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
Art and science vied for Sarah Young’s heart: Both found a place
Few who end up in the hospital are likely to be thinking about whether there’s a sufficient, readily accessible, and safe supply of blood on hand if needed. Someone who has is Sarah Young, former manager of the blood bank at San Francisco’s Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center. Until she retired in 2017, it was her ...
Baking for bodily autonomy: Nan Wiener tackles controversial end of Roe v. Wade with brownies, macaroons, muffins and more
SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – Many years ago, I spent a year baking desserts in a restaurant in Brooklyn, New York, and I’ve been doing it on an amateur basis ever since. Periodically, the daughter of a dear friend—who’s also my daughter’s close friend—urged me to bake professionally again, but I never wanted to. It’s ...
New author and former drinker embracing alternative therapies to help others break the habit
Seated in the backroom of a café on Polk Street, Kevagne Kalisch leans against the wall and stares at a nearby painting of two clowns: one grinning, the other crying. Turning, she said she’s puzzling how to tell her own story: one of happiness and grief. Kalisch, 78, struggled with alcoholism for many years. She ...
From fisherman to cook to inmate to owner: Frankie Balistreri’s odyssey to opening his dream restaurant
When his mother, Lucrezia, was diagnosed with cancer, then 25-year-old Frankie Gaetano Balistreri cared for her at home. She craved her favorite Sicilian dishes and called out her wishes from her bed. “ ‘Frankie, pasta con sarde!’ ”(Pasta with sardines); “ ‘Frankie, sfingi!’ (powdered sugar donuts with ricotta filling) “I was running back and forth, ...
Wisdom of the Japanese Tea Garden helped volunteer Chrisie Giordano come to accept a child’s absence
It’s an overcast summer morning, and Chrisie Giordano is leading a tour of Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden. She pauses in front of the large statue of Buddha and sheds a few tears. The tea garden, she says, is the place where she has come to terms with her daughter’s painful decision to leave ...
It’s the little things that count for Margaret Lew, swept up in the world of miniature craftmanship
If you think dollhouses are just for children, you haven’t met the artisans and collectors, like Margaret Lew, who play in the Lilliputian world of miniature furnishings and accoutrements. Lew’s passion for miniatures surfaced in childhood – she “always liked the little things for my dollhouse” – and reignited in 2003, when at 60, she ...
