Special Project: City Budget Cuts
Seniors and people with disabilities fight down to the wire to save programs that serve them
As Yogi Berra once said, "it ain't over till it's over." The baseball legend was referring to sports, of course, but the adage...
Life in the Later Lane
Following in the footsteps of heroes: My visit to the cradles of Civil Rights
SF SENIORBEAT COLUMN – March 17, 1886. A date you probably never considered. Carroll County, Mississippi. A...
Nonprofit director is happy to bug you, whether you’re 2 or 92, about saving the wild
If you grow up in Los Angeles, where do you find the wild? Norm Gershenz is not...
Bass playing lawyer takes on the landlords when seniors call for help
During the day, you’ll find Thomas Drohan in court or at his law office on Mission Street....
Former SFSU teacher shifts to helping union workers build leadership abilities
Like some people need coffee, Joan Wong needs to walk – and talk. Mornings, she puts in...
Joe Edley, a three-time national champion, has been racking up great Scrabble scores for decades
Joe Edley tucks his co-authored book, “Everything Scrabble,” under his arm and surveys the room. Around him,...
Robert Wachter, the doctor who is pioneering the use of artificial intelligence to treat patients
Robert Wachter is the doctor who oversees all the other doctors at the University of California, San...
Couple beat ‘fast furniture,’ pandemic and other challenges to keep upholstery shop going for nearly 50 years
J & G Upholstery stretches back farther than it looks from the sidewalk on Balboa Street. Stacks...
As the city’s older population swells, seniors who can no longer live at home face high costs, limited choices
EDITOR'S NOTE: See full profiles of the seniors interviewed by clicking links within the story. A panoply...
Stephanie Ernst-Scott runs the last tackle shop in San Francisco. It’s been in her family for 60 years.
Walk through the doors of Gus’ Discount Fishing Tackle, and you’ll likely be greeted before you even...
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SENIORS TALK: What do you do for fun and relaxation?
The On Lok 30th Street Senior Center on Aug. 22, opened in 1979, when a small group of seniors asked for a room in the building to start a social club. Today, in addition to meals, health workshops, bilingual case management and aging and disability resource center, some 6,700 older adults participate in its more than ...
Intent at eight years old on making art everyone can see, Mexican artist forges path to widespread public acclaim
When he was eight years old, Victor Mario-Zaballa told his family he was going to be a public artist when he grew up. “I wanted to make art that everyone can see and enjoy.” Today, his tile and cut-metal works adorn the entrance to the 16th St. Mission BART station, the gates for the Visitacion ...
San Francisco podcaster and sister-city advocate earned his news chops freelancing for BBC in South America
Jim Herlihy spent years managing investments for major banks in South America. While stationed in hotspots like Chile and Ecuador, he used his insider knowledge to write about the region as a freelance reporter for the BBC and other news services. Years later and pushed into retirement, the 75-year-old New York native leveraged his time ...
Concert pianist gets a surprise from the past: One of her own compositions, performed in 1980, pulled from university archives for publication
It was 1980 and Katrina Krimsky prepared to perform at the Piano Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York. An accomplished, but at the time not widely known pianist, she launched into one of her own compositions, a 42-minute piece called “Soundscape.” Years later, critics praised the difficult, somewhat esoteric compositions she performed that day, ...
Apiarist, Aquatic Park swimmer, and volunteer first-responder is as busy as the bees in her backyard
Beekeeper Gigi Trabant remembers vividly that spring day 11 years ago in the backyard of her Outer Richmond home when she began her new hobby: She got stung 35 times. She had just been delivered her starter package: a bee family, or colony, in a small box: about 10,000 bees with the queen in a ...
SENIORS TALK: To drive or not to drive, that is the question.
Driving has always been part of the California dream. But as we age, driving becomes difficult or unaffordable for some of us. SeniorBeat went to the Castro Senior Center and asked seniors if they still drive their own cars, how they cope if they don’t, and do they think it would be fair to require ...
