U2’s Bono cited as graffiti artist
Here’s a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1987
Nov. 17: Irish rock star Bono Hewson could wind up scrubbing Muni buses or paying a $500 fine for spray painting graffiti on a public sculpture. Hewson, the lead singer of U2, is the 346th person cited so far this year in a citywide crackdown on scofflaw scrawlers, officials said yesterday. The pop singer has apologized for spraying “Stop the Traffic, Rock and Roll” on the Vaillancourt Fountain in Justin Herman Plaza before 20,000 cheering fans last week. He also promised to cover the costs of the cleanup. Hewson’s graffiti stunt and the follow-up citation have quickly become a hot topic around town. Graffiti fighters, including Dianne Feinstein, have condemned the act. Others, including Armand Vaillancourt, who designed the fountain, have supported Hewson’s handiwork as an expression of art. Mike Cleland, producer of the Ronn Owens show on KGO radio, said listeners flooded the station with calls on the topic “It was about 50-50 split,” he said. “The younger group was standing up for Hewson and older people were saying it was illegal and he should be arrested.”
1962
Nov. 14: A section of San Francisco’s Municipal Police Code forbidding youngsters under 21 from congregating in groups between 8 p.m. and daylight was ruled unconstitutional yesterday. Municipal Judge Leland Lazarus ruled Section 538 unconstitutional in dismissing a case against an 18-yearold boy arrested under the section last September. The ruling brought an immediate critical comment from Police Chief Thomas J. Cahill, but the District Attorney’s Office said it would study the situation before deciding to appeal the decision. Section 538 of the Police Code, enacted by the Board of Supervisors June 11, 1903, reads as follows: “Three or more persons under 21 years of age shall not congregate, assemble, engage in sport or exercise, make or endeavor to make, any noise or disturbance on any public street between 8 p.m. and daylight the following morning.” Chief Cahill criticized the ruling in no uncertain terms. “It’s another instance of whittling away at the controls we have to give the people protection,” Cahill said.
1937
Nov. 14: Edward Wutke, murderer, found escape in death yesterday from Alcatraz prison — the first suicide in the history of The Rock. Using a weapon, fashioned from a tiny pencil sharpener blade attached to the handle of a safety razor, Wutke slashed his jugular vein and bled to death in his cell during the night. The prisoner, 36, serving a 27-year term for murder on the high seas, was discovered unconscious by the midnight watch and died as the prison physician, Dr. George Hess, reached his side. Convicts on The Rock have access to pencil sharpeners, Warden James A. Johnson reported, but razor blades are taken from them when they finish shaving, and they retain only the handle. Wutke was accused of knifing to death Arthur Anderson, a fellow seaman aboard the steamer Yale off San Diego in 1933.
1912
Nov. 11: A series of lectures on “Dress and Adornment” being given by E.W. Gifford, assistant curator in the museum of Affiliated Colleges, was continued yesterday by his illustrating and explaining the various types of earrings, ear plugs, nose and lip ornaments used by savages and comparing them with the jewelry used by the civilized races. He said: “Civilized people seldom pierce the ears anymore in order to wear earrings, but use the type of earring that can be readily taken off or put on by simply adjusting a screw as the styles change so often, while the savages are not content with a small hole, but continue to enlarge it by forcing a tapering pin through as far as possible.’
“Among the savages it is the men and not the women who adorn themselves profusely. They are not content with earrings but pierce the lips, the cheeks and the nose, and in those holes place their adornments or “jewelry” consisting of rings, sticks, shells, etc., composed mainly of metals, glass bone and ivory of all sizes.” Ishi, appearing in evening dress, showed the audience how the savages placed these articles of adornment in the holes made in their bodies.
Nov. 13: As a result of numerous complaints to the police by young women, who have been molested in Golden Gate Park by offers from men to go joyriding, Detective William Harvey was assigned to duty in the main driveway in the park and arrested three men who stopped a couple of girls with requests to get into their auto. The prisoners gave their names as Burdette Palmer, Russ Woodhouse and Cecil Stone. The two latter were booked on charges of disturbing the peace, and Palmer was held on a charge of driving an automobile while intoxicated. Heretofore efforts by uniformed officers to apprehend parties complained against have been without avail, and Detective Harvey was sent into the park. The police say they will put a stop to this form of insult to unescorted women in the park.