Sour view of neighbor’s addition
By Johnny Miller
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. 20: Charlotte Mailliard, San Francisco’s acting chief of protocol, has lost her fight to prevent her next-door neighbor from blocking her view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The San Francisco Board of Permit Appeals, by a 5-0 vote reversed a Planning Commission vote against the fourth-floor rooftop construction by David and Andrea Rawson. Robert Feldman, director of the Board, said, “There is no way to build anything in San Francisco without blocking views, and the board reiterated last night its often-stated position that neither California courts nor the statutes protect views.”
1962
Nov. 24: San Quentin’s 31 Death Row residents staged what prison officials called “a small insurrection” yesterday over their film fare. They banged on walls, tables and bars, shouted and generally raised a ruckus, said acting warden Louis Nelson. The incident began on Nov. 15, when the men were scheduled to be shown “Tight Little Island” as their weekly movie. The prisoners protested they had heard about this British-made film and that the Scotch dialect of the players was hard to understand and they did not want it. In the place of this comedy, which is about a ship carrying a cargo of Scotch whiskey running aground on a small island, the men were shown “Cry of the City.” “Cry of the City,” with Shelley Winters and Victor Mature, has a bit about an ex-convict pushing an old woman down a flight of stairs and killing her. The prisoners acclaimed it. But when they were shown the film, they were told they would have only one picture on Thanksgiving. Ordinarily they get two — one as their regular weekly Thursday movie and the other as a Thanksgiving treat. On Thanksgiving they were shown another British picture, “Kind Hearts and Coronets.” This film has eight murders in it and met with high approval. Yesterday the condemned men during the exercise period decided they were entitled to another film to take the place of “Cry of the City” when the film was shown in place of “Tight Little Island.” The guard on duty ordered the men back to their cells when the ruckus began. Carl Bates, 41, who threw a Molotov cocktail into a Los Angeles bar and burned six persons to death, was spokesman for the movie lovers.
“I told Bates I wouldn’t talk to any inmate who was in a state of insurrection,” said Nelson. “They knew that if they didn’t go back in we’d put them back in, so they went back.”
1937
Nov. 20: The University of California’s 1937 Big Game rally rolled into history yesterday, leaving in its wake all-night rioting, the arrest of 31 persons, six policemen and a fireman injured, and property damage estimated at $10,000. The rioting was the most violent in the history of Berkeley. The rioters smashed store windows, damaged automobiles, lighted bonfires in the streets and battled harassed policemen at every turn. Swift disciplinary action was seen when Dr. Thomas M. Putnam, dean of undergraduates, asked the police to make a thorough investigation of the melee.
“The rioting was a great disappointment,” Dean Putnam said, “and without minimizing the part played by university students, it was reported to me that more than a 1,000 high school students were involved. In any event, all those arrested should be kept in custody until after the game, in addition to whatever punishment the law requires.”
1912
Nov. 20: Detective Thomas Furman, who at one time was a “spieler” for a circus and was wont to announce with megaphonic yet pleasantly modulated tones all the side-show wonders, has been detailed by Captain John Mooney to take up the hunt for a tattooed man wanted here on a charge of betrayal. The man with the panorama on his epidermis is Lawrence E. Bennett, who is accused by Mrs. Josephine Kane, lately of Denver, and now residing at 1043 Larkin Street, of having deceived her. According to Mrs. Kane, she conducted a small store in Denver and read in a newspaper that a young man of San Francisco, handsome and with prospects wanted to meet for matrimonial purposes a woman who was thrifty, industrious and affectionate. Mrs. Kane told the police that she came to this city, met Bennett, and that the latter deceived her, for soon after her arrival she met a woman who said she was Bennett’s wife, and attacked her because as the woman put it, “You are going with my husband.” Mrs. Kane told police that Bennett was decorated with tattoos having a regular menagerie painted on his skin of tigers, leopards, bears, lions, elephants and camels. When Mrs. Kane described Bennett as being so ornamented Captain Mooney pushed the electric button in his office three times, which is Furman’s number and ordered the ex-circus man to take the case. Bennett is said to have left the city, so Furman has opened correspondence with circuses all over the country.