild West hideout – looks much the same today as it did 130 years ago, but its surroundings couldn’t have changed more.

Back then, the city’s seven by seven miles were not lined with streets and houses; in fact, until the 20th century, the entire Sunset District was mostly sand dunes and coastal scrub, sparsely populated with squatters and homesteads. West of Twin Peaks, the pavement ended, and save for some bridle paths heading to Ocean Beach, the land – known as the Outside Lands – was largely untouched.

This 1887 map of San Francisco shows the young city’s limits.

Historical city map of San Francisco and surroundings, California, USA. 1897.

ZU_09/Getty Images

In 1847 — a year before the discovery of gold in the Sierra was announced on the streets of San Francisco — a pioneer named George Greene and his five brothers made it to San Francisco, from Maine, to claim a swath of farmland north of Lake Merced . The brothers shipped their house from Maine, all the way around Chile’s Cape Horn, to their 400 acres.

The family lived quietly off the land as San Francisco, built on the abandoned ships and wild streets of the Barbary Coast, grew over the hills in the northwestern corner of the peninsula. In the 1870s, two miles north of their land, Scottish horticulturalist John McLaren was starting to realize his dream of a giant park to rival Central Park, planting over 150,000 trees and seeding lush meadows from Stanyan Street to the ocean. The land south of Golden Gate Park started to look attractive to developers, and an attempted grab of the Greenes’ homestead led to an epic, brutal battle straight out of a western.

The story goes that David Mahoney, owner of the vast Rancho Laguna de La Merced around what is now Daly City, attempted to expand his property north of Lake Merced into the canyon that now houses the Stern Grove amphitheater. The Greenes were squatters, and Mahoney won the land in court. But when the family refused to relinquish the property, Mahoney led a group of hired men to grab Greene’s home.

Greene gathered together a posse as Mahoney’s men made their way up the canyon. The family built a metal-lined fort surrounded by eucalyptus trees and held it for a long, violent three months.

(An interesting aside, Greene is credited/blamed for being the first to plant Australian eucalyptus in San Francisco. He reportedly also planted the invasive species in what is now Sutro Forest and much of the Presidio.)

“We built a fort, just east of where the Trocadero Inn is now, and we lined it with metal. We stood watch day and night, and Dad hired the best Indian fighter in the West,” Greene’s son, George Greene Jr. later remembered of the siege.”Then we planted the fence around the land with sticks of dynamite — and let ’em come, we said.”

The Stern Grove Concert Meadow was the site of a bloody three-month siege in the 1880s.

Fiona Lee/SFGATE

Greene Jr. said that his small army’s victory came from “shooting low, in the stomach, for it would take two men to carry them away.” Greene Jr.’s wife Susanna shot at Mahoney’s men as her children clung to her skirts, and dynamite was lit in the canyon. Mahoney was defeated.

The victory was made official in 1887 by the Supreme Court, when the family was granted the land they had farmed and defended for 40 years. It was then Greene decided to build a roadhouse.

The inn, built in 1892, is thought to be the oldest structure still standing west of Twin Peaks. The gabled building with its Hansel and Gretel eaves and yellow walls has been described as “an exuberant example of Stick-Eastlake architecture,” topped with fish-scale tiles, a square cupola and flagpole.

Greene’s vision was to provide a classy family destination for weekenders heading to Lake Merced from the city, or a pit stop for moneyed families traveling from the ritzy neighborhoods of Belmont and Atherton on the peninsula to San Francisco.

Tenants included millionaire lumberman CA Hooper and sugar magnate Adolph Spreckels. But it was when a man named Hiram Cook, described as a “prize fight referee and man-about-town,” took over the joint around the turn of the century that the Trocadero became an adult playground.

Outside of the resort’s celebrated trout fishing and deer hunting, dancing, drinking and high-stakes poker became the order of the day, and night, at the Trocadero.

The Trocadero Inn, San Francisco. 1920

OpenSFHistory

In the 1960s, an old timer told the San Francisco Examiner that they remembered nights visiting “The Troc” at the turn of the century via a heavily curtained charter trolley that ran down the Market Street Railway.

Lovers would row Pine Lake in the afternoons, as sportsmen caught trout and shot deer, before descending on the roadhouse and nearby pavilion to drink, dance and fight the night away.

Isolated in the distant dunes — far from downtown’s police officers, who had their hands full ridding (or partaking in) the vice of Pacific Avenue — brawls, fires and gunfights became regular spectacles at the roadhouse as the elite rendezvous became a house of ill- repute

Stories from the era speak to the notoriety of the area.

One troubling tale came in 1897, when innkeeper Earnest Dolter brought a bear to the inn to amuse guests with its “antics.” While Dolter and his friends “tied it to a tree and went into the saloon to have a drink” to prepare for the fun, the animal escaped and “trotted away to have fun all by itself.” Residents were warned in the morning paper that the bear had not been found, and though friendly, “if a nervous person should come face to face with it, the consequences may be serious.”

The night of April 8, 1902, a woman named Mrs. Eva Miller and her daughter vanished after leaving the Trocadero to make their way back to the city. “It is a lonely place out there near Ingleside,” a distressed sister told the Examiner. “And there are a lot of rough men in that neighborhood.” After a two-day search, the mother and daughter were happily later found in a Tenderloin boarding house, but refused to speak of the details of the night.

In 1907, when the city was still reeling from the earthquake and fire the year prior, one of the most infamous politicians in San Francisco history hid out at the Trocadero as cops scoured the city for him.

Abe Ruef was a political boss who, for years, puppeteered power in City Hall through bribing supervisors while shamelessly campaigning on ridding the city of corruption. After the earthquake, while Ruef was directing his power brokers to stop Chinese residents from returning to “the desirable area that Chinatown occupied,” he was indicted on municipal graft. But he didn’t go down easy, and went on the lam.

On March 8, 1907, Ruef was found and arrested at the Trocadero, where he hid with a “henchman” named Cerf. The SFPD sting was described in the Examiner the following day.

“Early last evening three automobiles carrying eight men went chug chug chugging out the muddy Ingleside road toward Trocadero … the house was surrounded and every avenue of escape guarded,” the account read.

Over the years, stories of gunfights and Ruef’s arrest have merged into one. The truth is that while Ruef’s right-hand man was reportedly wrestled to the ground after a detective got his foot in the door, Ruef himself was much more cordial. “As soon as the door was opened we pushed our way in. We greeted Ruef and he asked us to have a drink. There was no fuss as far as he was concerned,” the Examiner wrote.

(Other historical accounts state that the bullet holes were still visible today in the front door and hall stairs, in fact, the result of a drunken duel over “a beautiful senorita.”)

After a long drive back to the city in a police wagon, Ruef spent the following night in the St. Francis Hotel under guard. He was later sentenced to 14 years in San Quentin, after a grand jury returned 65 indictments against him for bribing city supervisors.

After a lifetime of bloody victories, celebrity tenants, shootouts, wayward bears and political outlaws-in-hiding, Greene grew tired of the Trocadero’s life on the edge of San Francisco. When Prohibition became law in 1920, he shuttered the roadhouse. “I didn’t want a bootlegger situation there,” he said.

In 1931, Greene Jr. sold the property to a philanthropist named Rosalie Mayer Stern, who generously turned the unique corner of San Francisco and surrounding land over the city. The park was named in honor of her husband, Sigmund Stern. In 1938, she launched the park’s free summer music festival as Stern Grove truly became part of the city.

In the 1980s, the Trocadero was restored to match its first iteration. Architect Tom Hardy found “evidence of numerous fires caused by the brawls and shenanigans of the hard-drinking crowd” from nearly a century prior. The restorer chose to leave the bullet holes he discovered in the walls.

Last year, a group called Parkside Heritage initiated a campaign to designate the Trocadero a historic landmark.

In his 80s, after selling his roadhouse to the Sterns, Greene Jr. walked into the San Francisco Chronicle newsroom and told stories of the inn’s glory days: The time a federal marshal brought a posse of 22 men to take his land when his father was away, but they were deterred when his “mother barricaded the house and threatened to spill a vat of scalding water on the men if they ventured near.”

“But now the place is in good hands,” Greene Jr. said. “I guess that all the shooting and the fighting was worthwhile.”

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