SAN FRANCISCO OPERA THEATER FREE
SAN FRANCISCO OPERA THEATER WINDOWS

SAN FRANCISCO OPERA THEATER WINDOWS

A crowd gathered at the scene on that unseasonably sweltering day, and by the evening, at least 200 people began to wander down Third Street, throwing bottles and rocks at police cars and smashing the windows of businesses that were not Black-owned. Word quickly spread, and the neighborhood was stricken with grief and anger. They also attempted to purchase the Bayview Opera House, recognizing its potential as a gathering space their community needed.Īlvin Johnson said he fired three shots in the air and one at the boy, but witnesses said he directed all four bullets toward the teenager. In 1954, they were successful in convincing the San Francisco Housing Authority to replace the dilapidated, temporary war housing with new public housing. Walker decided to do something about it, spearheading the Hunters Point Project Committee in the 1950s with the goal of improving conditions throughout the district. “It’s resulted in generations of poverty from people who were laid off with no possibility of getting another job.”Īctivist Gene K. “The shipyard attracted people hoping for a better life, then dumped them on the streets, and the city didn’t step up to offer training or give them other jobs,” Ockel said. However, discriminatory housing practices prevented Black workers from doing the same.

This wasn’t a problem for white workers - they could move to other parts of the city. As the war came to an end and employment at the shipyard declined, the San Francisco Housing Authority acquired many of the residential units where they had lived.

Navy.īy 1945, the population had expanded from about 14,000 to 43,000 people, and 20% of it was Black. During World War II, thousands of Black individuals from across the nation - particularly those hoping to escape the Jim Crow South - moved to the neighborhood seeking employment at the shipyard recently acquired by the U.S. The Bayview Hunters Point area as a whole was also largely neglected by the city. Touring theatrical productions that would often travel to the Bayview Opera House first before going downtown to perform at venues like the Alcazar and the California Theatre stopped coming to San Francisco altogether because the latter theaters, where the productions made most of their income, were destroyed. But it wasn’t until decades later that a historic event would cement the Bayview Opera House’s status as a local and national landmark, saving it from demolition.įor a number of reasons, the theater fell into a state of disrepair. With a foundation built upon a massive boulder nearly the size of the building itself, she suspects this infrastructure was the reason why it survived the 1906 earthquake. Today, it’s considered San Francisco’s oldest theater, said theater Executive Director Barbara Ockel.“Everything else burned in the fire,” she said. Staging a variety of dramas, comedies and vaudeville (as well as operas starting in the 1960s), the 300-seat auditorium was considered the first cultural center in the Bayview-Hunters Point district. 212 to serve as an entertainment hall for its members, the Bayview Opera House was designed by prominent German architect Henry Geilfuss, who would later be responsible for crafting much of the city’s eponymous Victorian architecture. Originally built in 1888 by the San Francisco Masonic Lodge No.

SAN FRANCISCO OPERA THEATER FREE

Nearly a year into the pandemic, the theater is serving a new purpose: as a free COVID-19 testing site serving the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, which has had some of the highest case rates in the city.Īnthony Bell is a UCSF medical student volunteering at the Bayview Opera House's COVID-19 testing site on behalf of the Rafiki Coalition. There’s no show on this brisk, sunny Monday afternoon, but a line of residents has queued up outside of the venue anyway, patiently waiting on blue chalk X’s marked on the sidewalk. Today, the gold lettering embossed on front of the building’s historic entryway still bears its original name – South San Francisco Opera House – surrounded by antique filigree, but it’s unusually quiet, save for the occasional clang-clang of a Muni train passing by. At the corner of Newcomb Avenue and Third Street in San Francisco, a 133-year-old theater stands tall in spite of its tumultuous history.įor decades, the Bayview Opera House has buzzed with activity, hosting theatrical performances, music and dance classes as well as a variety of community programming.

San francisco opera theater