At 5-foot-7 and about 160 pounds, Jim Gallagher is a lean, gentle man with a short gray ponytail. You might never guess he holds the international powerlifting record for competitors 80 and older. He’s 86. When he was 83, Gallagher deadlifted 380 pounds, outstripping his nearest competitor by 99 pounds. Even Gallagher was surprised by ...
You might have seen his paintings and woodcuts in a bus shelter on Market Street, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, or galleries and art fairs in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Others are on display at several San Francisco housing projects, and some have sold for as much as $5,000. The artist ...
Dan Macchiarini was just six years old when his father started teaching him how to torch, solder and braze metal. Peter Macchiarini, described by some who knew him as a classic “San Francisco beatnik” and artist, mentored his son through his teen years and into adulthood. Dan – DannyMac to his friends – went on ...
Most longtime San Franciscans remember Bill Maher as a controversial city leader who was a twice-elected president of the school board, a three-term supervisor and then executive director of Parking and Traffic along with other high-profile roles. For the last 11 years. Maher has been the senior advisor to the Executive Director of the San ...
Gonzalo Guoron arrived every morning at 5:45 a.m., threw open the doors at 6 a.m., and ushered 50 to 90 tired souls up all night in the cold into the warmth of the Episcopal Church of Saint John the Evangelist. Until the pandemic closed those doors, Guoron was a hospitality monitor for the Mission District ...
As a teenager in the ‘50s, Juanita Rusev dreamed of becoming an actress in the mold of Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn. But she didn’t think she had what it takes. “I thought actresses had to be beautiful,” she said, “and I was average looking, big, gangly, and unconfident. So, she put aside that dream ...
