Special Project: Senior Housing
As the city’s older population swells, seniors who can no longer live at home face high costs, limited choices
EDITOR'S NOTE: Full profiles of the seniors interviewed will be published each day after today's introductory story. Publishing dates are noted in the...
Life in the Later Lane
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...
City College café owner customizes and caters to make students, staff and professors feel at home
Thanks to Alberto Campos, students at City College of San Francisco’s Mission Campus can get an affordable...
One bold step opened up education and a career charting demographics in low-income countries
Sara Seims, an 18-year-old British girl, walked into the admissions office at New York University and knocked...
K.D. Sullivan: From Park Bench to Publishing House
At 15, K.D. Sullivan was homeless, hungry, and sleeping on park benches in Honolulu’s Aina Haina neighborhood....
Retired conference consultant embraces San Francisco and its history with tour of her own neighborhood
As she strolls toward the smallest park in San Francisco, Bonnie Wallsh calls back to the group...
Farm life couldn’t compete with the excitement of big cities and the challenge of the executive life
In college, Bob Britt worked as a night auditor at a roadside Holiday Inn in Southern Illinois....
Successful sous chef finds equilibrium and support after career sidetracked by health and hard times
Jon Insco has been a go-getter most of his life — always hustling for his next adventure....
Being an ‘old soul’ isn’t just about age but an attitude – best nurtured by intergenerational contact
SF SENIORBEAT GUEST COLUMN – There’s a corner of Gen Z internet culture that has popularized the...
How a dedicated teacher of young children became a dedicated civic volunteer.
Sharon Yow’s father drove a truck and tried his hand at farming. Her mother worked a switchboard...
Famed boogie-woogie pianist embroiders her performances with her own hand-crafted art
Caroline Dahl has never forgotten the glamorous, red-haired woman in a sequined dress she saw at a...
The biggest, best walk – and bath of a lifetime.
Tina Martin SENIORBEAT GUEST COLUMN – I love San Francisco, and I love to walk. So when...
‘So hard, all the losses and pain:’ Personal and world tragedies led daughter of Holocaust survivors to life of helping others help others
Juliet Rothman was living in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1992 when her 21-year-old son Daniel attempted a double...
Rock ‘n’ roll and diamonds shaped the life of Arthur Indenbaum
WRITER'S NOTE: Arthur Indenbaum died on November 28, 2025, with his wife and daughter by his side....
All Posts
Of food and community: Bernal Heights Latina shares life stories over a cooking lesson
When Angelina De Anda makes chicken soup, her first step is to dice ginger and garlic into coins, to flavor the water. When her mom made chicken soup, the first steps were to “kill and pluck the chicken!” she recounts with a rueful grin. “Though we lived in the border city of Cuidad Juarez, we ...
Selma freedom fighter, San Francisco State College striker and anti-war publisher still making ‘good trouble’
If the stakes weren’t deadly serious, the high-speed car chase through rural Alabama in 1965 might have seemed like a scene from The Dukes of Hazard. Bruce Hartford, then a young civil rights worker, and three volunteers with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had been holding a workshop in non-violence in Brantley, a town with ...
Glittery red shoes remind artist and teacher of her glamorous days as “Lady Harriet,” dancer and blues singer at her own nightclub in Guatemala
Though she moves more slowly now, and the form-fitting gown and sparkling red stilettos have been replaced by more comfortable clothing, 89-year-old Harriet Sebastian is still a performer. Resting in the satin-draped armchair where she spends most of her days, Sebastian paused mid-story and turned toward the credenza where her dancing shoes were hanging. “I ...
Firefighter, professor, runner, wine expert, powerlifter: Sunset District man didn’t want any idle time
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 ...
Noted illustrator of themes in African American life got his start on a blackboard in his Waco front yard
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 ...
A burning desire to forge beauty out of raw materials: North Beach jeweler and metalcrafter carries on family’s legacy business
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 ...
