San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
St. Brigid’s Church holds final Mass
Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1994
July 1: Some 600 Roman Catholics attended a final Mass in St. Brigid’s Church at Broadway and Van Ness Avenue yesterday, before the midnight closing of the church on the order of Archbishop John R. Quinn. After the Mass, which ended at 6 p.m., 150 worshipers remained inside the church in a prayer vigil for a reversal of the closure order. Under a plan announced by Quinn last year, St Brigid’s Church was ordered closed and its parish merged with another. The Rev. Daniel Keohane, representing the Archdiocese of San Francisco, who earlier had led the Mass, closed the front door of the church around 8.30 p.m., but no attempt was made to remove those inside. “I don’t want any kind of confrontation,” Keohane said. Three officers from Northern Station, including station commander Captain Richard Cairns, attended but said they had no intention of intervening in the dispute between the church hierarchy and the vigil attendees, unless the priests were to make citizen’s arrests for trespassing.
1969
July 3: Residents of Atherton have taken exception to the notion that former Cosa Nostra boss Joseph
( Joe Bananas) Bonanno may spend his declining years there. Two members of the posh community have filed protests before the town council, on the ground they don’t want a Mafioso as a neighbor. It is doubtful, however, if the council can ban him. Attorney Kent Kaiser and stockbroker Marshall Staunton told the council Monday they feared the presence of the 64yearold and ailing Bonanno might “provoke an outburst of violence” in the tranquil neighborhood. Bonanno, now living in Tucson, Ariz., recently obtained permission from a New York court to move to Atherton, 35 miles south of San Francisco. He is at liberty on $150,000 bail on an obstruction of justice charge. He said his daughter, Mrs. Gregory Genovese, who lives in Atherton, had agreed to take him in. During his years of relative leisure in Tucson, Bonanno, who got his start supplying submachine guns to Al Capone in the 1930s, has been the target of several bombings and shootings.
1944
July 6: Waterfront unions joined in their annual commemoration yesterday of the death of two strikers on July 5 1934, in the great waterfront strike of that year. Elaborate floral pieces bearing the names of a dozen unions were placed on the sidewalk at the southeast corner of Mission and Steuart streets, where one of the men, Howard C. Sperry, longshoreman, met his death. The other man, Nick Bordoise of the Cook’s Union, was killed near Pier 38. Frank Hendricks of the CIO longshoremen’s Union was in the guard of honor in his uniform as vice commander of the Howard C. Sperry Post, American Legion, the post named after the slain striker. Beside him stood Larry Mallen of the AFL Shipwright’s Union. These two men had been there when Sperry met his death. “I was just a few feet away in my car,” said Hendricks, “and Larry Mallen here was with me. The cops were over on the northwest corner. All there was to it, they just opened fire the way they’d been doing all day—but instead of wounding somebody, they killed somebody. Sperry fell here on the sidewalk where we’re standing.” “Sure, shooting was common that day,” said Mallen. “That was the day they drove us back from Pier 38, where the other poor fellow was killed. The Battle of Rincon Hill they call it. There was a doctor in the old longshoremen’s hall, and he was busy all day, taking care of the wounded.”
1919
July 2: Prohibition settled down on the town yesterday. But the sun rose and set as usual, whereat many were surprised. The doors of many saloons scattered about the city swung as of yore, but any hopes of the stern stuff within that might have been born of the swinging were killed at once. In some places 2 percent beer, now in dispute in the United States Courts, was offered for sale, as a result of the Police Commission announcement promising noninterference. Many saloons, heeding the warning of the Federal authorities that persons that sold small percent beer did so at their own risk, offered to the thirsty nothing except soft drinks.
No red wine was served to the diners in the Latin Quarter. With the sweep of the hand of the owner of a Broadway restaurant indicated the passing of a San Francisco institution that dated from the establishment of the town — the dinnerwithwine seventyfive cents. A canvass last night of the twentytwo saloons on either side of Third Street and Howard showed nineteen closed. Of the three open, two conduct lunch counters and the popular beverage seemed to be near beer at ½ of 1 percent alcohol by volume. On Powell Street between Market and Sutter six saloons were open, and four closed. Of the six, three sold lunches or oyster cocktails and all had removed from display every semblance of an alcohol container.
Johnny Miller is a freelance writer.