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"title": "How San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Started the Craft Beer Craze",
"headTitle": "How San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Started the Craft Beer Craze | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nThe craft beer market has been booming the last few decades. Last year the number of craft breweries in the U.S. reached an all time high of 9,552. And California is a paradise for craft beer lovers like Bay Curious listener Ricky Tjandra – the state is home to over 950 such brew operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Ricky, who lives in Hayward, first started drinking beer in the early 2000s, he’d buy the basics: Coors, Budweiser, and the like. Then he and his friends started exploring the many different styles that Bay Area breweries were offering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We started seeing other beers that weren’t in the supermarket out in bars,” said Ricky. “It got me interested.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as a craft beer aficionado, Ricky asked Bay Curious to investigate the local lore that this nationwide beer trend got its start in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I heard that the Bay Area is one of the first places to produce craft beer before craft beer even became a thing,” he said, “Is that true?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s in a name?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>First, you might be wondering what the difference is between a ‘craft’ beer and just any beer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The official definition is set by the Brewers Association, a national industry trade group for craft brewers. It says the “craft” in brewing comes down to an operation’s ownership and output. A craft brewery can’t be more than 25% owned by a company or investor that is not also a craft brewery. And the annual output of the brewery can’t be more than six million barrels of bee r– a considerable amount. A barrel is 31 gallons of beer, and six million of them is enough to fill 380 Olympic sized swimming pools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s another, less official standard for what defines a craft beer; one that’s more about quality and character. How is it made? What kind of creative process did the brewer go through when developing it? Does it utilize new, perhaps experimental ingredients or flavors?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Retired Anchor Brewing Historian, Dave Burkhart, has his own definition:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A craft beer is a distinctive, aesthetically pleasing alcoholic beverage made from malted grain whose taste, aroma, quality and consistency reflect the skill, integrity and creative imagination of its brewer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dave is the author of The Anchor Brewing Story, which tells the complete history of the Anchor Brewing Company — where he worked for 31 years — from the Gold Rush all the way to the present day. Dave began working at the brewery in 1991, and over the years did a number of jobs, including acting as tour guide and helping to design many of Anchor’s beautiful labels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anchor Brewing has been in the news this year, because after 127 years of brewing beer in San Francisco, the institution shut its doors at the end of July. Prior to its closure, Anchor Brewing had been purchased by Japanese brewer, Sapporo, in 2017. Former union workers of the Bay Area brewery hope to raise money to buy it back, but no deals have so far been made and the building currently sits empty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969214\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11969214\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Two people talk as they look through boxes of Anchor merchandise in a warehouse-type space.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shari Walker and Marshall Stine gathered Anchor beer and merchandise in the final days before it closed. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Innovation at Anchor Brewing is widely considered to be the catalyst to the modern craft beer movement. So the short answer to Ricky’s question is: Yes, American craft beer really did take off in San Francisco. But it took quite a while to get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Steamy beginnings\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>During the Gold Rush thirsty miners created a huge demand for beer. So beer making operations were popping up all over the place. The brewery that would become Anchor Brewing was first opened as Golden City Brewery in 1871 on Pacific Avenue, between Larkin and Hyde in Nob Hill. In 1896, that location was purchased by Ernst Baruth and his son-in-law, Otto Schenkel Jr., who changed the name to Anchor Brewing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of the deal, new owners Baruth and Schenkel also got the recipe to the only beer that the brewery had been making. This beer would come to be known as Anchor Steam, and it’s the style that would keep the company afloat for decades to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What is a “steam” beer?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The term “steam beer” is now trademarked by Anchor Brewing, but a similar style of beer can be found under the name California Common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dave says there’s no one clear answer where the name comes from, but there are a few potential origins for the term. The most popular theory relates to its Gold Rush-era method of manufacture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first steps of beer making require steeping the malt in heating water, removing it, then boiling that mixture. The wort, as it’s called at that point, then needs to be cooled down before the yeast is added. Yeast is a living organism and if it gets too hot, it will die. The cooling process needs to happen fairly quickly to prevent bacteria from growing in the mixture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back when beer was being brewed in San Francisco in the 19th century, refrigeration was not available, and this process was a lot harder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So what they did was, they pumped it up to the rooftop of the brewery, which was enclosed on all four sides by Louvered windows and had a slanted roof, so condensation wouldn’t drip right back into the beer,” said Dave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s where the “steam” came in: The hot mixture, not alcoholic yet, would sit in large shallow pans while the cold San Francisco air flowed around them, creating a cloud of steam that drifted out from the windows on the roof.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Somebody said, ‘Well, boy, they must be making steam beer up there,’” said Dave, about how the name may have been coined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a very long time, that was the only kind of beer Anchor Brewing made.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Then along came Fritz\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By 1965, after changing hands several times, and relocating to the corner of De Haro and Mariposa Streets in Potrero Hill, Anchor Brewing was in a bad financial situation. At the time, the company was run by a man named Lawrence Steese who, despite his best efforts, was having difficulty maintaining the quality of the beer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of the equipment was very old. In fact, the brewery did not have refrigeration and still used the same 1890s-era rooftop cooling method. Sanitation issues meant that bacteria growth sometimes ruined the beer. Local bartenders were reporting that kegs arrived spoiled. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then came Fritz Maytag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Maytag name may be familiar. Fritz’s grandfather founded the Maytag Corporation, the household appliance manufacturer best known for their washing machines. Fritz’s father also founded Maytag Dairy Farms, known for making a distinctive blue cheese.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1965, Fritz Maytag was a 28-year-old entrepreneur who’d attended Stanford University and lived in San Francisco. When he heard from a local bartender that a legacy business like Anchor Brewing was about to close, he decided to help. He bought a 51% stake in the company for $5,100 (just under $50K in today’s money) and loaned his co-owner additional cash to keep the business afloat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[emailsignup newslettername=\"baycurious\" align=\"right\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, Fritz had no beer making know-how. He kept Lawrence Steese on for the first several years as brewmaster while he learned the trade and converted what he termed ‘America’s most medieval brewery’ into a modern marvel. Fritz switched to cooling the brew with refrigeration, and improved sanitation with stainless steel fermentation tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He saw it as a challenge,” said Dave, who counts Fritz Maytag as a close friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Eventually in 1969, he bought out Steese and and ended up being 100% owner, although it took him ten years to turn a profit at the brewery,” he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969215\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11969215\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-800x474.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white photo of a white bearded man wearing a white button down and a tie. He is seated in front of beer paraphernalia. \" width=\"800\" height=\"474\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-800x474.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-1020x605.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-160x95.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-1536x910.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-2048x1214.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-1920x1138.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing in 1978. \u003ccite>(Photo by Gary Fong/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1971, Anchor began bottling their Steam beer, which had previously only been available locally and on tap. That same year they introduced their first new beer – Anchor Porter. In 1975 they introduced three more: Liberty Ale, Old Foghorn Barleywine and the seasonal Anchor Christmas Ale. Soon all five beers were being bottled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of these beer styles were brand new – variations of them have been brewed in Europe for hundreds of years. But Dave says they were novel in the American commercial beer market at the time, which consisted mainly of watered down versions of lager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sad to say, virtually all of the beer in America, as anybody who was drinking beer back then will tell you, was all fizzy, light, yellow, bubbly, bland, tasteless, characterless,” Dave said, “And that was one of the beauties of what Fritz was doing. It was what he called a radically traditional idea. It was radical to make a traditional beer in those days.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the availability of bottled Anchor beer being sold to a wider market, people started to take notice of their robust and creative brews, and their renewed success. Soon, visitors were flocking to the brewery to see how it was done. something that Fritz Maytag welcomed. Dave says Fritz was happy to give anyone a tour, and promote the idea that would come to be known as craft brewing.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A legacy of creativity and openness\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>From there the craft beer industry began to blossom as inspired homebrewers in California, and nationwide made their beers commercial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A couple of those guys were Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi from what became Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Jack McAuliffe of New Albion came to the brewery,” said Dave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The short lived New Albion Brewing Company opened in 1978, and was the first modern microbrewery to open in the U.S. since prohibition. Though New Albion closed in 1982, many other breweries inspired by Anchor have survived and thrived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Two of the marvelous success stories in California beer that were both inspired by Anchor are Sierra Nevada and Russian River,” said Dave. (full disclosure: Sierra Nevada Brewing is a sponsor of Bay Curious)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Russian River makes the very popular Pliny the Elder imperial IPA. They’re known for their hoppy beers, and Vinnie Cilurzo, who runs the brewery with his wife Natalie in Windsor, California, is actually credited with inventing the beer style known as a double IPA while running his first brewery, Blind Pig.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vinnie cites Anchor Brewing and Sierra Nevada as being early inspirations for the hop-forward beers that are the hallmark of his brewery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Anchor Liberty and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale were two, like, formidable beers that … still are in my DNA,” said Vinnie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A sense of camaraderie and respect seems to exist among the craft brewing industry. Vinnie Cilurzo mentioned how proud he was to have a sign from the original New Albion brewery hanging in his brewpub pub in Santa Rosa, and that Stone Brewing had credited him by name on their bottles when they released their version of a double IPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historian Dave Burkhart told me that following the closure of Anchor Brewing, all current and former staff were invited to a party in Petaluma by the employees of Lagunitas Brewing Company to celebrate the life of the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It could be that along with a philosophy of creative experimentation, Fritz Maytag’s ‘open source’ style of welcoming brewers to Anchor also set a standard— where rather than cutthroat competition, brewers cheer on each other’s creations, because each is doing something unique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><h2 id=”episode-transcript”>Episode Transcript</h2>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beer…Humans love it, Americans love it, Californians love it. Whether you’r\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">e cracking open a cold one at Dolores Park, clinking pint glasses with your buds at a local brewery, or paying way too much for refreshments at a Giants game… When there’\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s good times to be had, many Californians choose: BEER. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font speaking fast, mimicking a beer commercial: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Side effects of beer may include thinking you’re stronger than you really are, excessive burping, and ordering nachos. Please drink responsibly, and only if you’re 21 or over. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hey everyone. This is Bay Curious, the show that answers your questions about the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. And I want to kick off this week’s episode by playing you one of my favorite sounds …\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">beer pouring sound\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s a fresh pint of beer being poured. That kinda dampened foamy sound is just … mm! … so good. Especially when you hear it in one of the Bay Area’s many fine drinking establishments.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ricky Tjandra: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s this place called Buffalo Bill’s in Hayward, and I’ve been going there since a little after college, like 2000. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious listener Ricky Tjandra enjoys having a pint with friends. In particular, he enjoys local craft beers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ricky Tjandra: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At first I liked the IPAs and they started to be a little too heavy for me. So now I’ve been in more into Pilsners and Kölsch, and yeah, I think Kölsch has been my go to beer lately. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ricky says when he first started enjoying beer in the early 2000s, he’d drink the basics.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ricky Tjandra: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like Budweiser, Coors Light. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But then some of his friends started brewing their own beer, and getting more curious about different styles. And as their tastes changed, they began trying the wide variety of brews sold in markets around the Bay Area that were produced here– Something that at the time, he hadn’t really seen outside of California. Now, as a craft beer aficionado, he wonders.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">theme music \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ricky Tjandra:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So I heard that the Bay Area is one of the first places to produce craft beer before craft beer even became a thing. Is that true? And if so, how did it start? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This week on Bay Curious … we explore how the Bay Area became the epicenter for the modern craft beer explosion. And we’ll go inside a successful brewery. That’s all just ahead. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sponsor break\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’ve got producer Amanda Font here today to answer Ricky’s question about how craft beer got its start. But first, Amanda, what exactly makes something a “craft beer” versus just a regular beer?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, there’s sort of two answers. First there’s the official industry definition. According to the Brewers Association, which is a trade group for craft brewers, it comes down to ownership and output. Your brewery can’t be more than 25% owned or controlled by a company that is NOT a craft brewery. And your annual output must be less than 6 million barrels of beer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> OK. Can you give us some context. How much, really, is 6 million barrels? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A barrel is 31 gallons. So 6 million of them could fill 380 Olympic sized swimming pools. Which is a LOT. For perspective, Bay Curious sponsor Sierra Nevada is one of the largest craft breweries, with a nationwide distribution, and their annual output is only about 1.2 million barrels. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So what’s the other thing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The second sort of signifier of a craft brewer isn’t official, it’s more about the characteristics of the beer itself. How is it made? What kind of creative process did the brewer go through when developing it? Does it utilize new, maybe experimental ingredients or flavors? Like you kind of know a craft beer when you taste it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, totally. I am a lot like our question asker Ricky. In my twenties I drank a lot of Bud Light, PBR, Natty Boh (shoutout Baltimore). All kinds of light lagers that taste pretty similar. The first time I had a craft brew, it blew my mind. So much flavor! Now I’m always on the lookout for new brews to try and we have so many options here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Definitely! California has more craft breweries than any other state – around 957. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So… to answer Ricky’s question… Is it true that that idea of ‘craft brewing’ started in the Bay Area? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is true! It’s widely accepted that modern American craft brewing started right here in San Francisco at Anchor Brewing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> We had people coming to the brewery from all over the world, from all kinds of backgrounds. Just beer lovers, beer aficionados, brewers, people that were interested in starting a brewery, whether they were entrepreneurs or home brewers. It was absolutely just abuzz,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I talked to Dave Burkhart.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> My title is Anchor Brewery historian Emeritus, which has nothing to do with merit and simply means that I retired.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dave worked at Anchor Brewing for 31 years starting in 1991. He did a lot of different jobs. Everything from being on the design team for their beautiful labels, to doing lab work and being a tour guide. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Tour guide was a great job and everybody did it because it was a great way to learn about the brewery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While working as a tour guide people would ask him history questions that he didn’t know the answers to, so he’d ask other people in the company and they also weren’t sure. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here I was working at a San Francisco institution that had been around forever, and nobody really knew all that much about the history. So I began delving into it on my own. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The result is his book, The Anchor Brewing Story.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">…which tells the Complete History of Anchor Brewing Company from the Gold Rush all the way to the present day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, you may have seen Anchor Brewing in the news this year because after 127 years of brewing beer in San Francisco, the company ceased operations and shut its doors at the end of July. It’s not necessarily gone forever…there are efforts underway to raise money to help the former union workers at Anchor buy the brewery and reopen it. But currently the property is for sale for $40 million dollars. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is for certain, is that Anchor’s influence as the center of the modern craft beer movement can’t be underestimated. But it took a long time to get there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The story starts just after the gold rush. The brewery that would become Anchor was first opened as Golden City Brewery in 1871 on Pacific Avenue, between Larkin and Hyde in Nob Hill. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1896, Ernst Baruth and his son in law, Otto Schenkel Jr, bought the brewery and changed the name to Anchor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1896 is what Anchor claims as their official establishment year. As part of the deal, the new owners also got the recipe for one and only beer that the brewery had been making– what would come to be known as Anchor Steam– the iconic beer that kept this business open for many decades to come… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The question that I’ve probably been asked more times than any in 31 and a half years that I worked at the brewery was why is it called steam beer? And I’d like to say that there’s one answer and there’s one easy answer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are a few potential reasons, but Here’s what is probably the most popular theory behind the name… During the Goldrush there were a lot of thirsty miners, and a huge demand for beer, particularly lager. The term lager comes from a German word that means to stock or store…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And typically lager beer in those lands is made and then stored or lagered either in a cellar or an alpine cave on almost always on ice or in a very cool temperature for a number of months. And that’s where it develops its clean, crisp flavors. Well, guess what? Ice and water refrigeration were not available in California during the gold rush. So the Brewers had to figure out a way to make the best lager they could make under those primitive conditions and without ice. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The first steps of beer making require steeping your malt in heating water, and boiling that mixture. Then you need to cool it down before adding the yeast because yeast is a living organism, and if it’s too hot, it’ll die. And that’s the magic ingredient that makes your beer alcoholic. But you need to cool it quickly to prevent bacteria growth. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what they did was they pumped it up to the rooftop of the brewery, which was enclosed on all four sides by Louvered windows and had a slanted roof, so condensation wouldn’t drip right back into the beer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The hot mixture would sit in these big shallow pans, so cool air could flow around them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And guess what? When Hot Wort, which is what beer is called before you add yeast to it, met cold air of San Francisco, you get something that looks like steam wafting from those louvered windows. And so somebody said, “Well, boy, they must be making steam beer up there.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The term “Steam Beer” was later trademarked by Anchor, but you can find a similar style of beer sold under the name California Common. And for a long time that’s the only kind of beer Anchor Brewing made. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let’s jump ahead to 1965… Anchor Brewing has changed hands several times and is now owned by a guy named Lawrence Steese. And it is not doing very well. They’re making 2 beers–sort of… that classic Steam and something that at least looks like a Porter… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It wasn’t called Porter, it was just called steam light and steam dark. And all they did was literally add caramel coloring to the keg as they were filling the keg. It wasn’t even in the brew. There was no dark malt. There was no nothing. It looked like Porter, but it tasted. If you close your eyes, guess what it was exactly… exactly the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The quality of the beer they’re churning out is very inconsistent, due to sanitation issues, like bacteria growth. Local bars are reporting that kegs arrive spoiled. And Anchor Brewing is in deep financial trouble, on the verge of bankruptcy. Then along comes… Fritz Maytag. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Absolutely one of the brightest people I know. Sharp as a tack. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the name Maytag sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because you’ve seen it on your washing machine. Fritz is grandson of the founder of the Maytag Corporation. Or it could be that you’ve had Maytag Blue Cheese, because Fritz’s father started Maytag Dairy Farms. Talk about a family with a diverse business portfolio… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1965, Fritz Maytag was a 28-year-old entrepreneur, looking to branch out in yet another direction from his family’s enterprises. He’d attended Stanford, and lived in the Bay Area, and when he heard from a local bartender that a legacy business like Anchor was close to shutting its doors, he decided he had to help. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And so he bought 51% stake in the brewery for $5,100 dollars…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A little under 50 grand in today’s money. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And then loaned promptly had to loan Lawrence Stice about $9,000. Fritz was charmed by the brewery, but also realized that in addition to being America’s smallest brewery at the time, It was also the most medieval brewery, as Fritz liked to call it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For one thing, the brewery was still using that same method of cooling the wort on the roof of the building that they had been back in the 1890s. They didn’t even have refrigeration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It had a refrigerator where you could leave your lunch, you know, But that was about it. This is this was in 1965, for gosh sakes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fritz set about taking this “medieval” brewery and modernizing it, starting with refrigeration and stainless steel tanks, which are much easier to keep clean. The funny thing is, before buying a majority stake in Anchor, Fritz didn’t actually know anything about beer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as he started to work there and see the problems with the beer he saw it as a challenge and saw it as something that he really loved and taught himself all about brewing. And eventually in 1969, he bought out Steese and and ended up being 100% owner,, although it took him ten years to turn a profit at the brewery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the majority of the company’s history Anchor beer had only been available locally on tap. But In 1971, they began bottling Anchor Steam – and branching out, style-wise. The first new brew – a Porter… A real one, this time…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> an all malt porter made with a black patent or dark malt, as well as the caramel malt and pale malt. That was in 1972 and we began bottling it in 1974. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1975 they introduced three more beers… Anchor Liberty Ale, Old Foghorn Barleywine and the seasonal Anchor Christmas Ale, which started a tradition where each year the recipe and the label on the bottle are just a little different. And each of Anchor’s now 5 different beers was unique in character… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They all looked different. They all tasted different. They all smelled different. They all had different labels, but they all felt like they came from Anchor.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Experimenting with different styles is a hallmark of craft breweries now, but at the time it was unusual, because in the 1970s… American beer was pretty homogenous. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sad to say, virtually all of the beer in America, as anybody knows who was drinking, drinking beer back then will tell you, it was all fizzy lite, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Medley of 70s beer commercials\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yellow, bubbly, bland, tasteless, characterless. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Medley of 70s beer commercials\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s not that any of the styles Anchor was brewing were brand new, they just weren’t commonly available in the U.S. at that time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And that was one of the beauties of what Fritz was doing. It was what he called a radically traditional idea. It was radical to make a traditional beer in those days.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Selling their beer in bottles allowed Anchor to reach a wider market, and people outside the Bay Area started to take notice of these robust, more artfully brewed beers. Some started flocking to the brewery to see how it all worked … because they wanted to do it too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fritz was open source before the words open source and was happy to give everybody that came a tour, tell them all about our beer and, you know, promote the idea of what ultimately became known as craft beer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dave says the term ‘craft beer’ was just taking off around the time he started working at Anchor in 1991. Before that people referred to it as microbrewing. Anchor was doing a lot of experimentation with different hops and malts, and that, combined with their modern techniques and the fact that they were seeing renewed success, inspired a lot of new businesses… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> A couple of those guys were Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi from what became Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Jack McAuliffe of New Albion came to the brewery. Everybody wanted to make that pilgrimage, and why not, to see how it was done because the brewery was… it was small, but it was successful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the craft beer scene started to take off and evolve… for example, there’s the story about a young couple from Southern California…Natalie and her boyfriend Vinnie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Natalie \u003c/b>\u003cb>Cilurzo\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I asked him what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Like, what do you want to be when you grow up that everybody asks you at that age? And he said, I want to own my own brewery. And I Said how do you know this? You’re not even old enough to buy beer. And he said, I just do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Natalie brought Vinnie to see the Anchor Brewing tour for his 21st birthday in 1991. Dave gave the tour.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Fritz was there that day. I won’t claim to have been inspirational. But Fritz was certainly inspirational. The tour left a big impression on Vinnee … and on Dave too.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> But he wrote me a thank you note, and I saved it for some reason. I just got this weird sense about him like “Maybe I should just save this note.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">30 years later… Vinnee comes back for a 2nd tour, this time at the invitation of Anchor Brewing. Because Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo now run Russian River Brewing, makers of the popular Pliny the Elder imperial IPA. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Dave whips out this piece of paper and it’s a handwritten letter just thanking him for the visit and whatnot. And I was, I was blown away that Dave still had that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you can think of Anchor Brewing as sort of a parent or grandparent of many of the well-known craft breweries around today. Vinnie credits Anchor as an early inspiration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Anchor Liberty and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale were two, like, formidable beers that were in my– still are in my DNA. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And he’s leveraged that inspiration to great success… Here’s a perfect example. Before taking over Russian River, Vinnie opened his first brewery, called Blind Pig, in his hometown of Temecula California. He was young, and just starting out, so he had to buy his brewing equipment second hand. It was a little old, some of it was plastic, and it was kind of cobbled together. He was worried it might affect the taste of his beer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So I just thought, Well, what if we take our IPA recipe and double all the hops and then raise the malt a little bit? So then we get a little higher alcohol content in a way, almost like kind of hide the flavors because we couldn’t afford to fail on the first brew. Granted, if it would have been contaminated, we would have dumped it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But it wasn’t, and when they released the beer, it was good. So the next year they released another Double IPA… That’s right, Vinnie is credited with inventing that extra strong, extra hoppy style known as double IPA. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The spirit of innovation among local craft breweries has accelerated in recent decades. New hop varieties are coming out all the time – giving brewers flavors to experiment with that Fritz Maytag could only dream of back in the 60s.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I just dry hopped a beer today with a hop that is a– it’s a number, NZ-109, and we’re the second brewery in the world, I’ve been told, to use this hop. And so here we’re experimenting with this new hop variety. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vinnie and his now wife Natalie showed me how it’s done at their state of the art brewery in Windsor California, about 10 miles north of Santa Rosa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sounds of brewing facility\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo giving a tour:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So this is what the hops looked like before they went into the hop back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Natalie \u003c/b>\u003cb>Cilurzo\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you think of like in cooking, you know, the hops would be like your herbs and spices and so you’d have your base recipe that you can then make the same best base recipe for several different beers. But you can you can dramatically alter them by just different hop varieties that you use. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The day I visited they were brewing a big batch of their happy hops IPA. As we walked through the brewery, we came across a couple large tubs of spent hops, still warm from being in the brew.. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Sound of tour:\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So this is this could be Amarillo. It couldn’t stone fruit. Yeah, it could be a….Smell that you’re going to love this smell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The still slightly damp hops smell amazing– a little piney, citrusy, with a note of freshly mown hay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was struck by just how passionate the people who work in craft beer really are. And how that enthusiasm translates into really good beer. I also got the sense that a lot of these breweries feel a camaraderie with each other…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lagunitas invited all employees and former employees of Anchor Brewing to an anchor appreciation party.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> When Stone Brewing in Escondido had their second anniversary, they made a double IPA and they actually gave me credit on their on their label, which was pretty cool of Greg and Steve to do that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It could be that along with a philosophy of creative experimentation, Fritz Maytag’s “open source” style of welcoming brewers to Anchor also set a standard… where rather than cutthroat competition, brewers respect and cheer on each other’s creations, because they’re all doing something unique. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the craft beer industry is facing some challenges right now. The pandemic hit everyone hard, and tastes change over time… alcoholic seltzers seem to be the hot thing right now. Plus, the market is a little saturated, and increasing costs can mean that breweries that were once considered ‘craft’ now don’t technically qualify because they’ve had to turn to larger business partners. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before it closed, Anchor was sold to Sapporo in 2017, making it no longer a craft brewery. Petaluma-based Lagunitas, another brewery popular for its creative beers, doesn’t technically qualify anymore. Heiniken bought a 50% stake in the company in 2015. But maybe rigid qualifications like that don’t fully reflect what’s at the heart of an industry based on creativity… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I define craft brewing as quality, quality driven. And and at the end of the day, I’m actually not sure anymore if it matters who owns you or whatnot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historian Dave Burkhart summed it up nicely too… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: A craft beer is a distinctive, aesthetically pleasing alcoholic beverage made from malted grain whose taste, aroma, quality and consistency reflect the skill, integrity and creative imagination of its brewer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a fellow beer lover, I’ll drink to that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sound of cheers\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was Bay Curious producer Amanda Font. Big thanks to Ricky Tjandra for sending in that question. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s a new month and that means… there’s a new voting round up at BayCurious.org. Head over to cast your vote for what question you think we should answer next. It only takes a few seconds! Also, there’s a new monthly trivia contest question … hang on at the end of this episode for a chance to win.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KEQD Family. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Have a good one, everybody!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nThe craft beer market has been booming the last few decades. Last year the number of craft breweries in the U.S. reached an all time high of 9,552. And California is a paradise for craft beer lovers like Bay Curious listener Ricky Tjandra – the state is home to over 950 such brew operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Ricky, who lives in Hayward, first started drinking beer in the early 2000s, he’d buy the basics: Coors, Budweiser, and the like. Then he and his friends started exploring the many different styles that Bay Area breweries were offering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We started seeing other beers that weren’t in the supermarket out in bars,” said Ricky. “It got me interested.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as a craft beer aficionado, Ricky asked Bay Curious to investigate the local lore that this nationwide beer trend got its start in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I heard that the Bay Area is one of the first places to produce craft beer before craft beer even became a thing,” he said, “Is that true?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s in a name?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>First, you might be wondering what the difference is between a ‘craft’ beer and just any beer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The official definition is set by the Brewers Association, a national industry trade group for craft brewers. It says the “craft” in brewing comes down to an operation’s ownership and output. A craft brewery can’t be more than 25% owned by a company or investor that is not also a craft brewery. And the annual output of the brewery can’t be more than six million barrels of bee r– a considerable amount. A barrel is 31 gallons of beer, and six million of them is enough to fill 380 Olympic sized swimming pools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s another, less official standard for what defines a craft beer; one that’s more about quality and character. How is it made? What kind of creative process did the brewer go through when developing it? Does it utilize new, perhaps experimental ingredients or flavors?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Retired Anchor Brewing Historian, Dave Burkhart, has his own definition:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A craft beer is a distinctive, aesthetically pleasing alcoholic beverage made from malted grain whose taste, aroma, quality and consistency reflect the skill, integrity and creative imagination of its brewer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dave is the author of The Anchor Brewing Story, which tells the complete history of the Anchor Brewing Company — where he worked for 31 years — from the Gold Rush all the way to the present day. Dave began working at the brewery in 1991, and over the years did a number of jobs, including acting as tour guide and helping to design many of Anchor’s beautiful labels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anchor Brewing has been in the news this year, because after 127 years of brewing beer in San Francisco, the institution shut its doors at the end of July. Prior to its closure, Anchor Brewing had been purchased by Japanese brewer, Sapporo, in 2017. Former union workers of the Bay Area brewery hope to raise money to buy it back, but no deals have so far been made and the building currently sits empty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969214\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11969214\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Two people talk as they look through boxes of Anchor merchandise in a warehouse-type space.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/230714-AnchorBrewing-22-BL-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shari Walker and Marshall Stine gathered Anchor beer and merchandise in the final days before it closed. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Innovation at Anchor Brewing is widely considered to be the catalyst to the modern craft beer movement. So the short answer to Ricky’s question is: Yes, American craft beer really did take off in San Francisco. But it took quite a while to get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Steamy beginnings\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>During the Gold Rush thirsty miners created a huge demand for beer. So beer making operations were popping up all over the place. The brewery that would become Anchor Brewing was first opened as Golden City Brewery in 1871 on Pacific Avenue, between Larkin and Hyde in Nob Hill. In 1896, that location was purchased by Ernst Baruth and his son-in-law, Otto Schenkel Jr., who changed the name to Anchor Brewing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of the deal, new owners Baruth and Schenkel also got the recipe to the only beer that the brewery had been making. This beer would come to be known as Anchor Steam, and it’s the style that would keep the company afloat for decades to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What is a “steam” beer?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The term “steam beer” is now trademarked by Anchor Brewing, but a similar style of beer can be found under the name California Common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dave says there’s no one clear answer where the name comes from, but there are a few potential origins for the term. The most popular theory relates to its Gold Rush-era method of manufacture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first steps of beer making require steeping the malt in heating water, removing it, then boiling that mixture. The wort, as it’s called at that point, then needs to be cooled down before the yeast is added. Yeast is a living organism and if it gets too hot, it will die. The cooling process needs to happen fairly quickly to prevent bacteria from growing in the mixture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back when beer was being brewed in San Francisco in the 19th century, refrigeration was not available, and this process was a lot harder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So what they did was, they pumped it up to the rooftop of the brewery, which was enclosed on all four sides by Louvered windows and had a slanted roof, so condensation wouldn’t drip right back into the beer,” said Dave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s where the “steam” came in: The hot mixture, not alcoholic yet, would sit in large shallow pans while the cold San Francisco air flowed around them, creating a cloud of steam that drifted out from the windows on the roof.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Somebody said, ‘Well, boy, they must be making steam beer up there,’” said Dave, about how the name may have been coined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a very long time, that was the only kind of beer Anchor Brewing made.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Then along came Fritz\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By 1965, after changing hands several times, and relocating to the corner of De Haro and Mariposa Streets in Potrero Hill, Anchor Brewing was in a bad financial situation. At the time, the company was run by a man named Lawrence Steese who, despite his best efforts, was having difficulty maintaining the quality of the beer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of the equipment was very old. In fact, the brewery did not have refrigeration and still used the same 1890s-era rooftop cooling method. Sanitation issues meant that bacteria growth sometimes ruined the beer. Local bartenders were reporting that kegs arrived spoiled. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then came Fritz Maytag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Maytag name may be familiar. Fritz’s grandfather founded the Maytag Corporation, the household appliance manufacturer best known for their washing machines. Fritz’s father also founded Maytag Dairy Farms, known for making a distinctive blue cheese.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1965, Fritz Maytag was a 28-year-old entrepreneur who’d attended Stanford University and lived in San Francisco. When he heard from a local bartender that a legacy business like Anchor Brewing was about to close, he decided to help. He bought a 51% stake in the company for $5,100 (just under $50K in today’s money) and loaned his co-owner additional cash to keep the business afloat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, Fritz had no beer making know-how. He kept Lawrence Steese on for the first several years as brewmaster while he learned the trade and converted what he termed ‘America’s most medieval brewery’ into a modern marvel. Fritz switched to cooling the brew with refrigeration, and improved sanitation with stainless steel fermentation tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He saw it as a challenge,” said Dave, who counts Fritz Maytag as a close friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Eventually in 1969, he bought out Steese and and ended up being 100% owner, although it took him ten years to turn a profit at the brewery,” he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969215\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11969215\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-800x474.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white photo of a white bearded man wearing a white button down and a tie. He is seated in front of beer paraphernalia. \" width=\"800\" height=\"474\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-800x474.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-1020x605.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-160x95.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-1536x910.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-2048x1214.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1298609915-1920x1138.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing in 1978. \u003ccite>(Photo by Gary Fong/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1971, Anchor began bottling their Steam beer, which had previously only been available locally and on tap. That same year they introduced their first new beer – Anchor Porter. In 1975 they introduced three more: Liberty Ale, Old Foghorn Barleywine and the seasonal Anchor Christmas Ale. Soon all five beers were being bottled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of these beer styles were brand new – variations of them have been brewed in Europe for hundreds of years. But Dave says they were novel in the American commercial beer market at the time, which consisted mainly of watered down versions of lager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sad to say, virtually all of the beer in America, as anybody who was drinking beer back then will tell you, was all fizzy, light, yellow, bubbly, bland, tasteless, characterless,” Dave said, “And that was one of the beauties of what Fritz was doing. It was what he called a radically traditional idea. It was radical to make a traditional beer in those days.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the availability of bottled Anchor beer being sold to a wider market, people started to take notice of their robust and creative brews, and their renewed success. Soon, visitors were flocking to the brewery to see how it was done. something that Fritz Maytag welcomed. Dave says Fritz was happy to give anyone a tour, and promote the idea that would come to be known as craft brewing.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A legacy of creativity and openness\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>From there the craft beer industry began to blossom as inspired homebrewers in California, and nationwide made their beers commercial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A couple of those guys were Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi from what became Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Jack McAuliffe of New Albion came to the brewery,” said Dave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The short lived New Albion Brewing Company opened in 1978, and was the first modern microbrewery to open in the U.S. since prohibition. Though New Albion closed in 1982, many other breweries inspired by Anchor have survived and thrived.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Two of the marvelous success stories in California beer that were both inspired by Anchor are Sierra Nevada and Russian River,” said Dave. (full disclosure: Sierra Nevada Brewing is a sponsor of Bay Curious)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Russian River makes the very popular Pliny the Elder imperial IPA. They’re known for their hoppy beers, and Vinnie Cilurzo, who runs the brewery with his wife Natalie in Windsor, California, is actually credited with inventing the beer style known as a double IPA while running his first brewery, Blind Pig.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vinnie cites Anchor Brewing and Sierra Nevada as being early inspirations for the hop-forward beers that are the hallmark of his brewery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Anchor Liberty and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale were two, like, formidable beers that … still are in my DNA,” said Vinnie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A sense of camaraderie and respect seems to exist among the craft brewing industry. Vinnie Cilurzo mentioned how proud he was to have a sign from the original New Albion brewery hanging in his brewpub pub in Santa Rosa, and that Stone Brewing had credited him by name on their bottles when they released their version of a double IPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historian Dave Burkhart told me that following the closure of Anchor Brewing, all current and former staff were invited to a party in Petaluma by the employees of Lagunitas Brewing Company to celebrate the life of the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It could be that along with a philosophy of creative experimentation, Fritz Maytag’s ‘open source’ style of welcoming brewers to Anchor also set a standard— where rather than cutthroat competition, brewers cheer on each other’s creations, because each is doing something unique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><h2 id=”episode-transcript”>Episode Transcript</h2>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beer…Humans love it, Americans love it, Californians love it. Whether you’r\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">e cracking open a cold one at Dolores Park, clinking pint glasses with your buds at a local brewery, or paying way too much for refreshments at a Giants game… When there’\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s good times to be had, many Californians choose: BEER. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font speaking fast, mimicking a beer commercial: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Side effects of beer may include thinking you’re stronger than you really are, excessive burping, and ordering nachos. Please drink responsibly, and only if you’re 21 or over. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hey everyone. This is Bay Curious, the show that answers your questions about the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. And I want to kick off this week’s episode by playing you one of my favorite sounds …\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">beer pouring sound\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s a fresh pint of beer being poured. That kinda dampened foamy sound is just … mm! … so good. Especially when you hear it in one of the Bay Area’s many fine drinking establishments.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ricky Tjandra: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s this place called Buffalo Bill’s in Hayward, and I’ve been going there since a little after college, like 2000. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious listener Ricky Tjandra enjoys having a pint with friends. In particular, he enjoys local craft beers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ricky Tjandra: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At first I liked the IPAs and they started to be a little too heavy for me. So now I’ve been in more into Pilsners and Kölsch, and yeah, I think Kölsch has been my go to beer lately. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ricky says when he first started enjoying beer in the early 2000s, he’d drink the basics.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ricky Tjandra: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like Budweiser, Coors Light. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But then some of his friends started brewing their own beer, and getting more curious about different styles. And as their tastes changed, they began trying the wide variety of brews sold in markets around the Bay Area that were produced here– Something that at the time, he hadn’t really seen outside of California. Now, as a craft beer aficionado, he wonders.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">theme music \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ricky Tjandra:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So I heard that the Bay Area is one of the first places to produce craft beer before craft beer even became a thing. Is that true? And if so, how did it start? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This week on Bay Curious … we explore how the Bay Area became the epicenter for the modern craft beer explosion. And we’ll go inside a successful brewery. That’s all just ahead. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sponsor break\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’ve got producer Amanda Font here today to answer Ricky’s question about how craft beer got its start. But first, Amanda, what exactly makes something a “craft beer” versus just a regular beer?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, there’s sort of two answers. First there’s the official industry definition. According to the Brewers Association, which is a trade group for craft brewers, it comes down to ownership and output. Your brewery can’t be more than 25% owned or controlled by a company that is NOT a craft brewery. And your annual output must be less than 6 million barrels of beer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> OK. Can you give us some context. How much, really, is 6 million barrels? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A barrel is 31 gallons. So 6 million of them could fill 380 Olympic sized swimming pools. Which is a LOT. For perspective, Bay Curious sponsor Sierra Nevada is one of the largest craft breweries, with a nationwide distribution, and their annual output is only about 1.2 million barrels. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So what’s the other thing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The second sort of signifier of a craft brewer isn’t official, it’s more about the characteristics of the beer itself. How is it made? What kind of creative process did the brewer go through when developing it? Does it utilize new, maybe experimental ingredients or flavors? Like you kind of know a craft beer when you taste it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, totally. I am a lot like our question asker Ricky. In my twenties I drank a lot of Bud Light, PBR, Natty Boh (shoutout Baltimore). All kinds of light lagers that taste pretty similar. The first time I had a craft brew, it blew my mind. So much flavor! Now I’m always on the lookout for new brews to try and we have so many options here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Definitely! California has more craft breweries than any other state – around 957. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So… to answer Ricky’s question… Is it true that that idea of ‘craft brewing’ started in the Bay Area? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is true! It’s widely accepted that modern American craft brewing started right here in San Francisco at Anchor Brewing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> We had people coming to the brewery from all over the world, from all kinds of backgrounds. Just beer lovers, beer aficionados, brewers, people that were interested in starting a brewery, whether they were entrepreneurs or home brewers. It was absolutely just abuzz,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I talked to Dave Burkhart.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> My title is Anchor Brewery historian Emeritus, which has nothing to do with merit and simply means that I retired.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dave worked at Anchor Brewing for 31 years starting in 1991. He did a lot of different jobs. Everything from being on the design team for their beautiful labels, to doing lab work and being a tour guide. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Tour guide was a great job and everybody did it because it was a great way to learn about the brewery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While working as a tour guide people would ask him history questions that he didn’t know the answers to, so he’d ask other people in the company and they also weren’t sure. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here I was working at a San Francisco institution that had been around forever, and nobody really knew all that much about the history. So I began delving into it on my own. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The result is his book, The Anchor Brewing Story.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">…which tells the Complete History of Anchor Brewing Company from the Gold Rush all the way to the present day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, you may have seen Anchor Brewing in the news this year because after 127 years of brewing beer in San Francisco, the company ceased operations and shut its doors at the end of July. It’s not necessarily gone forever…there are efforts underway to raise money to help the former union workers at Anchor buy the brewery and reopen it. But currently the property is for sale for $40 million dollars. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is for certain, is that Anchor’s influence as the center of the modern craft beer movement can’t be underestimated. But it took a long time to get there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The story starts just after the gold rush. The brewery that would become Anchor was first opened as Golden City Brewery in 1871 on Pacific Avenue, between Larkin and Hyde in Nob Hill. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1896, Ernst Baruth and his son in law, Otto Schenkel Jr, bought the brewery and changed the name to Anchor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1896 is what Anchor claims as their official establishment year. As part of the deal, the new owners also got the recipe for one and only beer that the brewery had been making– what would come to be known as Anchor Steam– the iconic beer that kept this business open for many decades to come… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The question that I’ve probably been asked more times than any in 31 and a half years that I worked at the brewery was why is it called steam beer? And I’d like to say that there’s one answer and there’s one easy answer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are a few potential reasons, but Here’s what is probably the most popular theory behind the name… During the Goldrush there were a lot of thirsty miners, and a huge demand for beer, particularly lager. The term lager comes from a German word that means to stock or store…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And typically lager beer in those lands is made and then stored or lagered either in a cellar or an alpine cave on almost always on ice or in a very cool temperature for a number of months. And that’s where it develops its clean, crisp flavors. Well, guess what? Ice and water refrigeration were not available in California during the gold rush. So the Brewers had to figure out a way to make the best lager they could make under those primitive conditions and without ice. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The first steps of beer making require steeping your malt in heating water, and boiling that mixture. Then you need to cool it down before adding the yeast because yeast is a living organism, and if it’s too hot, it’ll die. And that’s the magic ingredient that makes your beer alcoholic. But you need to cool it quickly to prevent bacteria growth. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what they did was they pumped it up to the rooftop of the brewery, which was enclosed on all four sides by Louvered windows and had a slanted roof, so condensation wouldn’t drip right back into the beer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The hot mixture would sit in these big shallow pans, so cool air could flow around them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And guess what? When Hot Wort, which is what beer is called before you add yeast to it, met cold air of San Francisco, you get something that looks like steam wafting from those louvered windows. And so somebody said, “Well, boy, they must be making steam beer up there.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The term “Steam Beer” was later trademarked by Anchor, but you can find a similar style of beer sold under the name California Common. And for a long time that’s the only kind of beer Anchor Brewing made. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let’s jump ahead to 1965… Anchor Brewing has changed hands several times and is now owned by a guy named Lawrence Steese. And it is not doing very well. They’re making 2 beers–sort of… that classic Steam and something that at least looks like a Porter… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It wasn’t called Porter, it was just called steam light and steam dark. And all they did was literally add caramel coloring to the keg as they were filling the keg. It wasn’t even in the brew. There was no dark malt. There was no nothing. It looked like Porter, but it tasted. If you close your eyes, guess what it was exactly… exactly the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The quality of the beer they’re churning out is very inconsistent, due to sanitation issues, like bacteria growth. Local bars are reporting that kegs arrive spoiled. And Anchor Brewing is in deep financial trouble, on the verge of bankruptcy. Then along comes… Fritz Maytag. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Absolutely one of the brightest people I know. Sharp as a tack. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the name Maytag sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because you’ve seen it on your washing machine. Fritz is grandson of the founder of the Maytag Corporation. Or it could be that you’ve had Maytag Blue Cheese, because Fritz’s father started Maytag Dairy Farms. Talk about a family with a diverse business portfolio… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1965, Fritz Maytag was a 28-year-old entrepreneur, looking to branch out in yet another direction from his family’s enterprises. He’d attended Stanford, and lived in the Bay Area, and when he heard from a local bartender that a legacy business like Anchor was close to shutting its doors, he decided he had to help. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And so he bought 51% stake in the brewery for $5,100 dollars…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A little under 50 grand in today’s money. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And then loaned promptly had to loan Lawrence Stice about $9,000. Fritz was charmed by the brewery, but also realized that in addition to being America’s smallest brewery at the time, It was also the most medieval brewery, as Fritz liked to call it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For one thing, the brewery was still using that same method of cooling the wort on the roof of the building that they had been back in the 1890s. They didn’t even have refrigeration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It had a refrigerator where you could leave your lunch, you know, But that was about it. This is this was in 1965, for gosh sakes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fritz set about taking this “medieval” brewery and modernizing it, starting with refrigeration and stainless steel tanks, which are much easier to keep clean. The funny thing is, before buying a majority stake in Anchor, Fritz didn’t actually know anything about beer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as he started to work there and see the problems with the beer he saw it as a challenge and saw it as something that he really loved and taught himself all about brewing. And eventually in 1969, he bought out Steese and and ended up being 100% owner,, although it took him ten years to turn a profit at the brewery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the majority of the company’s history Anchor beer had only been available locally on tap. But In 1971, they began bottling Anchor Steam – and branching out, style-wise. The first new brew – a Porter… A real one, this time…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> an all malt porter made with a black patent or dark malt, as well as the caramel malt and pale malt. That was in 1972 and we began bottling it in 1974. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1975 they introduced three more beers… Anchor Liberty Ale, Old Foghorn Barleywine and the seasonal Anchor Christmas Ale, which started a tradition where each year the recipe and the label on the bottle are just a little different. And each of Anchor’s now 5 different beers was unique in character… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They all looked different. They all tasted different. They all smelled different. They all had different labels, but they all felt like they came from Anchor.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Experimenting with different styles is a hallmark of craft breweries now, but at the time it was unusual, because in the 1970s… American beer was pretty homogenous. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sad to say, virtually all of the beer in America, as anybody knows who was drinking, drinking beer back then will tell you, it was all fizzy lite, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Medley of 70s beer commercials\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yellow, bubbly, bland, tasteless, characterless. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Medley of 70s beer commercials\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s not that any of the styles Anchor was brewing were brand new, they just weren’t commonly available in the U.S. at that time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And that was one of the beauties of what Fritz was doing. It was what he called a radically traditional idea. It was radical to make a traditional beer in those days.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Selling their beer in bottles allowed Anchor to reach a wider market, and people outside the Bay Area started to take notice of these robust, more artfully brewed beers. Some started flocking to the brewery to see how it all worked … because they wanted to do it too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fritz was open source before the words open source and was happy to give everybody that came a tour, tell them all about our beer and, you know, promote the idea of what ultimately became known as craft beer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dave says the term ‘craft beer’ was just taking off around the time he started working at Anchor in 1991. Before that people referred to it as microbrewing. Anchor was doing a lot of experimentation with different hops and malts, and that, combined with their modern techniques and the fact that they were seeing renewed success, inspired a lot of new businesses… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> A couple of those guys were Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi from what became Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Jack McAuliffe of New Albion came to the brewery. Everybody wanted to make that pilgrimage, and why not, to see how it was done because the brewery was… it was small, but it was successful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And the craft beer scene started to take off and evolve… for example, there’s the story about a young couple from Southern California…Natalie and her boyfriend Vinnie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Natalie \u003c/b>\u003cb>Cilurzo\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I asked him what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Like, what do you want to be when you grow up that everybody asks you at that age? And he said, I want to own my own brewery. And I Said how do you know this? You’re not even old enough to buy beer. And he said, I just do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Natalie brought Vinnie to see the Anchor Brewing tour for his 21st birthday in 1991. Dave gave the tour.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Fritz was there that day. I won’t claim to have been inspirational. But Fritz was certainly inspirational. The tour left a big impression on Vinnee … and on Dave too.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> But he wrote me a thank you note, and I saved it for some reason. I just got this weird sense about him like “Maybe I should just save this note.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">30 years later… Vinnee comes back for a 2nd tour, this time at the invitation of Anchor Brewing. Because Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo now run Russian River Brewing, makers of the popular Pliny the Elder imperial IPA. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Dave whips out this piece of paper and it’s a handwritten letter just thanking him for the visit and whatnot. And I was, I was blown away that Dave still had that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you can think of Anchor Brewing as sort of a parent or grandparent of many of the well-known craft breweries around today. Vinnie credits Anchor as an early inspiration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Anchor Liberty and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale were two, like, formidable beers that were in my– still are in my DNA. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And he’s leveraged that inspiration to great success… Here’s a perfect example. Before taking over Russian River, Vinnie opened his first brewery, called Blind Pig, in his hometown of Temecula California. He was young, and just starting out, so he had to buy his brewing equipment second hand. It was a little old, some of it was plastic, and it was kind of cobbled together. He was worried it might affect the taste of his beer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So I just thought, Well, what if we take our IPA recipe and double all the hops and then raise the malt a little bit? So then we get a little higher alcohol content in a way, almost like kind of hide the flavors because we couldn’t afford to fail on the first brew. Granted, if it would have been contaminated, we would have dumped it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But it wasn’t, and when they released the beer, it was good. So the next year they released another Double IPA… That’s right, Vinnie is credited with inventing that extra strong, extra hoppy style known as double IPA. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The spirit of innovation among local craft breweries has accelerated in recent decades. New hop varieties are coming out all the time – giving brewers flavors to experiment with that Fritz Maytag could only dream of back in the 60s.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I just dry hopped a beer today with a hop that is a– it’s a number, NZ-109, and we’re the second brewery in the world, I’ve been told, to use this hop. And so here we’re experimenting with this new hop variety. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vinnie and his now wife Natalie showed me how it’s done at their state of the art brewery in Windsor California, about 10 miles north of Santa Rosa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sounds of brewing facility\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo giving a tour:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So this is what the hops looked like before they went into the hop back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Natalie \u003c/b>\u003cb>Cilurzo\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you think of like in cooking, you know, the hops would be like your herbs and spices and so you’d have your base recipe that you can then make the same best base recipe for several different beers. But you can you can dramatically alter them by just different hop varieties that you use. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The day I visited they were brewing a big batch of their happy hops IPA. As we walked through the brewery, we came across a couple large tubs of spent hops, still warm from being in the brew.. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Sound of tour:\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So this is this could be Amarillo. It couldn’t stone fruit. Yeah, it could be a….Smell that you’re going to love this smell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The still slightly damp hops smell amazing– a little piney, citrusy, with a note of freshly mown hay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was struck by just how passionate the people who work in craft beer really are. And how that enthusiasm translates into really good beer. I also got the sense that a lot of these breweries feel a camaraderie with each other…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lagunitas invited all employees and former employees of Anchor Brewing to an anchor appreciation party.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> When Stone Brewing in Escondido had their second anniversary, they made a double IPA and they actually gave me credit on their on their label, which was pretty cool of Greg and Steve to do that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It could be that along with a philosophy of creative experimentation, Fritz Maytag’s “open source” style of welcoming brewers to Anchor also set a standard… where rather than cutthroat competition, brewers respect and cheer on each other’s creations, because they’re all doing something unique. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the craft beer industry is facing some challenges right now. The pandemic hit everyone hard, and tastes change over time… alcoholic seltzers seem to be the hot thing right now. Plus, the market is a little saturated, and increasing costs can mean that breweries that were once considered ‘craft’ now don’t technically qualify because they’ve had to turn to larger business partners. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before it closed, Anchor was sold to Sapporo in 2017, making it no longer a craft brewery. Petaluma-based Lagunitas, another brewery popular for its creative beers, doesn’t technically qualify anymore. Heiniken bought a 50% stake in the company in 2015. But maybe rigid qualifications like that don’t fully reflect what’s at the heart of an industry based on creativity… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Vinnie Cilurzo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I define craft brewing as quality, quality driven. And and at the end of the day, I’m actually not sure anymore if it matters who owns you or whatnot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historian Dave Burkhart summed it up nicely too… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dave Burkhart\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: A craft beer is a distinctive, aesthetically pleasing alcoholic beverage made from malted grain whose taste, aroma, quality and consistency reflect the skill, integrity and creative imagination of its brewer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a fellow beer lover, I’ll drink to that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sound of cheers\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was Bay Curious producer Amanda Font. Big thanks to Ricky Tjandra for sending in that question. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s a new month and that means… there’s a new voting round up at BayCurious.org. Head over to cast your vote for what question you think we should answer next. It only takes a few seconds! Also, there’s a new monthly trivia contest question … hang on at the end of this episode for a chance to win.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KEQD Family. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "with-climate-change-what-will-happen-to-the-bay-areas-fog",
"title": "With Climate Change, What Will Happen to the Bay Area’s Fog?",
"publishDate": 1701342016,
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"headTitle": "With Climate Change, What Will Happen to the Bay Area’s Fog? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any San Franciscan knows the complex relationship between the city and its pervasive companion — fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I both love and get frustrated by the fog,” said long-time resident and Bay Curious listener Lily Drexler. “I appreciate how it freshens the air and changes things up. But when there is fog for weeks on end with no break, that does get frustrating.” [baycuriousbug]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drexler is getting ready to put down roots in San Francisco and is starting to look at real estate options in different neighborhoods around the city. But before she does so, she has one big question: what’s going to happen to fog in the future?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is it going to get more foggy as the sun bakes the ocean and creates the moisture, if that’s how fog works? Or is the heat and the warming of the planet going to decrease the fog?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where should a fog-averse city dweller choose to settle down? And, more broadly, what would a future look like with less fog? How do we rely on fog now in the Bay Area and how might its absence change us?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As it turns out, the answer to Drexler’s question is not simple or straightforward. There’s a shroud of mystery surrounding fog — much like the phenomenon itself — that has scientists unsure of what the future may hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC1678544124\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘A Special Thing to Study’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even the basic definition of fog is not widely agreed upon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a few ways to define fog and they’re somewhat overlapping, which kind of illustrates the complication when trying to define something like fog,” said \u003ca href=\"https://csumb.edu/fernandezlab/\">Daniel Fernandez\u003c/a>, an environmental studies professor at CSU Monterey Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Fernandez, in order to be considered “fog,” this weather phenomenon must have three things:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Air must consist of tiny water droplets between one and 50 microns — thinner than a piece of hair.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>There must be enough of those tiny droplets that it impede our ability to see beyond a kilometer.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Fog is a cloud that is in contact with the ground.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>In order for that cocktail of ingredients to come together, there must be a temperature gradient over a given area. The cool ocean air and hot Central Valley, for example, is conducive to fog formation. (Bay Curious explained this phenomenon in detail in our episode: \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11682511/why-san-francisco-gets-so-windy-and-foggy-in-the-summer\">Why San Francisco Gets So Windy and Foggy in the Summer\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I find fog mysterious, fascinating, scary and exciting,” Fernandez said. “I think that’s part of what makes it such a special thing to study.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fernandez has been studying fog for over a decade. It started with him wondering whether he could catch fog — as in, pull it out of the air and collect it as a liquid. It turns out you can. He now has dozens of fog collectors deployed all over the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11968539\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11968539\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A man stands in a field examining a tall black mesh screen that has been mounted onto a frame . \" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor Daniel Fernandez examines one of his ‘fog collecting’ screens. On a very foggy day, one of these screens can trap up to 9 gallons of water vapor. \u003ccite>(Dana Cronin/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They’re essentially big, 4-by-10-foot pieces of mesh reaching into the sky with troughs underneath. The water vapor collects on the mesh and trickles down. The trough feeds into a bucket that contains a data logger, so Fernandez can keep track of how much water each one has collected — as much as nine gallons of water in one day, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While that’s not nearly enough to offset California’s water shortage during drought years, that water could help farmers with irrigation or assist with state reforestation efforts, Fernandez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fog collectors haven’t been established long enough for Fernandez to determine whether there’s been an increase or decrease in fog over time. And given the complex set of conditions surrounding it, fog is a difficult thing to predict. It can’t be forecasted in the same way that rain can be. And that’s why there’s some disagreement in the fog science community over how climate change is impacting fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Fernandez said, there is a small cadre of scientists who believe that fog is on the decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On the whole, I think that we’re going to probably be seeing less fog, in general, and that we are currently seeing less than we may have seen a generation ago,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0915062107\">studies have shown\u003c/a> that, since the 1950s, fog has declined about 30% during the summertime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fernandez emphasized there’s still a lot of uncertainty in the fog science community. For example, that 30% decline could come from the fact that a lot of cities have cleaned up their air since the 1950s, so these tiny droplets of water vapor have fewer particulates to cling to. In other words, perhaps there’s less of it not because of climate change but because of improving air quality standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other studies completely contradict that. At least one used observational notes from ships off the coast of California to suggest fog is getting heavier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, according to Dan, there’s some level of consensus that fog is on the decline. And, if true, there would be consequences here in northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What Less Fog Would Mean for Northern California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>We rely on fog in all kinds of ways, both big and small. One big way is to help us grow food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A half mile from the ocean in Watsonville, Rod Koda grows strawberries on 15 acres of land. His farm, \u003ca href=\"https://www.skberries.com/\">Shinta Kawahara Company\u003c/a>, thrives on fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Here along the coast with the fog, the temperatures are cooler, so the berries ripen slower and get more sugar content,” he said on a recent foggy day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In warmer parts of California where strawberries are grown, like Salinas and Gilroy, strawberries ripen more quickly. One heat wave and the berries have to be picked immediately. Whereas, thanks to the fog, Koda has more flexibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fog even helps with simple tasks, like laying down plastic in preparation for planting strawberries, which Koda’s crew is working on the day I visit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It comes out really nice because the dirt is a little softer,” Koda said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11968541\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11968541\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A man wearing a denim shirt and dusty jeans smiles warmly at the camera while standing in a plowed dirt agricultural field. A green tractor can be seen in the background.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rod Koda, owner of the Shinta Kawahara Company, grows strawberries in Watsonville, CA. He says fog helps his berries grow slower and sweeter. \u003ccite>(Dana Cronin/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In addition to temperature, strawberries also rely on the moisture from fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Strawberry crops have greater water use efficiency during fog events compared to non-foggy periods,” said \u003ca href=\"https://environment.sfsu.edu/person/sara-baguskas\">Sara Baguskas\u003c/a>, an environmental professor at San Francisco State University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baguskas \u003ca href=\"https://environment.sfsu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/Baguskas-etal-Coastal-low-cloudiness-and-fog-increase-WUE-of-crops-AFM-2018.pdf\">conducted research in Salinas Valley\u003c/a> to find out how strawberry plants interact with fog. Ultimately, she found that strawberries don’t need as much water when it’s foggy and that they use sunlight more efficiently on foggy days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though the total amount of light that’s used by plants is lower like it’s dimmer, the photons are scattered, and so more of the leaves are engaged in photosynthesis in the plant,” Baguskas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Koda has noticed that on his farm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We typically have fog in July and August, and usually our volume is up during those times,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He hasn’t really noticed any major changes in the fog patterns in the decades he’s been farming. Every year feels different, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in a future without fog, farmers like Koda would have to compensate. In the future, growing strawberries could require more water, and some farmers might not have the same flexibility they have now when it comes to harvesting. And, for us consumers, the berries might be less tasty and more expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there are other ways the disappearance of fog would fundamentally change the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11953504/the-bay-areas-famous-redwood-trees-are-struggling\">Redwood trees\u003c/a>, for example, are natural fog catchers. They essentially drink it in, relying on it for survival. It’s why they’re unique here to Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many other species rely on fog, too, including manzanita trees and even certain types of lizards. That can have a ripple effect throughout an ecosystem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because when one element of an ecosystem is impacted, how does that affect others?” said fog scientist Dan Fernandez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fog may even protect us from wildfires to some extent. The moisture it provides acts as a fire retardant and without it, Fernandez said many more areas would be susceptible to megafires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without fog, life in the Bay Area will change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11968559\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617-800x842.jpg\" alt=\"Two people stand silhouetted on a cement walkway while the Golden Gate Bridge is just barely visible through thick fog in the background.\" width=\"800\" height=\"842\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617-800x842.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617-1020x1074.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617-160x168.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617-1459x1536.jpg 1459w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617.jpg 1702w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Real Estate of it All\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In short, there’s no straightforward answer to Bay Curious listener Lily Drexler’s question about fog and climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But here’s some straightforward advice about what to look for in real estate: buy in a neighborhood that you can see yourself living in now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it’s of concern to people, I would literally counsel them and say this house is going to be in the fog. If it’s a problem, then we probably need to look elsewhere,” said Alexander Clark, owner of \u003ca href=\"https://thefrontsteps.com/\">Front Steps Real Estate\u003c/a> in San Francisco, who has written about this topic before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clark said while he’s no fog scientist and doesn’t know what will happen in the future, his advice for a fog-averse house hunter is to focus your search on sunny neighborhoods. Though, he warns, those tend to be pricier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether or not you want to live in the fog is a critical consideration, he said. “It’s a pretty important thing for people to know because it definitely affects people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lily Drexler grew up in San Francisco. And as anyone who lives in San Francisco can relate to… she has a complicated relationship with fog.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lily Drexler:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I both love and get frustrated by the fog. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the one hand…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lily Drexler:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I appreciate how it freshens the air. I appreciate how it changes things up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, it can get old.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lily Drexler:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> When there is fog for, you know, a week, weeks on end with no break, that does get frustrating.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I feel you, Lily. Lily rents in the Richmond district right now… and she’s thinking of settling down in San Francisco more permanently, maybe even investing in some real estate. But before she does that, she has some questions about fog. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lily Drexler:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Is it going to get more foggy as the sun bakes the ocean and creates the moisture, if that’s how fog works? Or is it going to get less? Is the heat and the warming of the planet going to decrease the fog?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As climate change alters everything in our region … where does that leave fog? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Where should a fog-averse city dweller settle down? We’re going to answer that question … but we’re also going to zoom out and look at fog’s future in the Bay Area at large. How do we rely on fog now…and how might its absence change us? I’m Olivia Allen Price and you’re listening to Bay Curious.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sponsor message from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does the future of the Bay Area’s fog look like, Lily Drexler asked Bay Curious… We sent reporter Dana Cronin out to get some insight…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Curious music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s a foggy day in Monterey. At least, I thought it was.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fog literally has to be at ground level. So I would call this low cloud, which might become fog. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is fog expert Dan Fernandez. He’s a professor at CSU Monterey Bay. As you can tell… I have a lot to learn about fog before I try to answer Lily’s questions. And Dan’s gonna help me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He’s been studying fog for more than a decade. Before he studied it, he was an electrical engineer and worked on measuring ocean surface currents. He thought about fog from time to time. But his real fascination with it came to him during a meditation retreat. He says he was sitting there meditating. It was a hot day. And he was thirsty. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And of course when you’re meditating, minds go all sorts of places and this is where my mind went, went into water and then fog.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More specifically, he wondered whether he could catch fog… as in pull it out of the air and collect it as a liquid. Turns out… you can.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this is one of ten of the larger fog collectors that I and a class of mine deployed here back in spring 2018.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’re standing next to a fog collector. It’s basically a big, 4-by-10 piece of mesh reaching into the sky with a trough underneath. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So fog hits here on all of them, drips down, runs down this trough. And you can see birds visited, too. Even though I have bird spikes there, the water runs into the rain gauge. It goes through the rain gauge. It’s recorded here. And I have a data logger in there that records all the volume of water going through\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because it’s apparently not a foggy day today… there’s no water in the buckets. But when it’s SUPER foggy, Dan says he’s collected as much as nine gallons in one day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You might wonder what the point is of catching this fog. Could it be enough to help offset California’s water shortage during drought years, for example?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s certainly not enough for us to consume the amount of water we consume\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, no. But, Dan says, it could help farmers with irrigation. Or provide water for reforestation… which Dan’s fog collectors are working on now. He hasn’t had them set up for long enough to figure out whether there’s been more or less fog over time. And he says that question… how climate change is impacting fog… isn’t that simple. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s no general consensus in the science community about what will happen to fog in the future. In fact, they can hardly agree on how to define it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s a few ways to define fog and there’s somewhat overlapping, which kind of illustrates the sort of the complication when trying to define something like fog.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to Dan, for something to be considered “fog,” it needs to have three things. One:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So fog consists of water, tiny little droplets that vary in size between one-micron diameter spheres and 50-micron diameter spheres. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your hair is about 100 microns. So these water droplets are thinner than that… so thin that they float in the air. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But there have to be enough of these droplets to impede our visibility to be less than one kilometer. Then it’s defined as fog. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you can see beyond one kilometer, then it’s considered mist — NOT fog. And thirdly…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fog is a cloud that’s in contact with the ground. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, fog has to hover near the ground, it has to limit our visibility to one kilometer… and it consists of droplets between one and 50 microns. Simple, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And for that cocktail of ingredients to come together and form fog… we need a temperature gradient, as in something warm and something cool, like the cool ocean and the hot Central Valley, for example. As cool ocean air reaches land and warms up, it condenses and forms fog. It’s a complex phenomenon! But that’s why Dan likes it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I find fog mysterious, fascinating, it can be scary and exciting. It’s all of those. I think that’s part of what makes it such a special thing to study.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But it also makes it a difficult thing to study… and to predict. You can’t forecast it the same way you can forecast rain and thunderstorms. And that’s why scientists don’t know exactly how climate change is impacting fog. But Dan says they have an idea… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, on the whole, I think that we’re going to probably be seeing less fog in general and that we have that we are currently seeing less than we may have seen a generation ago.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some studies have shown that since the 1950’s fog has declined about 30% during the summertime. But Dan says there’s still a lot of uncertainty in the fog science community. For example… that decline could come from the fact that a lot of cities have cleaned up their air since the 50s… so fog has fewer particulates to cling to. Meaning, perhaps there’s less of it not because of climate change — but because of changing air quality standards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And some studies completely contradict that… at least one used observational notes from ships off the coast of California to suggest fog is getting heavier. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, according to Dan, there’s some level of consensus that fog is on the decline. And if that’s true… there would be consequences here in northern California. Because, as it turns out, we rely on fog in all kinds of ways — both big and small. I’m gonna walk you through a few of them. Starting with something we’re known for. Our food. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin (in tape): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a very foggy day on the farm here. Wow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, for real this time. I’m at Shinta Kawahara Company farm in Watsonville, about a half mile from the ocean. I’m meeting up with farm owner Rod Koda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin (in tape):\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Can you usually see the ocean from here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rod Koda: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. We’re in the Monterey Bay. Um, on a nice day, I could see Pacific Grove and all the way to Santa Cruz. But not today. We got fog. It’s nice. Perfect. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rod grows strawberries. Today his crew is preparing for planting… using a tractor to lay down plastic to protect the strawberries. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tractor sounds\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rod says the fog is actually helping this process.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rod Koda: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It comes out really nice because it’s last that the dirt is a little softer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it helps in other ways too. Rod says in other parts of California where strawberries are grown… like Salinas and Gilroy… it’s warmer, and the berries ripen more quickly. One heat wave and the berries have to be picked immediately. Whereas, thanks to the fog, Rod has more flexibility.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rod Koda: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here along the coast with the fog. The temperatures are cooler, which the berries ripen slower and get more sugar content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin (in tape): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you’re saying they’re better strawberries along the coast with the fog influence or, well, tastier. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rod Koda: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exactly\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition to temperature… strawberries also rely on the moisture from fog… says environmental professor Sara Baguskas.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sara Baguskas: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We learned that strawberry crops have greater water use efficiency during fog events compared to non-foggy periods.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That basically means that strawberries don’t need as much water when it’s foggy. Sara’s team also found that the strawberry plants use sunlight more efficiently when it’s foggy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sara Baguskas: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even though the total amount of light that’s used by plants is lower, it’s like dimmer, but the photons are scattered and so more of the leaves are engaged in photosynthesis in the plant. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So basically, when it’s foggy, strawberry plants are more productive and need less water. Rod has noticed that on his farm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rod Koda: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We typically have fog in July and August. And usually our volume is up during those times.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He says he hasn’t really noticed any major changes in the fog patterns in the decades he’s been farming. Every year feels different, he says. But if what fog scientist Dan Fernandez said is true, and there won’t be as much of it in the future, farmers like Rod might have to compensate. In the future, growing strawberries could require more water… and farmers might not have as much flexibility around when they harvest as they do now. And for us consumers… the berries might be less tasty and more expensive. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Besides strawberries… there are many other ways the disappearance of fog could impact the Bay Area. So many of our ecosystems here rely on it —todd both for moisture and for the cooler temperatures. Redwood trees, for example, are natural fog catchers… they basically drink it and need it to survive. It’s why they’re unique here to Northern California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fog scientist Dan Fernandez says there are many other species that rely on it, too… including manzanita trees and even some types of lizards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And so when one element of an ecosystem is impacted, how does that affect others?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fog may even protect us to some extent from wildfires. The moisture it provides acts as a fire retardant… and without it, Dan says many more areas would be susceptible to megafires. Overall… the loss of fog would fundamentally change the Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK Dana, but there’s one part of Lily’s question that’s still missing… where should she invest in property?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well… like I said in the story, fog is really hard to predict. There isn’t a neighborhood-by-neighborhood projection of what its future looks like in San Francisco. But… I did reach out to a real estate agent to get their take on the situation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Clark:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> A lot of my clients ask me like, So what’s the fog like with what are you going to do? And luckily, I know a lot about like the weather and just all the patterns and wind and which side of the street’s better…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Alex Clark, owner of Front Steps Real Estate in San Francisco. He told me fog is a really important thing to factor in when buying property. And while he’s no fog scientist… and doesn’t know what will happen in the future… he says the most important thing is to buy in a neighborhood that you can see yourself living in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">now. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Clark:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If it’s of concern to people, I would literally counsel them and say this house is going to be in the fog. If it’s a problem, then we probably need to look elsewhere.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, that’s something! Good luck in your search, Lily.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That story was reported by KQED’s Dana Cronin. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Next week, our December Bay Curious newsletter goes out. We ventured to a Christmas Tree Farm in Petaluma to learn about the year-round work that goes into growing the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">perfect\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> tree. It’s part of our unusual jobs series in the newsletter. Be sure you’re subscribed at baycurious.org/newsletter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and myself. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a wonderful week.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Climate change could be causing a decrease in our coastal fog. That's welcome news to some, but fog is more important that you might think. ",
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"title": "With Climate Change, What Will Happen to the Bay Area’s Fog? | KQED",
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"headline": "With Climate Change, What Will Happen to the Bay Area’s Fog?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any San Franciscan knows the complex relationship between the city and its pervasive companion — fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I both love and get frustrated by the fog,” said long-time resident and Bay Curious listener Lily Drexler. “I appreciate how it freshens the air and changes things up. But when there is fog for weeks on end with no break, that does get frustrating.” \u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drexler is getting ready to put down roots in San Francisco and is starting to look at real estate options in different neighborhoods around the city. But before she does so, she has one big question: what’s going to happen to fog in the future?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is it going to get more foggy as the sun bakes the ocean and creates the moisture, if that’s how fog works? Or is the heat and the warming of the planet going to decrease the fog?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where should a fog-averse city dweller choose to settle down? And, more broadly, what would a future look like with less fog? How do we rely on fog now in the Bay Area and how might its absence change us?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As it turns out, the answer to Drexler’s question is not simple or straightforward. There’s a shroud of mystery surrounding fog — much like the phenomenon itself — that has scientists unsure of what the future may hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC1678544124\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘A Special Thing to Study’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even the basic definition of fog is not widely agreed upon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a few ways to define fog and they’re somewhat overlapping, which kind of illustrates the complication when trying to define something like fog,” said \u003ca href=\"https://csumb.edu/fernandezlab/\">Daniel Fernandez\u003c/a>, an environmental studies professor at CSU Monterey Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Fernandez, in order to be considered “fog,” this weather phenomenon must have three things:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Air must consist of tiny water droplets between one and 50 microns — thinner than a piece of hair.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>There must be enough of those tiny droplets that it impede our ability to see beyond a kilometer.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Fog is a cloud that is in contact with the ground.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>In order for that cocktail of ingredients to come together, there must be a temperature gradient over a given area. The cool ocean air and hot Central Valley, for example, is conducive to fog formation. (Bay Curious explained this phenomenon in detail in our episode: \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11682511/why-san-francisco-gets-so-windy-and-foggy-in-the-summer\">Why San Francisco Gets So Windy and Foggy in the Summer\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I find fog mysterious, fascinating, scary and exciting,” Fernandez said. “I think that’s part of what makes it such a special thing to study.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fernandez has been studying fog for over a decade. It started with him wondering whether he could catch fog — as in, pull it out of the air and collect it as a liquid. It turns out you can. He now has dozens of fog collectors deployed all over the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11968539\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11968539\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A man stands in a field examining a tall black mesh screen that has been mounted onto a frame . \" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6607-scaled-e1701215304411.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor Daniel Fernandez examines one of his ‘fog collecting’ screens. On a very foggy day, one of these screens can trap up to 9 gallons of water vapor. \u003ccite>(Dana Cronin/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They’re essentially big, 4-by-10-foot pieces of mesh reaching into the sky with troughs underneath. The water vapor collects on the mesh and trickles down. The trough feeds into a bucket that contains a data logger, so Fernandez can keep track of how much water each one has collected — as much as nine gallons of water in one day, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While that’s not nearly enough to offset California’s water shortage during drought years, that water could help farmers with irrigation or assist with state reforestation efforts, Fernandez said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fog collectors haven’t been established long enough for Fernandez to determine whether there’s been an increase or decrease in fog over time. And given the complex set of conditions surrounding it, fog is a difficult thing to predict. It can’t be forecasted in the same way that rain can be. And that’s why there’s some disagreement in the fog science community over how climate change is impacting fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Fernandez said, there is a small cadre of scientists who believe that fog is on the decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On the whole, I think that we’re going to probably be seeing less fog, in general, and that we are currently seeing less than we may have seen a generation ago,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0915062107\">studies have shown\u003c/a> that, since the 1950s, fog has declined about 30% during the summertime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fernandez emphasized there’s still a lot of uncertainty in the fog science community. For example, that 30% decline could come from the fact that a lot of cities have cleaned up their air since the 1950s, so these tiny droplets of water vapor have fewer particulates to cling to. In other words, perhaps there’s less of it not because of climate change but because of improving air quality standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other studies completely contradict that. At least one used observational notes from ships off the coast of California to suggest fog is getting heavier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, according to Dan, there’s some level of consensus that fog is on the decline. And, if true, there would be consequences here in northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What Less Fog Would Mean for Northern California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>We rely on fog in all kinds of ways, both big and small. One big way is to help us grow food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A half mile from the ocean in Watsonville, Rod Koda grows strawberries on 15 acres of land. His farm, \u003ca href=\"https://www.skberries.com/\">Shinta Kawahara Company\u003c/a>, thrives on fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Here along the coast with the fog, the temperatures are cooler, so the berries ripen slower and get more sugar content,” he said on a recent foggy day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In warmer parts of California where strawberries are grown, like Salinas and Gilroy, strawberries ripen more quickly. One heat wave and the berries have to be picked immediately. Whereas, thanks to the fog, Koda has more flexibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fog even helps with simple tasks, like laying down plastic in preparation for planting strawberries, which Koda’s crew is working on the day I visit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It comes out really nice because the dirt is a little softer,” Koda said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11968541\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11968541\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A man wearing a denim shirt and dusty jeans smiles warmly at the camera while standing in a plowed dirt agricultural field. A green tractor can be seen in the background.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/IMG_6582-scaled-e1701215326711.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rod Koda, owner of the Shinta Kawahara Company, grows strawberries in Watsonville, CA. He says fog helps his berries grow slower and sweeter. \u003ccite>(Dana Cronin/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In addition to temperature, strawberries also rely on the moisture from fog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Strawberry crops have greater water use efficiency during fog events compared to non-foggy periods,” said \u003ca href=\"https://environment.sfsu.edu/person/sara-baguskas\">Sara Baguskas\u003c/a>, an environmental professor at San Francisco State University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Baguskas \u003ca href=\"https://environment.sfsu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/Baguskas-etal-Coastal-low-cloudiness-and-fog-increase-WUE-of-crops-AFM-2018.pdf\">conducted research in Salinas Valley\u003c/a> to find out how strawberry plants interact with fog. Ultimately, she found that strawberries don’t need as much water when it’s foggy and that they use sunlight more efficiently on foggy days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though the total amount of light that’s used by plants is lower like it’s dimmer, the photons are scattered, and so more of the leaves are engaged in photosynthesis in the plant,” Baguskas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Koda has noticed that on his farm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We typically have fog in July and August, and usually our volume is up during those times,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He hasn’t really noticed any major changes in the fog patterns in the decades he’s been farming. Every year feels different, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in a future without fog, farmers like Koda would have to compensate. In the future, growing strawberries could require more water, and some farmers might not have the same flexibility they have now when it comes to harvesting. And, for us consumers, the berries might be less tasty and more expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there are other ways the disappearance of fog would fundamentally change the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11953504/the-bay-areas-famous-redwood-trees-are-struggling\">Redwood trees\u003c/a>, for example, are natural fog catchers. They essentially drink it in, relying on it for survival. It’s why they’re unique here to Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many other species rely on fog, too, including manzanita trees and even certain types of lizards. That can have a ripple effect throughout an ecosystem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because when one element of an ecosystem is impacted, how does that affect others?” said fog scientist Dan Fernandez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fog may even protect us from wildfires to some extent. The moisture it provides acts as a fire retardant and without it, Fernandez said many more areas would be susceptible to megafires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without fog, life in the Bay Area will change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11968559\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617-800x842.jpg\" alt=\"Two people stand silhouetted on a cement walkway while the Golden Gate Bridge is just barely visible through thick fog in the background.\" width=\"800\" height=\"842\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617-800x842.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617-1020x1074.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617-160x168.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617-1459x1536.jpg 1459w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/BRIDGE_006-qut-scaled-e1701217012617.jpg 1702w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Real Estate of it All\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In short, there’s no straightforward answer to Bay Curious listener Lily Drexler’s question about fog and climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But here’s some straightforward advice about what to look for in real estate: buy in a neighborhood that you can see yourself living in now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it’s of concern to people, I would literally counsel them and say this house is going to be in the fog. If it’s a problem, then we probably need to look elsewhere,” said Alexander Clark, owner of \u003ca href=\"https://thefrontsteps.com/\">Front Steps Real Estate\u003c/a> in San Francisco, who has written about this topic before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clark said while he’s no fog scientist and doesn’t know what will happen in the future, his advice for a fog-averse house hunter is to focus your search on sunny neighborhoods. Though, he warns, those tend to be pricier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether or not you want to live in the fog is a critical consideration, he said. “It’s a pretty important thing for people to know because it definitely affects people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lily Drexler grew up in San Francisco. And as anyone who lives in San Francisco can relate to… she has a complicated relationship with fog.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lily Drexler:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I both love and get frustrated by the fog. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the one hand…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lily Drexler:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I appreciate how it freshens the air. I appreciate how it changes things up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, it can get old.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lily Drexler:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> When there is fog for, you know, a week, weeks on end with no break, that does get frustrating.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I feel you, Lily. Lily rents in the Richmond district right now… and she’s thinking of settling down in San Francisco more permanently, maybe even investing in some real estate. But before she does that, she has some questions about fog. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lily Drexler:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Is it going to get more foggy as the sun bakes the ocean and creates the moisture, if that’s how fog works? Or is it going to get less? Is the heat and the warming of the planet going to decrease the fog?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As climate change alters everything in our region … where does that leave fog? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Where should a fog-averse city dweller settle down? We’re going to answer that question … but we’re also going to zoom out and look at fog’s future in the Bay Area at large. How do we rely on fog now…and how might its absence change us? I’m Olivia Allen Price and you’re listening to Bay Curious.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sponsor message from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does the future of the Bay Area’s fog look like, Lily Drexler asked Bay Curious… We sent reporter Dana Cronin out to get some insight…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Curious music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It’s a foggy day in Monterey. At least, I thought it was.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fog literally has to be at ground level. So I would call this low cloud, which might become fog. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is fog expert Dan Fernandez. He’s a professor at CSU Monterey Bay. As you can tell… I have a lot to learn about fog before I try to answer Lily’s questions. And Dan’s gonna help me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He’s been studying fog for more than a decade. Before he studied it, he was an electrical engineer and worked on measuring ocean surface currents. He thought about fog from time to time. But his real fascination with it came to him during a meditation retreat. He says he was sitting there meditating. It was a hot day. And he was thirsty. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And of course when you’re meditating, minds go all sorts of places and this is where my mind went, went into water and then fog.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More specifically, he wondered whether he could catch fog… as in pull it out of the air and collect it as a liquid. Turns out… you can.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this is one of ten of the larger fog collectors that I and a class of mine deployed here back in spring 2018.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’re standing next to a fog collector. It’s basically a big, 4-by-10 piece of mesh reaching into the sky with a trough underneath. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So fog hits here on all of them, drips down, runs down this trough. And you can see birds visited, too. Even though I have bird spikes there, the water runs into the rain gauge. It goes through the rain gauge. It’s recorded here. And I have a data logger in there that records all the volume of water going through\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because it’s apparently not a foggy day today… there’s no water in the buckets. But when it’s SUPER foggy, Dan says he’s collected as much as nine gallons in one day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You might wonder what the point is of catching this fog. Could it be enough to help offset California’s water shortage during drought years, for example?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s certainly not enough for us to consume the amount of water we consume\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, no. But, Dan says, it could help farmers with irrigation. Or provide water for reforestation… which Dan’s fog collectors are working on now. He hasn’t had them set up for long enough to figure out whether there’s been more or less fog over time. And he says that question… how climate change is impacting fog… isn’t that simple. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s no general consensus in the science community about what will happen to fog in the future. In fact, they can hardly agree on how to define it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There’s a few ways to define fog and there’s somewhat overlapping, which kind of illustrates the sort of the complication when trying to define something like fog.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to Dan, for something to be considered “fog,” it needs to have three things. One:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So fog consists of water, tiny little droplets that vary in size between one-micron diameter spheres and 50-micron diameter spheres. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your hair is about 100 microns. So these water droplets are thinner than that… so thin that they float in the air. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But there have to be enough of these droplets to impede our visibility to be less than one kilometer. Then it’s defined as fog. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you can see beyond one kilometer, then it’s considered mist — NOT fog. And thirdly…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fog is a cloud that’s in contact with the ground. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, fog has to hover near the ground, it has to limit our visibility to one kilometer… and it consists of droplets between one and 50 microns. Simple, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And for that cocktail of ingredients to come together and form fog… we need a temperature gradient, as in something warm and something cool, like the cool ocean and the hot Central Valley, for example. As cool ocean air reaches land and warms up, it condenses and forms fog. It’s a complex phenomenon! But that’s why Dan likes it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I find fog mysterious, fascinating, it can be scary and exciting. It’s all of those. I think that’s part of what makes it such a special thing to study.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But it also makes it a difficult thing to study… and to predict. You can’t forecast it the same way you can forecast rain and thunderstorms. And that’s why scientists don’t know exactly how climate change is impacting fog. But Dan says they have an idea… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, on the whole, I think that we’re going to probably be seeing less fog in general and that we have that we are currently seeing less than we may have seen a generation ago.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some studies have shown that since the 1950’s fog has declined about 30% during the summertime. But Dan says there’s still a lot of uncertainty in the fog science community. For example… that decline could come from the fact that a lot of cities have cleaned up their air since the 50s… so fog has fewer particulates to cling to. Meaning, perhaps there’s less of it not because of climate change — but because of changing air quality standards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And some studies completely contradict that… at least one used observational notes from ships off the coast of California to suggest fog is getting heavier. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, according to Dan, there’s some level of consensus that fog is on the decline. And if that’s true… there would be consequences here in northern California. Because, as it turns out, we rely on fog in all kinds of ways — both big and small. I’m gonna walk you through a few of them. Starting with something we’re known for. Our food. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin (in tape): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a very foggy day on the farm here. Wow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, for real this time. I’m at Shinta Kawahara Company farm in Watsonville, about a half mile from the ocean. I’m meeting up with farm owner Rod Koda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin (in tape):\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Can you usually see the ocean from here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rod Koda: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. We’re in the Monterey Bay. Um, on a nice day, I could see Pacific Grove and all the way to Santa Cruz. But not today. We got fog. It’s nice. Perfect. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rod grows strawberries. Today his crew is preparing for planting… using a tractor to lay down plastic to protect the strawberries. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tractor sounds\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rod says the fog is actually helping this process.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rod Koda: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It comes out really nice because it’s last that the dirt is a little softer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it helps in other ways too. Rod says in other parts of California where strawberries are grown… like Salinas and Gilroy… it’s warmer, and the berries ripen more quickly. One heat wave and the berries have to be picked immediately. Whereas, thanks to the fog, Rod has more flexibility.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rod Koda: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here along the coast with the fog. The temperatures are cooler, which the berries ripen slower and get more sugar content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin (in tape): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you’re saying they’re better strawberries along the coast with the fog influence or, well, tastier. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rod Koda: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exactly\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition to temperature… strawberries also rely on the moisture from fog… says environmental professor Sara Baguskas.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sara Baguskas: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We learned that strawberry crops have greater water use efficiency during fog events compared to non-foggy periods.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That basically means that strawberries don’t need as much water when it’s foggy. Sara’s team also found that the strawberry plants use sunlight more efficiently when it’s foggy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sara Baguskas: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even though the total amount of light that’s used by plants is lower, it’s like dimmer, but the photons are scattered and so more of the leaves are engaged in photosynthesis in the plant. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So basically, when it’s foggy, strawberry plants are more productive and need less water. Rod has noticed that on his farm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rod Koda: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We typically have fog in July and August. And usually our volume is up during those times.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He says he hasn’t really noticed any major changes in the fog patterns in the decades he’s been farming. Every year feels different, he says. But if what fog scientist Dan Fernandez said is true, and there won’t be as much of it in the future, farmers like Rod might have to compensate. In the future, growing strawberries could require more water… and farmers might not have as much flexibility around when they harvest as they do now. And for us consumers… the berries might be less tasty and more expensive. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Besides strawberries… there are many other ways the disappearance of fog could impact the Bay Area. So many of our ecosystems here rely on it —todd both for moisture and for the cooler temperatures. Redwood trees, for example, are natural fog catchers… they basically drink it and need it to survive. It’s why they’re unique here to Northern California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fog scientist Dan Fernandez says there are many other species that rely on it, too… including manzanita trees and even some types of lizards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Fernandez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And so when one element of an ecosystem is impacted, how does that affect others?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fog may even protect us to some extent from wildfires. The moisture it provides acts as a fire retardant… and without it, Dan says many more areas would be susceptible to megafires. Overall… the loss of fog would fundamentally change the Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK Dana, but there’s one part of Lily’s question that’s still missing… where should she invest in property?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well… like I said in the story, fog is really hard to predict. There isn’t a neighborhood-by-neighborhood projection of what its future looks like in San Francisco. But… I did reach out to a real estate agent to get their take on the situation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Clark:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> A lot of my clients ask me like, So what’s the fog like with what are you going to do? And luckily, I know a lot about like the weather and just all the patterns and wind and which side of the street’s better…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Alex Clark, owner of Front Steps Real Estate in San Francisco. He told me fog is a really important thing to factor in when buying property. And while he’s no fog scientist… and doesn’t know what will happen in the future… he says the most important thing is to buy in a neighborhood that you can see yourself living in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">now. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Clark:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If it’s of concern to people, I would literally counsel them and say this house is going to be in the fog. If it’s a problem, then we probably need to look elsewhere.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, that’s something! Good luck in your search, Lily.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That story was reported by KQED’s Dana Cronin. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Next week, our December Bay Curious newsletter goes out. We ventured to a Christmas Tree Farm in Petaluma to learn about the year-round work that goes into growing the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">perfect\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> tree. It’s part of our unusual jobs series in the newsletter. Be sure you’re subscribed at baycurious.org/newsletter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and myself. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a wonderful week.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "the-american-dream-led-san-jose-to-urban-sprawl-but-the-future-requires-density",
"title": "The 'American Dream' Led San José to Urban Sprawl, but the Future Requires Density",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode. \u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Housing in the Bay Area is a \u003cem>hot\u003c/em> topic, so it’s no wonder that \u003ca href=\"https://baycurious.org/\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> gets a lot of listener questions about it. Why is it so expensive? How do middle-class people afford homes here? Is the housing shortage really an overpopulation problem? While we’ve answered some of these over the years, we often direct people to KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\">Sold Out podcast\u003c/a>, a seasonal show focused specifically on these issues. Today, we’re presenting an episode from their latest season, which examines the intersection of the housing crisis and climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode answers the question: What is San \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">José\u003c/span> doing about urban sprawl?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can read \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11966342/how-the-bay-areas-biggest-city-wants-to-overcome-its-sprawl\">Sold Out’s web story here\u003c/a>, or listen to the episode and read our episode transcript below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8701615319&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey everyone, Olivia Allen-Price here and this is Bay Curious. We’re starting off this week in San José. It’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> most populated city in the Bay Area … one million people live within city limits. That’s more than twice the population of Oakland. And yet, for a city its size … it’s remarkably spread out. It doesn’t \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">feel\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> like a big city when you’re walking around…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s largely because of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">when \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San José had its biggest development boom…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival audio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is now possible to have the individual styling every family wants in its home. And still have all the benefits of mass production.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the years after World War II, millions of soldiers returned home, got married, and started looking to buy property… you know, that whole American Dream thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival audio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Homebuilders anticipated the needs of newlyweds and young families. They built new suburbs that appealed to countless first time homebuyers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Up until then about two-thirds of Americans lived in cities. That’s where the jobs were. But with the availability of spacious, new homes — at least for white buyers — people left those cities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival audio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the center … an efficient kitchen … serving of meals.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And all of this was made possible with another big change. The interstate highway system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival audio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of these roads will be four, six, even eight lane expressways. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These two ideas — suburbs and highways — went hand in hand. A perfect cocktail for the kind of urban sprawl we see in cities like San José. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That kind of sprawl that has turned out to have some pretty big problems. First off, all that driving has not been good for climate change. Cars and trucks account for nearly half of California’s total carbon emissions. And then there’s another problem. Once all the single family lots are full, how can you house a population that’s still growing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Today, we are presenting an episode from KQED’s podcast: SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America. We’ll look at how leaders in San José are trying to reimagine how residents live … and how they get around. We’ll be right back with that story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San José was built for single family homes and cars. Housing reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi walks us through how they’re now trying to build for a denser, greener future …\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ambient sound from Berryessa BART station\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a warm evening and I’m hanging at the BART train station in San José. For the past few weeks, I’ve been looking to interview someone who thinks a lot about housing and public transit. And I keep striking out. Either people are too busy or they see my big microphone and just walk the other way. But then, I spot Monika Rivera. She rides into the station, dressed all in black, on a shiny gray bike. And she doesn’t run away from me when I approach her.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Honestly, I tell people making your commute, like either biking or walking, it makes such a big difference in how you feel throughout the day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She’s still facing a 45 minute commute on the train, but she’s so energetic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It makes you feel like more connected to the community, too, because you’re like biking by businesses, you like are biking by your neighbors and you just see more people. And when you’re in the car, you’re just you’re not as focused on like what’s going on around you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A couple days a week, Monika wakes up at 5:30, bikes from her apartment to the train station, takes the train to San José and then bikes to City Hall, where she helps manage the city’s recycling program. It sounds like a lot to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To me, it makes a big difference for the environment, knowing that I’m not putting all those pollutants into the air every day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Monika and I are a lot alike. We’re both 29, recently married. We care about the environment, love being outside. And we both want to settle down in the same kind of house, in the same kind neighborhood.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I would want a home that’s in a neighborhood that’s walking distance to things like we could go to a restaurant or a coffee shop or like a grocery store, you know, and be able to be within like a ten minute walk, um ideally be close to whatever job I have.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She and her husband have been trying to find that in the Bay Area, but homes in those kinds of neighborhoods are way out of her price range. The homes they can afford aren’t much bigger than the studio apartment they’re renting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> If we buy a home, I don’t want to go just from one tiny place to another tiny place.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Buying a home is really important to Monika because of how she grew up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I grew up in a small– like with my family and my sibling– like a tiny two bedroom house that they were renting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So she and her husband started looking for a place to buy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I wanted to prove to myself, you know, that I could reach that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> After months of house hunting, she found a home in Lathrop, about a 2 hour drive from San José in California’s Central Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s three bedrooms, two baths, it has a nice backyard, has some grass, some trees and plants. We have an orange tree and a lemon tree, which is really nice. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She said it was a relief to finally sign the papers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It felt good. Yeah, it felt really good. I mean, I’ve been saving for years now, and, like, just all of the sacrifices that we’ve made.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But she had to compromise – because biking to work, walking around her neighborhood– she can’t really do that in Lathrop. Nothing is within walking distance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Even being able to go to like a coffee shop in the morning, or if you forget something at the store, you have to get in the car to go.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When she did live in the Bay Area, she loved going to the city everyday or to the beach on the weekends.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Now it’s like to reach any of those destinations. I have to add like an hour, which is a small price to pay. You know, like you need to make sacrifices, but it’s still just something that I’m going to have to get used to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Another thing she’s getting used to: the heat. For the past few years, Lathrop has seen record high temperatures in the summer. Soon after they moved in, Monika got COVID.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Oh, I was sick in 100 degree heat. We, like, didn’t have blinds on our windows yet, and it was just a nightmare. I’m not used to it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Here’s the paradox: cities like Lathrop are one of the few places in California where housing is being built– housing that’s affordable for people like Monika. But at the same time, temperatures in California’s Central Valley are soaring higher and higher each summer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Lathrop wasn’t Monika’s first choice. She was really hoping to find a place where she could keep riding her bike and taking the train, but with what she could afford, Lathrop felt like her only choice.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Why? Why is our society like, encouraging this or allowing it to happen?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is an urgent problem. As the housing crisis pushes people further away from big cities, they drive more and emit more carbon. That makes climate change worse. So, instead of continuing to sprawl, why not build more homes in the city? Close to public transit and in neighborhoods where people could walk more? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I used to live in San José, so when I heard the city was trying to make this a reality, I was really curious about it. Before I moved there from the East Coast, I had this image of a bustling metropolis. But it’s actually pretty quiet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A lot of people live there, but they’re all spread out. So, what would it mean if this city made good on this promise? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music fades out. Ambient sound of Facchino district.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’d love to just sort of get a lay of the land. Like what? You know what it’s going to look like one day from here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Erik Schoennauer points toward an old wooden fence surrounding a big vacant lot \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And what is inside of the site right now? Just trucks and equipment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Erik’s technical title is land use consultant. For more than 20 years, he’s been working with developers and the city to build more housing in San José. And he wants to transform this area into a thriving urban neighborhood. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">High density housing, high density jobs, retail, parks, mixed use neighborhoods.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Three years ago, BART opened a train station nearby\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">– \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">where I met Monika. And the city figured it would be the perfect place for more\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">housing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have to everywhere make cities that are not reliant on fossil fuels to get around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is all part of San José’s larger goal to combat sprawl. More than 10 years ago, city officials noticed that too many people were getting priced out. City workers had commutes up to 2 hours long. So they came up with a plan to build 60 urban villages across San José. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> State Assembly Member Ash Kalra represents the city and was one of the loudest advocates for the plan. Here he is selling the idea in a promotional video.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Liccardo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Urban villages have a lot of benefits. First of all, by bringing people together, both in terms of their housing and their jobs and the stores and restaurants they go to, you’re being much more efficient with your use of land.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Imagine tall apartment buildings with shops on the bottom and a train line running through the middle. A pedestrian’s paradise.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This new housing would be a big change for San José. It’s the 12th largest city in the country, but it feels like a giant suburb– all the homes are spread out.And that’s because of its history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Between the 1950s and 1970s, highway expansion set the tone for city planning. Sam Assefa runs California’s Office for Planning and Research — that’s basically the state’s own think tank to solve its toughest problems, like sprawl.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Assefa:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sprawl was literally on steroids with single family developments quickly gobbling up farmland, open space and spreading out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the early 1900s, San José was a small city of only 17 square miles. Today it’s 181 square miles. And most of it is dominated by single family homes — a house that’s home to only one family. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Assefa:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is the American dream. And we know that single family homes generally perpetuate sprawl.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> More than 90% of San José’s land is zoned for single family homes. For decades, it was illegal to build other kinds of housing — like apartments and duplexes — in most of the city.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That history created a lot of housing inequity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Starting in the early 1950s, white families were moving into San José from bigger cities like San Francisco and Oakland. Fair housing laws hadn’t been passed yet, so a lot of the new homes were off limits to practically anyone who wasn’t white.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Scars from that history are still visible today. Black and Latinx residents of San José are far less likely to own their homes than white and Asian residents. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San José wants to right some of those wrongs. And the urban villages could help. They are supposed to include some affordable housing, bring more jobs and give more people the opportunity to live here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of walking around Berryessa Urban Village\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But this whole urban village dream is really slow going. It’s been more than 10 years since San José officials said they wanted urban villages all over the city. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So far, only a handful have been built. There’s already part of an urban village next to the BART Station.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a tall apartment building with hundreds of units. But walking around that area…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi (in the field): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I just had to cross a one, two, three, four, five, six lane road to get to the other side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s just not that easy. This is one obstacle San José is up against. It’s trying to build a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood in a place planned around cars. Sidewalks run alongside the apartment building, but it’s just not very welcoming to walk next to a busy road. There is a Safeway and a Dunkin Donuts, but you have to cross a huge parking lot and another four-lane road to get there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The apartment building was built with shop and restaurant space on the ground floor, to make it more convenient and interesting to live here — but it’s mostly vacant. That’s partly because demand is down post pandemic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There’s barely anyone walking around. I finally run into Juan Carlos Navarro. He lives in a townhome a few blocks away and is out with his dogs. I’m so excited to see someone, I’m fumbling over myself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi, in the field interviewing Carlos Navarro: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How do you feel about all of this new development coming and the…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carlos Navarro: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And let me call you back, okay? (hangs up phone) Oh, sorry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> He says this area used to be a bit of a ghost town, but that’s starting to change.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carlos Navarro: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We definitely like it because it’s uh– we feel better. We feel secure now walking along the block because this was all empty before. And it wasn’t– it wasn’t as good as it is now. So we definitely like it.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> He hopes it becomes more lively as more housing gets built and more shops get filled. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carlos Navarro: I hope to see more people, more, you know, entertainment areas, stores and [00:10:40] I would hope to see that. \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> As San José tries to make good on its urban village promise, it’s kinda handcuffed by some of its own policies. And you can see it in the plans for Erik Schoennauer’s development. He has a vision for tall apartment buildings, but what’s the first thing he’s going to build?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Single family and townhomes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah. The first thing Erik is going to build is more standalone houses. That’s because the neighborhood around the empty lot is already full of single family homes. And city policy doesn’t allow tall buildings to be built right next to them. Because it might cast a shadow. So Erik has to build a buffer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Put a row of lower density housing units up against the existing single family and put the taller buildings more internal on the site.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Cities across California have laws like these which protect single family homes and prevent denser housing like apartments and condos from being built nearby.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What’s more, apartment buildings are riskier because developers have to build the whole thing before they can rent or sell any of the units.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>Whereas single family and townhomes, you can build and sell as you go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Even though the city wants to see more dense development, they’re not the ones building it — it’s up to developers. And it has to make sense to their bottom line. Right now, it doesn’t. Interest rates and construction costs have soared and there’s less demand for office and retail space. Erik hopes another developer will eventually build the apartments — but he’s uncertain as to when that might happen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I believe it’s an inevitable evolution to move towards denser, more mixed use development. It’s all evolving in the right direction, but it takes time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fade Music Out Here\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Evolution takes a long time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s just waiting. I mean, everyone’s waiting. There’s no- it’s not happening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Kelly Snider has been living in San José since 1999. She teaches Real Estate Development at San Jose State and is really frustrated with the city’s progress with their urban village plan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She thinks there’s a different way to get more housing built. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I meet her in a quiet neighborhood filled with small bungalows, each with their own front lawn. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, where are we? Where are we right now? We are in downtown San José, outskirts of downtown San José.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s a little brown house with bright blue accents around the windows. It’s got three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a big backyard. At the end of the block, there’s a train station where you can catch a ride to downtown San José. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have a fantastic public elementary school on this corner. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This house is Kelly’s pilot project. She bought it from Raul Lozano, a local activist who wanted to see more housing built here. He wanted to split his home into two separate units, but was struggling with the process. And at the same time, Kelly, who is an experienced developer, wanted to help. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This front unit is a one bedroom, so it’s got a living room and a nice kitchen, a full bathroom, and then a nice bedroom. And we charge $1500 a month for this. And that includes utilities.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> $1,500 for all that is a steal in the Bay Area. And Kelly didn’t stop there. She also built a small two bedroom house in the backyard, where Raul lived until he passed away in February. It’s now home to two of Raul’s friends who were dealing with housing insecurity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They would often, you know, spend time with family in the valley and then sleep in their cars one or two nights a week here. We approached the mother and said, Would you like to move into this house? And she said, yes. And she and her son live here now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That small house is technically called an ADU, or an accessory dwelling unit. You might know it as a granny flat or a casita. And it’s the hottest thing in California housing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Recent state and local laws have made them easier to build. There are even grant programs that will cover some of the costs. And San José has really embraced them. Last year, the city issued over 500 permits to build new ADUs. There’s still some space on Kelly’s lot. And she wants to build a duplex there — so even more homes on a plot of land that used to just have one. Kelly knows there are skeptics. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the reasons why I wanted to do this is because every time I bring someone here they’re like, Well, that’s just a tiny little lot. You can’t fit a whole new house on there. And I’m like, Oh, I can fit a whole house on there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Even if she can build it, not everyone wants it. Many of the people who moved to San José came for the backyard and the quiet neighborhood with tree-lined streets.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Kelly wants to show people, you can still have that and add more housing. After buying Raul’s place, she formed a company to help more people split their homes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everyone who comes to see it says, Oh, I didn’t know it would look this nice. I didn’t know you could fit all of this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And for what it’s worth, it doesn’t feel crowded. This is still a quiet street and there isn’t a tall building in sight. Kelly thinks San José is moving in the right direction with ADUs and just needs to keep making it cheaper and easier to build them.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They know the knob to switch and they’ve already started twisting it. They just need to twist it further.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I know I’ve been picking on San José, but the thing is, it’s like a lot of cities in California. They were all built on an idea that sounded great at the time — a spacious home with a yard of your own. A car that could take you anywhere. But that idea has led California into its housing and climate crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So, maybe it’s time to embrace some new ideas for how our cities are built and how we’ll create a sustainable future. It might mean living closer to each other, driving less, walking more. And, if you ask me, that actually sounds pretty great. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: That was KQED housing reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi. This story is from the KQED podcast: SOLD OUT, Rethinking Housing in America. Their latest season explores the intersection of climate and the housing crisis. Another episode you might enjoy is called “Electric Avenue” and it follows a group of neighbors in Oakland who are working together to make their homes more efficient and climate resilient. Find Sold Out wherever you listen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: This story was edited by Erika Kelly and Kevin Stark. Sold Out is hosted by Erin Baldassari. Jen Chien was a contributing editor. Sound engineering by Brendan Willard. Cedric Wilson wrote the Sold Out theme song. Thanks also to Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldaña, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, Holly Kernan, Otis Taylor Jr., Molly Solomon, Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Bay Curious is going to be dark next week for the Thanksgiving holiday, so I’ll say this now… We are so thankful that you listen to our show … it is truly an honor and privilege. And we hope you have a joy-filled week, whatever that looks like to you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Have a good one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music fades\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "San José is the biggest city in the Bay Area, but among the least dense. The city is working to change that, and bring in new, multifamily developments oriented around public transit. ",
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"title": "The 'American Dream' Led San José to Urban Sprawl, but the Future Requires Density | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode. \u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Housing in the Bay Area is a \u003cem>hot\u003c/em> topic, so it’s no wonder that \u003ca href=\"https://baycurious.org/\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> gets a lot of listener questions about it. Why is it so expensive? How do middle-class people afford homes here? Is the housing shortage really an overpopulation problem? While we’ve answered some of these over the years, we often direct people to KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\">Sold Out podcast\u003c/a>, a seasonal show focused specifically on these issues. Today, we’re presenting an episode from their latest season, which examines the intersection of the housing crisis and climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode answers the question: What is San \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">José\u003c/span> doing about urban sprawl?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can read \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11966342/how-the-bay-areas-biggest-city-wants-to-overcome-its-sprawl\">Sold Out’s web story here\u003c/a>, or listen to the episode and read our episode transcript below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC8701615319&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey everyone, Olivia Allen-Price here and this is Bay Curious. We’re starting off this week in San José. It’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> most populated city in the Bay Area … one million people live within city limits. That’s more than twice the population of Oakland. And yet, for a city its size … it’s remarkably spread out. It doesn’t \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">feel\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> like a big city when you’re walking around…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s largely because of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">when \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San José had its biggest development boom…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival audio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is now possible to have the individual styling every family wants in its home. And still have all the benefits of mass production.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the years after World War II, millions of soldiers returned home, got married, and started looking to buy property… you know, that whole American Dream thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival audio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Homebuilders anticipated the needs of newlyweds and young families. They built new suburbs that appealed to countless first time homebuyers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Up until then about two-thirds of Americans lived in cities. That’s where the jobs were. But with the availability of spacious, new homes — at least for white buyers — people left those cities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival audio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the center … an efficient kitchen … serving of meals.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And all of this was made possible with another big change. The interstate highway system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival audio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of these roads will be four, six, even eight lane expressways. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These two ideas — suburbs and highways — went hand in hand. A perfect cocktail for the kind of urban sprawl we see in cities like San José. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That kind of sprawl that has turned out to have some pretty big problems. First off, all that driving has not been good for climate change. Cars and trucks account for nearly half of California’s total carbon emissions. And then there’s another problem. Once all the single family lots are full, how can you house a population that’s still growing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Today, we are presenting an episode from KQED’s podcast: SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America. We’ll look at how leaders in San José are trying to reimagine how residents live … and how they get around. We’ll be right back with that story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San José was built for single family homes and cars. Housing reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi walks us through how they’re now trying to build for a denser, greener future …\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ambient sound from Berryessa BART station\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a warm evening and I’m hanging at the BART train station in San José. For the past few weeks, I’ve been looking to interview someone who thinks a lot about housing and public transit. And I keep striking out. Either people are too busy or they see my big microphone and just walk the other way. But then, I spot Monika Rivera. She rides into the station, dressed all in black, on a shiny gray bike. And she doesn’t run away from me when I approach her.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Honestly, I tell people making your commute, like either biking or walking, it makes such a big difference in how you feel throughout the day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She’s still facing a 45 minute commute on the train, but she’s so energetic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It makes you feel like more connected to the community, too, because you’re like biking by businesses, you like are biking by your neighbors and you just see more people. And when you’re in the car, you’re just you’re not as focused on like what’s going on around you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A couple days a week, Monika wakes up at 5:30, bikes from her apartment to the train station, takes the train to San José and then bikes to City Hall, where she helps manage the city’s recycling program. It sounds like a lot to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To me, it makes a big difference for the environment, knowing that I’m not putting all those pollutants into the air every day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Monika and I are a lot alike. We’re both 29, recently married. We care about the environment, love being outside. And we both want to settle down in the same kind of house, in the same kind neighborhood.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I would want a home that’s in a neighborhood that’s walking distance to things like we could go to a restaurant or a coffee shop or like a grocery store, you know, and be able to be within like a ten minute walk, um ideally be close to whatever job I have.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She and her husband have been trying to find that in the Bay Area, but homes in those kinds of neighborhoods are way out of her price range. The homes they can afford aren’t much bigger than the studio apartment they’re renting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> If we buy a home, I don’t want to go just from one tiny place to another tiny place.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Buying a home is really important to Monika because of how she grew up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I grew up in a small– like with my family and my sibling– like a tiny two bedroom house that they were renting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So she and her husband started looking for a place to buy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I wanted to prove to myself, you know, that I could reach that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> After months of house hunting, she found a home in Lathrop, about a 2 hour drive from San José in California’s Central Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s three bedrooms, two baths, it has a nice backyard, has some grass, some trees and plants. We have an orange tree and a lemon tree, which is really nice. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She said it was a relief to finally sign the papers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It felt good. Yeah, it felt really good. I mean, I’ve been saving for years now, and, like, just all of the sacrifices that we’ve made.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But she had to compromise – because biking to work, walking around her neighborhood– she can’t really do that in Lathrop. Nothing is within walking distance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Even being able to go to like a coffee shop in the morning, or if you forget something at the store, you have to get in the car to go.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When she did live in the Bay Area, she loved going to the city everyday or to the beach on the weekends.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Now it’s like to reach any of those destinations. I have to add like an hour, which is a small price to pay. You know, like you need to make sacrifices, but it’s still just something that I’m going to have to get used to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Another thing she’s getting used to: the heat. For the past few years, Lathrop has seen record high temperatures in the summer. Soon after they moved in, Monika got COVID.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Oh, I was sick in 100 degree heat. We, like, didn’t have blinds on our windows yet, and it was just a nightmare. I’m not used to it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Here’s the paradox: cities like Lathrop are one of the few places in California where housing is being built– housing that’s affordable for people like Monika. But at the same time, temperatures in California’s Central Valley are soaring higher and higher each summer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Lathrop wasn’t Monika’s first choice. She was really hoping to find a place where she could keep riding her bike and taking the train, but with what she could afford, Lathrop felt like her only choice.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Monika Rivera:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Why? Why is our society like, encouraging this or allowing it to happen?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is an urgent problem. As the housing crisis pushes people further away from big cities, they drive more and emit more carbon. That makes climate change worse. So, instead of continuing to sprawl, why not build more homes in the city? Close to public transit and in neighborhoods where people could walk more? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I used to live in San José, so when I heard the city was trying to make this a reality, I was really curious about it. Before I moved there from the East Coast, I had this image of a bustling metropolis. But it’s actually pretty quiet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A lot of people live there, but they’re all spread out. So, what would it mean if this city made good on this promise? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music fades out. Ambient sound of Facchino district.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’d love to just sort of get a lay of the land. Like what? You know what it’s going to look like one day from here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Erik Schoennauer points toward an old wooden fence surrounding a big vacant lot \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And what is inside of the site right now? Just trucks and equipment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Erik’s technical title is land use consultant. For more than 20 years, he’s been working with developers and the city to build more housing in San José. And he wants to transform this area into a thriving urban neighborhood. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">High density housing, high density jobs, retail, parks, mixed use neighborhoods.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Three years ago, BART opened a train station nearby\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">– \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">where I met Monika. And the city figured it would be the perfect place for more\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">housing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have to everywhere make cities that are not reliant on fossil fuels to get around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is all part of San José’s larger goal to combat sprawl. More than 10 years ago, city officials noticed that too many people were getting priced out. City workers had commutes up to 2 hours long. So they came up with a plan to build 60 urban villages across San José. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> State Assembly Member Ash Kalra represents the city and was one of the loudest advocates for the plan. Here he is selling the idea in a promotional video.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Liccardo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Urban villages have a lot of benefits. First of all, by bringing people together, both in terms of their housing and their jobs and the stores and restaurants they go to, you’re being much more efficient with your use of land.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Imagine tall apartment buildings with shops on the bottom and a train line running through the middle. A pedestrian’s paradise.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This new housing would be a big change for San José. It’s the 12th largest city in the country, but it feels like a giant suburb– all the homes are spread out.And that’s because of its history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Between the 1950s and 1970s, highway expansion set the tone for city planning. Sam Assefa runs California’s Office for Planning and Research — that’s basically the state’s own think tank to solve its toughest problems, like sprawl.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Assefa:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sprawl was literally on steroids with single family developments quickly gobbling up farmland, open space and spreading out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the early 1900s, San José was a small city of only 17 square miles. Today it’s 181 square miles. And most of it is dominated by single family homes — a house that’s home to only one family. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Assefa:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is the American dream. And we know that single family homes generally perpetuate sprawl.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> More than 90% of San José’s land is zoned for single family homes. For decades, it was illegal to build other kinds of housing — like apartments and duplexes — in most of the city.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That history created a lot of housing inequity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Starting in the early 1950s, white families were moving into San José from bigger cities like San Francisco and Oakland. Fair housing laws hadn’t been passed yet, so a lot of the new homes were off limits to practically anyone who wasn’t white.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Scars from that history are still visible today. Black and Latinx residents of San José are far less likely to own their homes than white and Asian residents. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San José wants to right some of those wrongs. And the urban villages could help. They are supposed to include some affordable housing, bring more jobs and give more people the opportunity to live here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of walking around Berryessa Urban Village\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But this whole urban village dream is really slow going. It’s been more than 10 years since San José officials said they wanted urban villages all over the city. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So far, only a handful have been built. There’s already part of an urban village next to the BART Station.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a tall apartment building with hundreds of units. But walking around that area…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi (in the field): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I just had to cross a one, two, three, four, five, six lane road to get to the other side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s just not that easy. This is one obstacle San José is up against. It’s trying to build a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood in a place planned around cars. Sidewalks run alongside the apartment building, but it’s just not very welcoming to walk next to a busy road. There is a Safeway and a Dunkin Donuts, but you have to cross a huge parking lot and another four-lane road to get there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The apartment building was built with shop and restaurant space on the ground floor, to make it more convenient and interesting to live here — but it’s mostly vacant. That’s partly because demand is down post pandemic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There’s barely anyone walking around. I finally run into Juan Carlos Navarro. He lives in a townhome a few blocks away and is out with his dogs. I’m so excited to see someone, I’m fumbling over myself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi, in the field interviewing Carlos Navarro: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How do you feel about all of this new development coming and the…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carlos Navarro: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And let me call you back, okay? (hangs up phone) Oh, sorry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> He says this area used to be a bit of a ghost town, but that’s starting to change.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carlos Navarro: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We definitely like it because it’s uh– we feel better. We feel secure now walking along the block because this was all empty before. And it wasn’t– it wasn’t as good as it is now. So we definitely like it.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> He hopes it becomes more lively as more housing gets built and more shops get filled. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carlos Navarro: I hope to see more people, more, you know, entertainment areas, stores and [00:10:40] I would hope to see that. \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> As San José tries to make good on its urban village promise, it’s kinda handcuffed by some of its own policies. And you can see it in the plans for Erik Schoennauer’s development. He has a vision for tall apartment buildings, but what’s the first thing he’s going to build?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Single family and townhomes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah. The first thing Erik is going to build is more standalone houses. That’s because the neighborhood around the empty lot is already full of single family homes. And city policy doesn’t allow tall buildings to be built right next to them. Because it might cast a shadow. So Erik has to build a buffer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Put a row of lower density housing units up against the existing single family and put the taller buildings more internal on the site.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Cities across California have laws like these which protect single family homes and prevent denser housing like apartments and condos from being built nearby.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What’s more, apartment buildings are riskier because developers have to build the whole thing before they can rent or sell any of the units.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>Whereas single family and townhomes, you can build and sell as you go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Even though the city wants to see more dense development, they’re not the ones building it — it’s up to developers. And it has to make sense to their bottom line. Right now, it doesn’t. Interest rates and construction costs have soared and there’s less demand for office and retail space. Erik hopes another developer will eventually build the apartments — but he’s uncertain as to when that might happen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erik Schoennauer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I believe it’s an inevitable evolution to move towards denser, more mixed use development. It’s all evolving in the right direction, but it takes time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fade Music Out Here\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Evolution takes a long time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s just waiting. I mean, everyone’s waiting. There’s no- it’s not happening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Kelly Snider has been living in San José since 1999. She teaches Real Estate Development at San Jose State and is really frustrated with the city’s progress with their urban village plan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She thinks there’s a different way to get more housing built. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I meet her in a quiet neighborhood filled with small bungalows, each with their own front lawn. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, where are we? Where are we right now? We are in downtown San José, outskirts of downtown San José.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s a little brown house with bright blue accents around the windows. It’s got three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a big backyard. At the end of the block, there’s a train station where you can catch a ride to downtown San José. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have a fantastic public elementary school on this corner. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This house is Kelly’s pilot project. She bought it from Raul Lozano, a local activist who wanted to see more housing built here. He wanted to split his home into two separate units, but was struggling with the process. And at the same time, Kelly, who is an experienced developer, wanted to help. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This front unit is a one bedroom, so it’s got a living room and a nice kitchen, a full bathroom, and then a nice bedroom. And we charge $1500 a month for this. And that includes utilities.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> $1,500 for all that is a steal in the Bay Area. And Kelly didn’t stop there. She also built a small two bedroom house in the backyard, where Raul lived until he passed away in February. It’s now home to two of Raul’s friends who were dealing with housing insecurity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They would often, you know, spend time with family in the valley and then sleep in their cars one or two nights a week here. We approached the mother and said, Would you like to move into this house? And she said, yes. And she and her son live here now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That small house is technically called an ADU, or an accessory dwelling unit. You might know it as a granny flat or a casita. And it’s the hottest thing in California housing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Recent state and local laws have made them easier to build. There are even grant programs that will cover some of the costs. And San José has really embraced them. Last year, the city issued over 500 permits to build new ADUs. There’s still some space on Kelly’s lot. And she wants to build a duplex there — so even more homes on a plot of land that used to just have one. Kelly knows there are skeptics. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the reasons why I wanted to do this is because every time I bring someone here they’re like, Well, that’s just a tiny little lot. You can’t fit a whole new house on there. And I’m like, Oh, I can fit a whole house on there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Even if she can build it, not everyone wants it. Many of the people who moved to San José came for the backyard and the quiet neighborhood with tree-lined streets.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Kelly wants to show people, you can still have that and add more housing. After buying Raul’s place, she formed a company to help more people split their homes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everyone who comes to see it says, Oh, I didn’t know it would look this nice. I didn’t know you could fit all of this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And for what it’s worth, it doesn’t feel crowded. This is still a quiet street and there isn’t a tall building in sight. Kelly thinks San José is moving in the right direction with ADUs and just needs to keep making it cheaper and easier to build them.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kelly Snider: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They know the knob to switch and they’ve already started twisting it. They just need to twist it further.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I know I’ve been picking on San José, but the thing is, it’s like a lot of cities in California. They were all built on an idea that sounded great at the time — a spacious home with a yard of your own. A car that could take you anywhere. But that idea has led California into its housing and climate crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So, maybe it’s time to embrace some new ideas for how our cities are built and how we’ll create a sustainable future. It might mean living closer to each other, driving less, walking more. And, if you ask me, that actually sounds pretty great. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: That was KQED housing reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi. This story is from the KQED podcast: SOLD OUT, Rethinking Housing in America. Their latest season explores the intersection of climate and the housing crisis. Another episode you might enjoy is called “Electric Avenue” and it follows a group of neighbors in Oakland who are working together to make their homes more efficient and climate resilient. Find Sold Out wherever you listen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: This story was edited by Erika Kelly and Kevin Stark. Sold Out is hosted by Erin Baldassari. Jen Chien was a contributing editor. Sound engineering by Brendan Willard. Cedric Wilson wrote the Sold Out theme song. Thanks also to Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldaña, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, Holly Kernan, Otis Taylor Jr., Molly Solomon, Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Bay Curious is going to be dark next week for the Thanksgiving holiday, so I’ll say this now… We are so thankful that you listen to our show … it is truly an honor and privilege. And we hope you have a joy-filled week, whatever that looks like to you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Have a good one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music fades\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Meet the Woman Behind Thousands of Famous Fillmore Posters",
"headTitle": "Meet the Woman Behind Thousands of Famous Fillmore Posters | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode. \u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Arlene Owseichik, San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11731290/how-bill-grahams-nazi-escape-might-explain-his-fillmore-apples\">Fillmore Auditorium\u003c/a> has a “palpable soul.” It was the center of the countercultural music universe for a time, and bands like Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Janis Joplin’s Big Brother and the Holding Company launched their careers on its stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think every person that’s entered into that building that’s seen a show leaves a part of themselves there,” she says. “I always think of Jimi Hendrix being in that building and making his way down the narrow staircase behind the dressing room onto the stage.” [baycuriousbug]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of this soul and history is on display inside the Fillmore’s infamous Poster Room, a cavernous room whose walls are filled floor to ceiling with posters from decades of the venue’s shows. It’s the closest you can get to stepping into a musical time machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These days, when you see a show at the Fillmore, you might be lucky enough to get your very own poster for free. They’re a highly anticipated parting gift given out at the biggest shows. Bay Curious listener Ben Kaiser has his poster of the Psychedelic Furs at the Fillmore framed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966763\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966763\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A display of concert posters. On one wall are numerous framed posters for different musicians. On another wall, a large framed portrait of Grateful Dead guitarist, Jerry Garcia is visible. Garcia is playing a guitar.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Posters from the Fillmore hang on a wall next to a large portrait of Jerry Garcia. The Grateful Dead played at the Fillmore more than 50 times. \u003ccite>(Photo By Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The posters are artifacts, pieces of time,” he says. “They’re as much [a part] of the concert as the concert.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which got him wondering: the posters of the Fillmore are so legendary, who is the person behind them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From 1985 to 2019, the answer was Arlene Owseichik.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Going to California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Arlene Owseichik came to San Francisco in 1976 for one reason: “I was very aware that the [band] Jefferson Airplane were from San Francisco. We just, kind of on a whim and a prayer, loaded up the car and came west,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the first things she did when she got here was ride past the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/obscuresf/article/sf-2400-fulton-jefferson-airplane-17751356.php\">Airplane House on Fulton Street\u003c/a>. “It was crazy,” she laughs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966782\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966782\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Close up on the hand of a woman holding a photograph of her younger self. In that image she is holding a camera to her eye. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arlene Owseichik, long-time art director at Bill Graham Presents, holds a self-portrait of herself from her early years in San Francisco at her home in Berkeley on Sept. 28, 2023. Owseichik designed posters for Bill Graham Presents for 30 years and produced nearly 2000 of the iconic concert posters. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Owseichik studied art in college and wanted to work in photography and graphic design. She got a job doing “paste-ups” for a hip design studio, Ampersand. In a time before Photoshop, paste-ups were how you manually put images and photos together for printing, literally cutting with an X-acto knife and pasting layers onto a board like a collage. She primarily made announcements for shows that went inside the SF Chronicle’s entertainment section.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got pretty good with that X-Acto knife and actually stabbed myself a few times. Those were the hazards of the olden days of graphics,” she recalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One day, the phone rang while she was at work. Owseichik picked it up, and the concert promotion company Bill Graham Presents was on the other end. They asked her if anyone there would want to work for them doing paste-ups. She didn’t hesitate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to. And that was the start of it.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven years later, Owseichik proposed that Bill Graham Presents hire her to do the paste-ups in-house as their first-ever art director.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was pretty scary. They sat on the proposal for months,” she says. But she got the gig.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Owseichik had come to San Francisco for the music, and now she was plugged into one of the most influential music scenes of the 20th century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that’s how things happen. They’re just unexpected. A door opens. Take it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Working for Bill Graham\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Arlene Owseichik’s boss at Bill Graham Presents was Bill Graham itself, the larger-than-life concert promoter. “He was riveting. He was handsome. He was funny. He was electric. He was the dream boss,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966779\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966779\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-800x1072.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of a man sitting at a desk talking on phone with a cord. There are many photos and posters on the wall behind him. \" width=\"800\" height=\"1072\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-800x1072.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-1020x1366.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-160x214.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-1147x1536.jpg 1147w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-1529x2048.jpg 1529w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572.jpg 1696w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">German-born American businessman Bill Graham (1931–1991), rock concert producer and promoter, talks on the phone in his office at the Fillmore West music club, San Francisco, California, August 1969. The walls are decorated with psychedelic concert posters and photographs, and a stack of record albums is on top of a bookshelf. \u003ccite>(Photo by Jon Brenneis/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the ’60s, Bill Graham Presents made a name for themselves by booking the biggest musical acts of the counterculture. The psychedelic posters designed to promote these shows were originally created just as advertisements — but they quickly became sought-after collectibles, written about in national magazines and reprinted for sale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the mid-’80s, Graham decided to take the posters in a different direction. They weren’t going to be advertisements anymore, they were going to be mementos given out at the end of concerts, stand-alone works of art. And as art director, Arlene Owseichik was responsible for making nearly every single one of those posters happen from 1985 to 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a huge job, and she gave it her all: “I was working with different poster artists…[it was] fantastic, stimulating, wonderful. It just was never-ending, the amount of work that I loved and the people that were doing it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Making of a Fillmore Poster\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As art director, Owseichik was in charge of the many moving parts it took to create a Fillmore poster. At the beginning of each month, she got a list of upcoming shows from the booker. The shows that got posters were those that would sell out simply because it meant there would be money to pay for everything. Owseichik would research the bands (which she says definitely got easier once the Internet and iTunes came around), then call up one of the many talented poster artists from her arsenal that was the best aesthetic match. The poster artist would create a first draft, and then Owseichik would work with them to come up with a final design.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966783\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966783\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut-800x605.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white image of a woman wearing a white blazer, standing with her hands on her hips. Behind her is a wall filled with dozens of framed concert posters. \" width=\"800\" height=\"605\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut-800x605.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut-1020x772.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut-160x121.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut-1536x1162.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arlene Owseichik in 1989 in the Fillmore poster room. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Arlene Owseichik)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As far as creative direction was concerned, there were only a few rules: no portraits and no guns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I never wanted punky boy art,” she says. “I really stood my ground on [that]. I wanted the posters to be a celebration of art and of music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final hurdle was getting the poster approved by management, which Owseichik says could be rocky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were different opinions. As fun as it was, it was also really hard and heartbreaking that somebody could spend a week doing a poster, and then basically it would just be tossed in the trash,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the posters were given away for free, Owseichik never had to involve the band in the poster approval process, so the final poster was just as much a surprise to them as it was to the audience. The exceptions were Tom Petty and the Counting Crows — they insisted on approving the posters before print. Generally, the bands loved their posters, but of course, there were some exceptions, notably Greg Allman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of her favorite posters was created by artist James Mecier for \u003ca href=\"https://www.dking-gallery.com/store/FIL_511.html\">Willie Nelson’s 2002 show\u003c/a>. It’s a collage of the musician’s face made with feathers, rocks, and stones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another of her favorites is a \u003ca href=\"https://visiblevibrations.com/product/b-b-king-concert-poster-2007-f-898-fillmore/\">2007 poster for BB King\u003c/a> done by illustrator Alan Forbes. It features a shiny black guitar drawn with outstretched angel wings and a jeweled crown circling its neck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The truth be said, I loved every one of them. They’re all my children,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966755\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966755\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416-800x530.jpg\" alt=\"A concert poster for the band Jefferson Airplane, featuring a black and white image of the Golden Gate Bridge shrouded in fog, with a multicolored illustration of a bi-wing airplane flying over it.\" width=\"800\" height=\"530\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416-800x530.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416-160x106.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The poster for Jefferson Airplane was designed and illustrated by Arlene Owseichik. \u003ccite>(Arlene Owseichik)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She even got to design and illustrate a poster for Jefferson Airplane, which she says was “a dream come true.” For the design, she drew a bi-winged airplane flying over a photo she had taken of the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another one of Owseichik’s duties as art director was designing the dressing rooms for big acts, especially as Bill Graham Presents expanded their venues across the Bay. When Jimmy Page came to play at the Oakland Coliseum with an Egyptian band, she used props and décor to transform his dressing room into an Egyptian oasis. When Page entered the room after the show to grab a beer from the cooler, Owseichik was “star-struck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her friends thought she had the coolest job in the world, and she agreed with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Final Act\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For thirty-three years, Bill Graham Presents — and these posters — were Arlene Owseichik’s entire world. So, her decision to retire in 2019 was a difficult one, even though she knew it was time. She remembers giving her notice, feeling like an “out of body experience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fillmore’s longtime marketing manager, Ashley Graham (no relation to Bill Graham), stepped into the role as the venue’s art director and still holds the position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arlene says she’s still decompressing from the job’s long days: “There were times that I worked 24 hours…that I never left the office,” she says. She also doesn’t miss the deadlines, like in 2014 when she had less than two days’ notice to make a poster for Prince at the Fillmore. She and Frank Wiedemann were feeling good about their design \u003ca href=\"https://visiblevibrations.com/product/prince-concert-poster-2014-f-1256-fillmore/\">incorporating Prince’s guitar and the newly opened Bay Bridge\u003c/a> … and then she realized they had printed the wrong date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had to redo the poster, like in an instant: change the file, reprint it, do it with the proper date,” she says. “That was pretty darn stressful. But hey, it was Prince.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966784\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966784\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt='A woman in a yellow shirt hold a concert poster for the artist \"Prince.\" ' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arlene Owseichik looks at a Prince poster she created during her time as art director at Bill Graham Presents at her home in Berkeley on Sept. 28, 2023. Owseichik designed posters for Bill Graham Presents for 30 years and produced nearly 2000 of the iconic concert posters. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She says she used to be addicted to excitement, but these days, she’s happy to have a quieter daily routine: no shows, no deadlines, and no late nights. The thing she does miss about going to shows at the Fillmore is seeing concert-goers stream out of the building at the end to get their posters. People tell her stories about this all the time: “Like, ‘Oh, that’s where I met my wife,’ or ‘That was such an amazing night.’ And then it’s all embodied in this poster,” she says. “It’s part of San Francisco lore. It’s incredible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Owseichik hasn’t cast aside the design world. She has her own business, \u003ca href=\"http://www.bigpicturedesign.biz/\">Big Picture Design\u003c/a>, which she says was partly inspired by how Bill Graham always had his eye on the “big picture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She may not be spending her days at the Fillmore anymore, but it’s undeniable that she has left her mark on the building the same way Jimi Hendrix did more than 50 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel really blessed,” she says. “It was just really an incredible place to be. I hope it lives forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story has been updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Years ago, Bay Curious listener Ben Kaiser was seeing a show at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium … The Psychedelic Furs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[The Psychedelic Furs, “Love my Way” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a great show. The kind he’ll remember forever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And luckily, that night, they were offering a free poster to everybody in attendance. That was my first poster of the Psychedelic Furs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s now framed in his Atlanta home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a very dark and moody poster. It looks like somebody standing in an alley, walking away from the perspective of the viewer. It’s a beautiful poster. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Free posters are a beloved parting gift for concert-goers at the Fillmore. They’re never guaranteed, only given out at the biggest shows. And they’re created just for the Fillmore audiences — so when folks do get one, it’s special.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These posters are artifacts, pieces of time. They’re as much of the concert as the concert.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At this point, the free posters are almost as legendary as The Fillmore Auditorium itself — a center stage for the counterculture music scene during the 1960s. Bands like Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Janis Joplin’s Big Brother and the Holding Company launched their careers on that stage. The Grateful Dead played there more than 50 TIMES. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[The Grateful Dead “Friend of the Devil” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The posters. The venue. It’s history! This all got Ben wondering… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Fillmore is legendary. The posters at the Fillmore are legendary. The poster wall at the Fillmore is legendary. But what I would like to know more about is the person behind the poster. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The creative director behind hundreds of the Fillmore’s storied posters — Arlene Owseichik.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today on Bay Curious, we’ve got a rocking collision of Bay Area art, music and history. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. We’ll be right back.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our listener Ben wanted to know more about the women behind the Fillmore’s legendary concert posters…. Reporter Bianca Taylor takes the mic … \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Arlene Owseichik came to San Francisco in her mid-twenties… drawn by the sounds of Haight Ashbury.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was very aware that the Jefferson Airplane were from San Francisco. And just kind of on a whim and a prayer, we loaded up the car and came west. And. And one of the first things we did was ride by the airplane mansion on Fulton Street,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was 1976, and although it had been almost a decade since the Summer of Love, the spirit of music and art was alive and well in the city. Arlene’s first job was waitressing at the infamous North Beach Beat hangout, Vesuvio Cafe. She had studied art in college and wanted to be a photographer, so she also started volunteering at Camerawork — a nonprofit art gallery which is still around today. She spent her days there working with glue and scissors, using a collage-type process to make ads in newspapers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would do the paste-up for the announcements for shows.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In a time before Photoshop, paste-ups were how you manually put images and photos together for copying or printing — literally cutting and pasting layers onto a board. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I got pretty good with that X-Acto knife and actually stabbed myself a few times. Those were the hazards of the olden days of graphics. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Soon, she got hired by a small design studio, Ampersand, and started working on paste-ups full-time. One day, the phone rang at work — Arlene picked it up, and on the other end .. was the concert promotion company, Bill Graham Presents. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was like, “Oh, might somebody at Ampersand Design, you know, be able to take on pasting up ads ?” So I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to. And that was the start of it.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She started making paste-up newspaper ads for them… and then in 1985, after she proposed that they hire her in-house, Arlene became Bill Graham Presents’ first-ever art director. This was a dream job — she had always been a huge music fan… and now she was plugged into one of the most influential music scenes of the 20th century.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A door opens. Take it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> At the time, Bill Graham Presents was run by Bill Graham himself, the larger-than-life concert promoter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival clip of Bill Graham: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the artist is the most privileged of all species. I consider myself to be the next most fortunate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Bill Graham was an enigmatic man with an unbelievable story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Born Wolfgang Grajonca in 1930s Berlin, he fled to New York as an orphaned 10-year-old, having lost his mother in the Holocaust. He changed his name to Bill Graham to sound more American…By the time Arlene met him, he had his signature thick Bronx accent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I adored him. He was— He was riveting. He was handsome. He was funny. He was electric.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Aretha Franklin Live at the Fillmore album, “Respect” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the ’60s, Bill and his company, Bill Graham Presents, had become famous for booking the biggest musical acts of the day: everyone from the Grateful Dead and Santana to Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The psychedelic posters designed to promote these shows were just created as advertisements — but they quickly became famous collectibles, written about in national magazines and reprinted for sale. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the mid-’80s, Bill Graham decided to take the posters in a different direction: they weren’t going to be advertisements anymore, they were going to be mementos given out at the end of concerts. Stand-alone works of art. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as Art Director, Arlene was the person behind nearly every single one of those posters from 1985 to 2019. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was working with different poster artists, fantastic. Never never-ending, stimulating, wonderful. It just was never ending the amount …the work that I loved and the people that were doing it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Here’s how it worked: At the beginning of each month, Arlene got a list of upcoming shows from the booker…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shout out to Michael Bayley, who’s been the booker for the shows all these years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Shows that got posters were shows that would sell out… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because it meant there’s enough money floating around, you know, to pay for everything. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Then, she would go through the list and start doing research on the bands.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As time went on, I have to say that it became much easier with iTunes and the Internet, and it’s all right at your fingertips.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Once she had a sense for the band’s style, she’d think about which poster artist’s aesthetic would be the best match.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By this time, I had worked with a roster of poster artists, and so I’d call up Frank Wiedemann and and I’d say, you know, whatever. Duran Duran! And then he’d go, “Yeah.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Then the fun part — the artist would create a poster, show it to Arlene, and the two of them would work together to come up with a final design. There were only a few rules she enforced: The first was no portraits. The second was no guns. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I never wanted guns. I never wanted, you know, death masks. I never wanted, like, really kind of punky boy art. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When she and the artist got to a final design, she would take it to management for approval… which Arlene says was less fun. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That could be very rocky at times. There were perhaps different opinions. As fun, as it was, it was also really, really hard and really heartbreaking that somebody could spend a week doing a poster, and then basically, it would just be tossed in the trash because it was deemed, you know, not appropriate or whatever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of her favorite posters was created by artist James Mecier for Willie Nelson’s 2 thousand 2 show. It’s a collage of the musician’s face made with feathers, rocks, and stones. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another of her favorites is a 2007 poster for BB King done by illustrator Alan Forbes. It features a shiny black guitar drawn with outstretched angel wings, a jeweled crown circling its neck. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The truth be said, I loved every one of them. They were. They’re all my children. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Because the posters were given away for free, Arlene NEVER had to involve the BAND in the poster approval process. The final poster was just as much a surprise to them as it was to the audience. The exceptions were Tom Petty and the Counting Crows — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">they\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> insisted on approving the posters before print. … Generally, the posters were well-received, but of course, there were some exceptions.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, like Gregg Allman didn’t like his poster. I know Zero Seven didn’t like their poster.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She even got to design AND ILLUSTRATE a poster for the band that inspired her to MOVE to San Francisco… Jefferson Airplane. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jefferson Airplane’s “Today” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The poster consists of a photo that I took of the Golden Gate Bridge and Fog. And so it’s just this really nice photo. And then, I illustrated a bi-winged airplane flying over the bridge. It was like my dream come true: to do a poster for the airplane.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Another duty Arlene took on as Art Director was designing the dressing rooms for big acts —especially as Bill Graham Presents started booking shows at other venues across the Bay. She did the dressing room for Jimmy Page when he played the Oakland Coliseum — transforming it with props and decorations, almost like a film set.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I made his room Egyptian. They were touring with an Egyptian band. And then, after the show, I was sitting in the dressing room just waiting for the rest of the crew to come in and, like, take down the dressing room. And I was sitting there, and he came in, and he and he, like, got a beer out of the cooler. I was star-struck.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> For thirty-three years, Bill Graham Presents — and these posters — were Arlene’s entire world. So, her decision to retire in 2019 was a difficult one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I mean, I knew that it was time, but just physically, it was an out-of-body experience because it had meant so much to me, and it had been so long.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She says she’s still decompressing from the fast-paced days… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There were times that I worked 24 hours. I mean, that I never left the office. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And the deadlines — like in 2014 when she had less than two days’ notice to make a poster for Prince… Arlene immediately called up illustrator Frank Wiedemann, and they came up with a design incorporating Prince’s guitar and the newly opened Bay Bridge…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Prince’s “Kiss” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> …and then they realized they had printed the wrong date. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We had to redo the poster like in an instant, to change the file, to reprint it, to do it with the proper date. So, I’d say that was pretty darn stressful. But hey, it was Prince. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Prince’s “Kiss” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I used to be addicted to excitement, I realize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> These days, she’s quite happy to have a much quieter daily routine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, my God. I went to so many shows, which is why I rarely go to shows. Yeah, it would take—not quite a crane to get me out of here, but…[laughs] But no, I had my fill of shows.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The thing she does miss about going to shows at the Fillmore is seeing concert-goers stream out of the building at the end to get their posters. People tell her stories about this all the time: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, Oh, that’s where I met my wife or that, you know, that was such an amazing night. And then it’s all embodied in this poster. It’s part of San Francisco lore. It’s. It’s incredible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When she reflects back on her three-decade career, she talks about the Fillmore like it’s an old friend.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think buildings have soul. I think every person that’s entered into that building that’s seen a show leaves a part of themselves there. I think of all the performers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I always think of Jimi Hendrix being in that building and making his way down the narrow staircase behind the dressing room onto the stage. And I just think it’s just an incredible place that it’s so—it’s palpable how much soul it has. I hope it lives forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Arlene hasn’t cast aside the design world, though — she has her own business, Big Picture Design, which she says was inspired in part by the way Bill Graham always had his eye on the “big picture.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And If there’s one piece of career advice she can give to people, it’s to follow your bliss. After all… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” plays] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had to move to San Francisco, you know, I had to follow the Jefferson Airplane and had to just— I did what I loved. It came from my heart. And it really paid off.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” plays] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was KQED’s Bianca Taylor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many moons ago, we aired a story about another tradition at the Fillmore Auditorium — how they also give away free apples at their shows. We’ll drop that link in our show notes if you want to learn more.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks to Ben Kaiser for asking this week’s question, which was chosen by you in a public voting round earlier this year. Our November voting round is currently up, and you have some interesting choices, my friends: Questions about geese migration patterns, hot dog vendors, and a biscuit San Francisco was supposedly once known the world over for… Cast your vote at BayCurious.org!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser: \u003c/b>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member—supported KQED. The show is produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan, and the entire KQED Family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode. \u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Arlene Owseichik, San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11731290/how-bill-grahams-nazi-escape-might-explain-his-fillmore-apples\">Fillmore Auditorium\u003c/a> has a “palpable soul.” It was the center of the countercultural music universe for a time, and bands like Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Janis Joplin’s Big Brother and the Holding Company launched their careers on its stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think every person that’s entered into that building that’s seen a show leaves a part of themselves there,” she says. “I always think of Jimi Hendrix being in that building and making his way down the narrow staircase behind the dressing room onto the stage.” \u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of this soul and history is on display inside the Fillmore’s infamous Poster Room, a cavernous room whose walls are filled floor to ceiling with posters from decades of the venue’s shows. It’s the closest you can get to stepping into a musical time machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These days, when you see a show at the Fillmore, you might be lucky enough to get your very own poster for free. They’re a highly anticipated parting gift given out at the biggest shows. Bay Curious listener Ben Kaiser has his poster of the Psychedelic Furs at the Fillmore framed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966763\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966763\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A display of concert posters. On one wall are numerous framed posters for different musicians. On another wall, a large framed portrait of Grateful Dead guitarist, Jerry Garcia is visible. Garcia is playing a guitar.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-1322089696-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Posters from the Fillmore hang on a wall next to a large portrait of Jerry Garcia. The Grateful Dead played at the Fillmore more than 50 times. \u003ccite>(Photo By Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The posters are artifacts, pieces of time,” he says. “They’re as much [a part] of the concert as the concert.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which got him wondering: the posters of the Fillmore are so legendary, who is the person behind them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From 1985 to 2019, the answer was Arlene Owseichik.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Going to California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Arlene Owseichik came to San Francisco in 1976 for one reason: “I was very aware that the [band] Jefferson Airplane were from San Francisco. We just, kind of on a whim and a prayer, loaded up the car and came west,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the first things she did when she got here was ride past the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/obscuresf/article/sf-2400-fulton-jefferson-airplane-17751356.php\">Airplane House on Fulton Street\u003c/a>. “It was crazy,” she laughs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966782\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966782\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Close up on the hand of a woman holding a photograph of her younger self. In that image she is holding a camera to her eye. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-027-BL-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arlene Owseichik, long-time art director at Bill Graham Presents, holds a self-portrait of herself from her early years in San Francisco at her home in Berkeley on Sept. 28, 2023. Owseichik designed posters for Bill Graham Presents for 30 years and produced nearly 2000 of the iconic concert posters. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Owseichik studied art in college and wanted to work in photography and graphic design. She got a job doing “paste-ups” for a hip design studio, Ampersand. In a time before Photoshop, paste-ups were how you manually put images and photos together for printing, literally cutting with an X-acto knife and pasting layers onto a board like a collage. She primarily made announcements for shows that went inside the SF Chronicle’s entertainment section.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got pretty good with that X-Acto knife and actually stabbed myself a few times. Those were the hazards of the olden days of graphics,” she recalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One day, the phone rang while she was at work. Owseichik picked it up, and the concert promotion company Bill Graham Presents was on the other end. They asked her if anyone there would want to work for them doing paste-ups. She didn’t hesitate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to. And that was the start of it.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven years later, Owseichik proposed that Bill Graham Presents hire her to do the paste-ups in-house as their first-ever art director.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was pretty scary. They sat on the proposal for months,” she says. But she got the gig.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Owseichik had come to San Francisco for the music, and now she was plugged into one of the most influential music scenes of the 20th century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that’s how things happen. They’re just unexpected. A door opens. Take it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Working for Bill Graham\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Arlene Owseichik’s boss at Bill Graham Presents was Bill Graham itself, the larger-than-life concert promoter. “He was riveting. He was handsome. He was funny. He was electric. He was the dream boss,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966779\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966779\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-800x1072.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of a man sitting at a desk talking on phone with a cord. There are many photos and posters on the wall behind him. \" width=\"800\" height=\"1072\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-800x1072.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-1020x1366.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-160x214.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-1147x1536.jpg 1147w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572-1529x2048.jpg 1529w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/GettyImages-51696718-scaled-e1699476265572.jpg 1696w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">German-born American businessman Bill Graham (1931–1991), rock concert producer and promoter, talks on the phone in his office at the Fillmore West music club, San Francisco, California, August 1969. The walls are decorated with psychedelic concert posters and photographs, and a stack of record albums is on top of a bookshelf. \u003ccite>(Photo by Jon Brenneis/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the ’60s, Bill Graham Presents made a name for themselves by booking the biggest musical acts of the counterculture. The psychedelic posters designed to promote these shows were originally created just as advertisements — but they quickly became sought-after collectibles, written about in national magazines and reprinted for sale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the mid-’80s, Graham decided to take the posters in a different direction. They weren’t going to be advertisements anymore, they were going to be mementos given out at the end of concerts, stand-alone works of art. And as art director, Arlene Owseichik was responsible for making nearly every single one of those posters happen from 1985 to 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a huge job, and she gave it her all: “I was working with different poster artists…[it was] fantastic, stimulating, wonderful. It just was never-ending, the amount of work that I loved and the people that were doing it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Making of a Fillmore Poster\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As art director, Owseichik was in charge of the many moving parts it took to create a Fillmore poster. At the beginning of each month, she got a list of upcoming shows from the booker. The shows that got posters were those that would sell out simply because it meant there would be money to pay for everything. Owseichik would research the bands (which she says definitely got easier once the Internet and iTunes came around), then call up one of the many talented poster artists from her arsenal that was the best aesthetic match. The poster artist would create a first draft, and then Owseichik would work with them to come up with a final design.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966783\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966783\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut-800x605.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white image of a woman wearing a white blazer, standing with her hands on her hips. Behind her is a wall filled with dozens of framed concert posters. \" width=\"800\" height=\"605\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut-800x605.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut-1020x772.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut-160x121.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut-1536x1162.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/img20231006_15482414-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arlene Owseichik in 1989 in the Fillmore poster room. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Arlene Owseichik)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As far as creative direction was concerned, there were only a few rules: no portraits and no guns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I never wanted punky boy art,” she says. “I really stood my ground on [that]. I wanted the posters to be a celebration of art and of music.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final hurdle was getting the poster approved by management, which Owseichik says could be rocky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were different opinions. As fun as it was, it was also really hard and heartbreaking that somebody could spend a week doing a poster, and then basically it would just be tossed in the trash,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the posters were given away for free, Owseichik never had to involve the band in the poster approval process, so the final poster was just as much a surprise to them as it was to the audience. The exceptions were Tom Petty and the Counting Crows — they insisted on approving the posters before print. Generally, the bands loved their posters, but of course, there were some exceptions, notably Greg Allman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of her favorite posters was created by artist James Mecier for \u003ca href=\"https://www.dking-gallery.com/store/FIL_511.html\">Willie Nelson’s 2002 show\u003c/a>. It’s a collage of the musician’s face made with feathers, rocks, and stones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another of her favorites is a \u003ca href=\"https://visiblevibrations.com/product/b-b-king-concert-poster-2007-f-898-fillmore/\">2007 poster for BB King\u003c/a> done by illustrator Alan Forbes. It features a shiny black guitar drawn with outstretched angel wings and a jeweled crown circling its neck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The truth be said, I loved every one of them. They’re all my children,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966755\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966755\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416-800x530.jpg\" alt=\"A concert poster for the band Jefferson Airplane, featuring a black and white image of the Golden Gate Bridge shrouded in fog, with a multicolored illustration of a bi-wing airplane flying over it.\" width=\"800\" height=\"530\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416-800x530.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416-160x106.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/jefferson-airplane-poster-sep-26-1989-sep-28-1989-qut-e1699479797416.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The poster for Jefferson Airplane was designed and illustrated by Arlene Owseichik. \u003ccite>(Arlene Owseichik)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She even got to design and illustrate a poster for Jefferson Airplane, which she says was “a dream come true.” For the design, she drew a bi-winged airplane flying over a photo she had taken of the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another one of Owseichik’s duties as art director was designing the dressing rooms for big acts, especially as Bill Graham Presents expanded their venues across the Bay. When Jimmy Page came to play at the Oakland Coliseum with an Egyptian band, she used props and décor to transform his dressing room into an Egyptian oasis. When Page entered the room after the show to grab a beer from the cooler, Owseichik was “star-struck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her friends thought she had the coolest job in the world, and she agreed with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Final Act\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For thirty-three years, Bill Graham Presents — and these posters — were Arlene Owseichik’s entire world. So, her decision to retire in 2019 was a difficult one, even though she knew it was time. She remembers giving her notice, feeling like an “out of body experience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fillmore’s longtime marketing manager, Ashley Graham (no relation to Bill Graham), stepped into the role as the venue’s art director and still holds the position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arlene says she’s still decompressing from the job’s long days: “There were times that I worked 24 hours…that I never left the office,” she says. She also doesn’t miss the deadlines, like in 2014 when she had less than two days’ notice to make a poster for Prince at the Fillmore. She and Frank Wiedemann were feeling good about their design \u003ca href=\"https://visiblevibrations.com/product/prince-concert-poster-2014-f-1256-fillmore/\">incorporating Prince’s guitar and the newly opened Bay Bridge\u003c/a> … and then she realized they had printed the wrong date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had to redo the poster, like in an instant: change the file, reprint it, do it with the proper date,” she says. “That was pretty darn stressful. But hey, it was Prince.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11966784\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11966784\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt='A woman in a yellow shirt hold a concert poster for the artist \"Prince.\" ' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230928-ArleneOwseichik-009-BL-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arlene Owseichik looks at a Prince poster she created during her time as art director at Bill Graham Presents at her home in Berkeley on Sept. 28, 2023. Owseichik designed posters for Bill Graham Presents for 30 years and produced nearly 2000 of the iconic concert posters. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She says she used to be addicted to excitement, but these days, she’s happy to have a quieter daily routine: no shows, no deadlines, and no late nights. The thing she does miss about going to shows at the Fillmore is seeing concert-goers stream out of the building at the end to get their posters. People tell her stories about this all the time: “Like, ‘Oh, that’s where I met my wife,’ or ‘That was such an amazing night.’ And then it’s all embodied in this poster,” she says. “It’s part of San Francisco lore. It’s incredible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Owseichik hasn’t cast aside the design world. She has her own business, \u003ca href=\"http://www.bigpicturedesign.biz/\">Big Picture Design\u003c/a>, which she says was partly inspired by how Bill Graham always had his eye on the “big picture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She may not be spending her days at the Fillmore anymore, but it’s undeniable that she has left her mark on the building the same way Jimi Hendrix did more than 50 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel really blessed,” she says. “It was just really an incredible place to be. I hope it lives forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story has been updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Years ago, Bay Curious listener Ben Kaiser was seeing a show at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium … The Psychedelic Furs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[The Psychedelic Furs, “Love my Way” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a great show. The kind he’ll remember forever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And luckily, that night, they were offering a free poster to everybody in attendance. That was my first poster of the Psychedelic Furs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s now framed in his Atlanta home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a very dark and moody poster. It looks like somebody standing in an alley, walking away from the perspective of the viewer. It’s a beautiful poster. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Free posters are a beloved parting gift for concert-goers at the Fillmore. They’re never guaranteed, only given out at the biggest shows. And they’re created just for the Fillmore audiences — so when folks do get one, it’s special.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These posters are artifacts, pieces of time. They’re as much of the concert as the concert.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At this point, the free posters are almost as legendary as The Fillmore Auditorium itself — a center stage for the counterculture music scene during the 1960s. Bands like Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Janis Joplin’s Big Brother and the Holding Company launched their careers on that stage. The Grateful Dead played there more than 50 TIMES. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[The Grateful Dead “Friend of the Devil” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The posters. The venue. It’s history! This all got Ben wondering… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Fillmore is legendary. The posters at the Fillmore are legendary. The poster wall at the Fillmore is legendary. But what I would like to know more about is the person behind the poster. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The creative director behind hundreds of the Fillmore’s storied posters — Arlene Owseichik.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today on Bay Curious, we’ve got a rocking collision of Bay Area art, music and history. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. We’ll be right back.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our listener Ben wanted to know more about the women behind the Fillmore’s legendary concert posters…. Reporter Bianca Taylor takes the mic … \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Arlene Owseichik came to San Francisco in her mid-twenties… drawn by the sounds of Haight Ashbury.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was very aware that the Jefferson Airplane were from San Francisco. And just kind of on a whim and a prayer, we loaded up the car and came west. And. And one of the first things we did was ride by the airplane mansion on Fulton Street,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was 1976, and although it had been almost a decade since the Summer of Love, the spirit of music and art was alive and well in the city. Arlene’s first job was waitressing at the infamous North Beach Beat hangout, Vesuvio Cafe. She had studied art in college and wanted to be a photographer, so she also started volunteering at Camerawork — a nonprofit art gallery which is still around today. She spent her days there working with glue and scissors, using a collage-type process to make ads in newspapers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would do the paste-up for the announcements for shows.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In a time before Photoshop, paste-ups were how you manually put images and photos together for copying or printing — literally cutting and pasting layers onto a board. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I got pretty good with that X-Acto knife and actually stabbed myself a few times. Those were the hazards of the olden days of graphics. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Soon, she got hired by a small design studio, Ampersand, and started working on paste-ups full-time. One day, the phone rang at work — Arlene picked it up, and on the other end .. was the concert promotion company, Bill Graham Presents. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was like, “Oh, might somebody at Ampersand Design, you know, be able to take on pasting up ads ?” So I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to. And that was the start of it.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She started making paste-up newspaper ads for them… and then in 1985, after she proposed that they hire her in-house, Arlene became Bill Graham Presents’ first-ever art director. This was a dream job — she had always been a huge music fan… and now she was plugged into one of the most influential music scenes of the 20th century.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A door opens. Take it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> At the time, Bill Graham Presents was run by Bill Graham himself, the larger-than-life concert promoter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival clip of Bill Graham: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the artist is the most privileged of all species. I consider myself to be the next most fortunate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Bill Graham was an enigmatic man with an unbelievable story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Born Wolfgang Grajonca in 1930s Berlin, he fled to New York as an orphaned 10-year-old, having lost his mother in the Holocaust. He changed his name to Bill Graham to sound more American…By the time Arlene met him, he had his signature thick Bronx accent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I adored him. He was— He was riveting. He was handsome. He was funny. He was electric.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Aretha Franklin Live at the Fillmore album, “Respect” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the ’60s, Bill and his company, Bill Graham Presents, had become famous for booking the biggest musical acts of the day: everyone from the Grateful Dead and Santana to Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The psychedelic posters designed to promote these shows were just created as advertisements — but they quickly became famous collectibles, written about in national magazines and reprinted for sale. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the mid-’80s, Bill Graham decided to take the posters in a different direction: they weren’t going to be advertisements anymore, they were going to be mementos given out at the end of concerts. Stand-alone works of art. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as Art Director, Arlene was the person behind nearly every single one of those posters from 1985 to 2019. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was working with different poster artists, fantastic. Never never-ending, stimulating, wonderful. It just was never ending the amount …the work that I loved and the people that were doing it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Here’s how it worked: At the beginning of each month, Arlene got a list of upcoming shows from the booker…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shout out to Michael Bayley, who’s been the booker for the shows all these years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Shows that got posters were shows that would sell out… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because it meant there’s enough money floating around, you know, to pay for everything. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Then, she would go through the list and start doing research on the bands.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As time went on, I have to say that it became much easier with iTunes and the Internet, and it’s all right at your fingertips.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Once she had a sense for the band’s style, she’d think about which poster artist’s aesthetic would be the best match.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By this time, I had worked with a roster of poster artists, and so I’d call up Frank Wiedemann and and I’d say, you know, whatever. Duran Duran! And then he’d go, “Yeah.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Then the fun part — the artist would create a poster, show it to Arlene, and the two of them would work together to come up with a final design. There were only a few rules she enforced: The first was no portraits. The second was no guns. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I never wanted guns. I never wanted, you know, death masks. I never wanted, like, really kind of punky boy art. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When she and the artist got to a final design, she would take it to management for approval… which Arlene says was less fun. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That could be very rocky at times. There were perhaps different opinions. As fun, as it was, it was also really, really hard and really heartbreaking that somebody could spend a week doing a poster, and then basically, it would just be tossed in the trash because it was deemed, you know, not appropriate or whatever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of her favorite posters was created by artist James Mecier for Willie Nelson’s 2 thousand 2 show. It’s a collage of the musician’s face made with feathers, rocks, and stones. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another of her favorites is a 2007 poster for BB King done by illustrator Alan Forbes. It features a shiny black guitar drawn with outstretched angel wings, a jeweled crown circling its neck. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The truth be said, I loved every one of them. They were. They’re all my children. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Because the posters were given away for free, Arlene NEVER had to involve the BAND in the poster approval process. The final poster was just as much a surprise to them as it was to the audience. The exceptions were Tom Petty and the Counting Crows — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">they\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> insisted on approving the posters before print. … Generally, the posters were well-received, but of course, there were some exceptions.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, like Gregg Allman didn’t like his poster. I know Zero Seven didn’t like their poster.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She even got to design AND ILLUSTRATE a poster for the band that inspired her to MOVE to San Francisco… Jefferson Airplane. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jefferson Airplane’s “Today” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The poster consists of a photo that I took of the Golden Gate Bridge and Fog. And so it’s just this really nice photo. And then, I illustrated a bi-winged airplane flying over the bridge. It was like my dream come true: to do a poster for the airplane.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Another duty Arlene took on as Art Director was designing the dressing rooms for big acts —especially as Bill Graham Presents started booking shows at other venues across the Bay. She did the dressing room for Jimmy Page when he played the Oakland Coliseum — transforming it with props and decorations, almost like a film set.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I made his room Egyptian. They were touring with an Egyptian band. And then, after the show, I was sitting in the dressing room just waiting for the rest of the crew to come in and, like, take down the dressing room. And I was sitting there, and he came in, and he and he, like, got a beer out of the cooler. I was star-struck.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> For thirty-three years, Bill Graham Presents — and these posters — were Arlene’s entire world. So, her decision to retire in 2019 was a difficult one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I mean, I knew that it was time, but just physically, it was an out-of-body experience because it had meant so much to me, and it had been so long.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She says she’s still decompressing from the fast-paced days… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There were times that I worked 24 hours. I mean, that I never left the office. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And the deadlines — like in 2014 when she had less than two days’ notice to make a poster for Prince… Arlene immediately called up illustrator Frank Wiedemann, and they came up with a design incorporating Prince’s guitar and the newly opened Bay Bridge…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Prince’s “Kiss” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> …and then they realized they had printed the wrong date. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We had to redo the poster like in an instant, to change the file, to reprint it, to do it with the proper date. So, I’d say that was pretty darn stressful. But hey, it was Prince. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Prince’s “Kiss” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I used to be addicted to excitement, I realize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> These days, she’s quite happy to have a much quieter daily routine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, my God. I went to so many shows, which is why I rarely go to shows. Yeah, it would take—not quite a crane to get me out of here, but…[laughs] But no, I had my fill of shows.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The thing she does miss about going to shows at the Fillmore is seeing concert-goers stream out of the building at the end to get their posters. People tell her stories about this all the time: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, Oh, that’s where I met my wife or that, you know, that was such an amazing night. And then it’s all embodied in this poster. It’s part of San Francisco lore. It’s. It’s incredible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When she reflects back on her three-decade career, she talks about the Fillmore like it’s an old friend.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think buildings have soul. I think every person that’s entered into that building that’s seen a show leaves a part of themselves there. I think of all the performers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” plays]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I always think of Jimi Hendrix being in that building and making his way down the narrow staircase behind the dressing room onto the stage. And I just think it’s just an incredible place that it’s so—it’s palpable how much soul it has. I hope it lives forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bianca Taylor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Arlene hasn’t cast aside the design world, though — she has her own business, Big Picture Design, which she says was inspired in part by the way Bill Graham always had his eye on the “big picture.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And If there’s one piece of career advice she can give to people, it’s to follow your bliss. After all… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” plays] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arlene Owseichik: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had to move to San Francisco, you know, I had to follow the Jefferson Airplane and had to just— I did what I loved. It came from my heart. And it really paid off.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” plays] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was KQED’s Bianca Taylor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many moons ago, we aired a story about another tradition at the Fillmore Auditorium — how they also give away free apples at their shows. We’ll drop that link in our show notes if you want to learn more.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks to Ben Kaiser for asking this week’s question, which was chosen by you in a public voting round earlier this year. Our November voting round is currently up, and you have some interesting choices, my friends: Questions about geese migration patterns, hot dog vendors, and a biscuit San Francisco was supposedly once known the world over for… Cast your vote at BayCurious.org!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ben Kaiser: \u003c/b>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member—supported KQED. The show is produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan, and the entire KQED Family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When people talk about San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood in the late 1970s, they describe it as a place of freedom for gay people. A place where you could be who you were in public and feel safe. Where love bloomed for many who thought they might never find it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But by the early 80s, death started to move in to that joyful space. During the height of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, in a small church a few blocks from the heart of the Castro, one pastor changed the experience of communion and committed felonies to comfort his flock. Reporter Christopher Beale brings us this story, which he originally produced for his podcast “Stereotypes: Straight Talk from Queer Voices,” and later aired on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11902998/the-marijuana-minister-of-the-castro\">The California Report Magazine.\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> When people talk about San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood in the late 1970s, they describe it as a place of freedom for gay people. A place where you could be who you were in public and feel safe. Where love bloomed for many who thought they might never find it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by the early 80s, death started to move in to that joyful space. San Francisco’s gay community was hit early and hard by HIV and AIDS. People watched friends turn from vibrant to emaciated in a matter of weeks. At the height of the AIDS crisis, close to half the city’s gay men were dying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was a time before the treatments we have today, of course. and for some, the one thing that helped ease their pain – was marijuana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But pot either medical or recreational, wasn’t legal back then, and state politicians were beginning to crack down on it’s use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> At the expense of people with HIV\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. This week on Bay Curious: how a San Francisco pastor changed the experience of communion, and committed felonies to comfort his flock…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I took a risk. I used my body. I acted on a belief that was motivated by my desire to provide healing and comfort for my friends. And I didn’t know what else to do, that I could do. But this was something I could do. And I did it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>This story was first produced by KQED’s Christopher Beale for his podcast Stereotypes: Straight Talk from Queer Voices … and later aired on The California Report Magazine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re sharing it this week ahead of our theatrical walking tours of the AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco .. taking place Nov. 4 and 5. I was just at rehearsals last week and trust me, you don’t want to miss these tours. They feature live music from cellist, El Beh. Very moving dance performances and a ritual with the Sisters of Perpetual indulgence. I’ll be kicking off each tour and I hope to see you. We’ll put a link in the show notes, or you can find your way to KQED.org/live for details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After this quick break, we return with the Marijuana Minister. I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Before we get started: just a heads up this story includes frank discussions of death, sex, religion and drugs. KQED’s Christopher Beale takes it from here…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>STORY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale:\u003c/strong> Cities all across America have gay neighborhoods, I like to call them “gayborhoods.” In San Francisco, ours is called the Castro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m a few blocks away from the rainbow crosswalk, and the gay bars of The Castro, here on Eureka Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m surrounded by row houses and fourplexes. This block is mostly residential and quiet. The uniformity broken only by this boarded up church building with a lavender sign. It says “a house of prayer for all people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was the home of the Castro’s gay church. Where LGBTQIA people came to celebrate their faith, and pray for hope.\u003cbr>\nIt was this amazing energy place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The man at the pulpit in the 80s and 90s…was a gay pastor named Jim Mitulski.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I did always love going to church. And, that was the place that it was quiet. It was pretty, people were nice to each other,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale:\u003c/strong> Jim grew up in a little town northwest of Detroit called Royal Oak, Michigan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski: \u003c/strong>My family life was rather unhappy, and it was a respite, frankly. And I looked forward to it every week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale:\u003c/strong> Can you recall the first time you actually felt the presence of God?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Uh, it definitely happened for me during music in church. my earliest survival skill in church was don’t listen, if they’re talking, just pay attention when they’re singing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t think I’ve ever met a piece of music. I didn’t like and especially in a religious setting. It wasn’t until later that I came to understand that you could actually use the pulpit part for something positive or useful. That didn’t come till college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim went to Columbia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> It was a men’s college at that time in New York City. So who do you think goes to a men’s college in New York? In the seventies? Gay guys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale:\u003c/strong> Did that ring out to be true?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> It turned out to be totally true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Music} \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim had come out in high school, and even dated a little. In 1970s New York he discovered a love of queer activism. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski: \u003c/strong>I was a political gay and I was very involved in gay politics and by politics, I mean in the streets politics. And my grades reflected it by the way, I was a terrible student. I found myself in those activities. I found my voice. I found my vocation. I found my sense of self, my identity. I found my friends. I found my sexuality, You know, the people you’ve protested with in addition to being friends, we were all lovers. And that was a word we used by the way, an army of lovers can not be defeated, which is a classical phrase but we meant it. I probably had sexual adventures every day. From the time I was 18 until I was 25, with different people. And I wasn’t particularly more promiscuous than anyone in my peer group. It was several thousand people. And I know these numbers are horrifying to the post AIDS person. \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>By 1979 – Jim had dropped out of college. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> This was not unusual in my class, as it turns out \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>And it was around this time Jim discovered a gay church in Greenwich Village. The MCC, or Metropolitan Community Church had been founded just a year earlier on the west coast by a Gay Reverend named Troy Perry. The “denomination” was hardly even that at this stage, but it was designed by Gay Christians, for Gay Christians. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> It was church, not like church. We were anti-church. We were deconstructing Christianity church. We were out in the streets protesting church. We were wear t-shirts not wear vestments church. We wore ragged jeans and pink triangles on our shirts church and it was magical. \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>One day Jim had this kind of epiphany. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I didn’t occur to me that you could be gay and be a priest. Now, this was hilarious to the gay priests that I met eventually. \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim went back to school to become a pastor, and after serving at the MCC in New York for a few years he got his first senior pastor job offer in San Francisco. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I got off the plane just to interview, even. It was like, are you kidding me? It’s beautiful here. It’s so much lighter here. It’s so much brighter. The quality of the sun was something I noticed and people are happier here. And, they’re friendlier, you know, New Yorkers will cut, you dead if you say hello or smile or something, you know, the Castro was hi. Hi. \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>So Jim, now in his twenties, packed up and moved to San Francisco. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Gay heaven. It was was so gay (gay gay gay) we had a gay bank (gay gay gay), we had a gay church (gay gay gay) or gay drug store. We had a gay supermarket, you know, everything was gay, gay, gay. We loved it. And it was a protest every Friday night, which turned into a dance party. you know, we got our news from the BAR \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>The Bay Area Reporter, still active in San Francisco today. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski: \u003c/strong>And we did read the Chronicle and the examiner, but mostly, to get the latest installment of the Armistead Maupin column. \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>You might know that column, it spawned several books and a few TV series, it’s called “Tales of the City.” \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> And that was the mood, that was the feel, that was the San Francisco I came to. And it was a great community in the midst of a terrible tragedy unfolding. And that was evident, but still it was a cool place to be. It was still happy. (gay gay gay) \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim began hosting Sunday services at the little Metropolitan Community Church on Eureka St in 1986. And immediately the congregation began to grow. The community was in need, and eventually the church added a second, and then a third service to accommodate all of the people. [beeping sound]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>A lot of those parishioners were visibly dying of AIDS and they were on delicately timed medications…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> They had to take it every four hours and people had timers. like if you were in church, you’d hear, ‘ding ding’ all the time or anywhere, if you’re at a restaurant anywhere, you kept, always heard the ding ding go off. It became a sound like crickets all the time chirping, which is a weird soundtrack in the background.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Over the next few years the MCC in the Castro became the de facto LGBTQIA community center, the doors were pretty much always open. Church services, community meetings…weddings…and an ever-increasing number of funerals took place there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I just was not equipped for the sheer numbers of it. Now the part of me that is good in crises, just dug right in and did it. I found that I’ll listen to anybody and nothing freaks me out. In fact I found that I was good at going with someone to a difficult topic. I could be with dying people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>After a while, hospital visits just became a normal part of the week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> The people that I saw were emaciated. They were dying and in great pain. And in some instances, barely able to talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each and every person I talked to was convinced they had brought this on themselves. They were worried about going to hell. Many of them were experiencing rejection from friends, family, and loved ones, including gay friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>The LA Times wrote, in 1988, that about 4% of San Francisco’s population, including an astonishing half of the cities estimated 60+ thousand gay men had AIDS. Without an effective cure, most of those men would die within the next 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Here’s what I remember of this guy who said, “Will you hold my hand and pray with me?” Which of course I did. And he said that the only person who would hold his hand and pray with him was that one of the nurses on the night shift who always prayed that he would be delivered of his sin of homosexuality before he died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I do honestly believe she meant what she was praying. She wanted him to be saved. He was so alone there. That’s what really shook me to my core. This is why we have a gay church. This is why we do this because people should not have to be in this circumstance. And the only person who will pray with them as someone who also wants them to be cured of homosexuality. That made me angry, that’s how I became an activist, the anger part, it wasn’t the sad part that became the activist. It was the angry part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim’s work was taking a physical and emotional toll on him. He gained 80 pounds, then started working out furiously to lose it. He got a therapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> There was a group of us who connected that summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>He made some new friends. Started going out more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> We used to call ourselves class of 95.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> We might’ve known each other from around. I mean The Castro’s a small town. We found ourselves dancing on Sunday nights at the pleasure dome. And most of us had been pretty good boys until then. And after a while, a lot of people had slept with a lot of people. And I don’t mean that in a disdainful way. I mean, that respectfully it was part of how we connected. It was part of how we were with each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time anyone realized AIDS was sexually transmitted the damage was widespread. The disease could strike a fit, healthy, young guy, and he’d be dead in months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our moods became darker, our hope dissipated. And I became kind of nihilistic. My capacity to sustain an interior sense of self-preservation waned. And I became less protective of my own sexual behavior. I didn’t care. I didn’t care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We felt like our world was dying and this is impossible to communicate to people who weren’t there. But you asked and I’m going to tell you, we just didn’t care. We did care about our friends. We did care about those who are dying. We didn’t remember what it meant to care anymore, necessarily about not becoming part of this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that was the summer. We discovered separately, individually that we were not that we were no longer HIV negative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And we started, doing the things that good boys never did…dancing all night, doing recreational drugs that were related to that activity. Using our bodies we felt like we belonged. We were in something together. And we had regrets, but we also weren’t, we weren’t gonna just give up on our lives either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the truth. I’m telling you the truth, because I think my story is different from others, but my story is not unusual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MUSIC FADES\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Today there are medications that make it possible to live with HIV, but in 1995 everything that seemed to work was experimental…Jim says he tried a drug called Crixivan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> 36 pills a day. Uh, 36? Yeah. Big pills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong> Can I ask you to compare that to your pill regimen for HIV today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> My, uh, for just, just treating HIV? One.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>In the 90s those early medications managed to prolong lives, but they could make AIDS patients desperately ill. Those patients quickly discovered that cannabis, or marijuana actually helped with the symptoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> It did two things. One, it suppressed nausea, so people would eat and they wouldn’t eat otherwise because they just felt sick all the time. And the other thing is it took the pain away or enough away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>In the 80s and 90s San Francisco was pretty progressive on marijuana when compared to the rest of the country, even the rest of the state. That had a lot to do with the city’s dying gay population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Medical Marijuana clubs, kind of the 90s equivalent of a dispensary, were where patients got their pot, the government looked the other way and everything was fine. That is until politicians got involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Dan Lungren who was running for attorney general. No he was attorney general, he wanted to run for governor, saw this as an issue that he thought could be a popular enforcement issue as a law and order guy. And without consulting with city officials, exercised his authority as a state official, probably with the support of the federal government to one day overnight, crack down on and close without warning, all of the marijuana outlets and distributors in San Francisco. At the expense of people with HIV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>One day a friend named Allen White approached Jim…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> And he was a character no other word for it, but he was the journalist of the gay community in the seventies, eighties, nineties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>White had been talking with a few politicians and had an idea of how to help those AIDS patients get their much-needed medication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> They wondered who could they get to distribute marijuana that the government would think twice about arresting. The risk was high because at that time, the government could seize your asset. They came to me though and said, ‘We want you to do a public distribution of marijuana from the church building to people with HIV.’ So it was a little loosey goosey, but, you know, In a general way. I understood what was at stake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim thought about if for a bit, then reached out to his friend Phyllis Nelson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> She shared my heart for social justice and also she kind of ran the church administratively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>She came to the church for a variety of reasons. She and her husband, they wanted a place where he could come out. We didn’t know he was gay at first. Also they had a gay son who, uh, had AIDS, so they needed a community of support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their son’s name was Glenn. Jim officiated his wedding to a man named Rob.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Then sadly, Glenn dies, then Rob dies. And until scenario through all this together, we were standing outside together, I still remember Saturday afternoon after Rob’s funeral sometimes you don’t need words, but we were definitely bonded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>After being approached by Allen White about distributing medical marijuana at church, Jim called Phyllis and said…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> It’s not without risks. And I don’t know if I should or not. And, um, she said to me, of course he will. And I’ll stand right next to you if you do it because, how can you not?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I knew what she was referring to that moment when we had stood outside. It’s the sunset, uh, just sort of being in that, uh, kind of painful silence, um, after her son and son-in-law had died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was after my own diagnosis. This was a change in me facing my own mortality made me realize we’re only here as long as we’re here. What are you, what are you being so cautious about? My ministry changed right after that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Do you have a lighter? Cuz I don’t know if I have one. \u003cem>[sound of someone lighting a joint]\u003c/em> In your experience, when someone experiencing, HIV or AIDS would smoke a joint, what do you think was happening for those AIDS patients that was so medically necessary?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> AIDS is in itself a disease, right? It’s a— it’s a susceptibility to any number of physical symptoms, including those which are painful to the stomach or to your skin or other kinds of nerve damage. I saw this happen. They would actually feel pain relief and your whole body would just, you know, then it also, and this is something that is something I have experienced the stress around worrying about mortality or about, uh, your circumstances and whether or not you’re going to get everything done that you want to get done while you still can do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And things like that becomes so overwhelming that it’s all you can think about. just, uh, a period of release from that. And fortunately with this, uh, it’s, it lasts for half an hour, an hour or whatever, not all day, not all night. Um, right. But sometimes the freedom from the omnipresent anxiety, uh, is, is important…it’s welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Alright, it’s the summer of 1996, and Jim is getting ready to begin giving out pot to AIDS patients in church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> We had rules, no money could be exchanged. The pot had to be donated. People had to provide a note. We did have security and we were promised by the supervisors and the health department that the city would protect us as much as they could. There would be no city prosecution, and they would try to protect us from any state or federal prosecution, which they couldn’t guarantee wouldn’t happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>That first Sunday, it seemed like everyone was watching. The media was there in the back row.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I preached on, if you want to have an increase in your spiritual growth or spiritual life, act on your conscience. That was my sermon. I took a risk. I used my body. I acted on a belief that was motivated by my desire to provide healing and comfort for my friends. And I didn’t know what else to do that I could do, but this was something I could do. And I did it. When you talk about did you experience God? I experienced God then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MUSIC UP\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> And the risk was real and the spiritual intensity was real. And the tangible relief for the people who, who used it was real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here’s what Phyllis said that I still remember.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said, “If the attorney general had to spend a whole morning trying to get his son to eat a half a bowl of cereal, like I did, \u003cem>[tearing up]\u003c/em> he would understand what we’re doing right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After church patients would come forward, presented their notes, and left with a small baggie of marijuana. And that first Sunday the police and officials, the they all stayed away. In fact the entire length of the ministry there were no arrests, and no harassment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I swear angels protected us I still believe that and many people were praying for us. They could have arrested us. They could have, but they didn’t. And whether it was optics or whether it was, I think that a lot of people knew we were doing the right thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was in the summer and by the fall, there was a proposition on the state ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Proposition 215, which permitted the use of medical cannabis in California was passed by voters on November 5, 1996.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Yup. And then we just stopped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong> How many people would you say you reached with that ministry\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski: \u003c/strong> Oh, a couple of thousand, probably. Not all of them, gay or people with AIDS, but many of them were, but other people too, that was interesting to me that there was this whole other kind of community that had been that benefited from the gay community’s model of using community, organizing around HIV to achieve a shift in policy around health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> What’s my regret? That we did all that activism on health care on AIDS healthcare on AIDS care in the eighties and nineties, and somehow did not end up with universal healthcare. Crazy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>A few months ago I took Jim back to Eureka St.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the caretaker unlocked the now abandoned church Jim walked down the sidewalk examining these memorial plaques honoring church members, and other allies in the community…many of whom have died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can you read some of them to me?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> In a minute… \u003cem>[sounds of crying]\u003c/em> I remember all these people. Good Lord. People whose both weddings and funerals I did. Good God.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>There’s your name on this plaque of senior pastors…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I still rode that horse longer than anybody else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>So can we go in?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Let me get the other door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim left the Metropolitan Community Church in the Castro in 2000, and hasn’t been back in the church in over a decade..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> So of course in my mind, this was the size of grace cathedral but I can see now it really isn’t very big is it? But it seemed bigger and I will say, we used every square inch of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sunday nights in the Castro was a thing. Seven o’clock this room filled, it sometimes filled early. And it was all about singing, we sang gospel music. Sometimes for two hours, two-and-a-half hours. It started and it built. And you know there was the sermon and there was communion and then it just kept going.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’d try and end the service and people wouldn’t stop because it was just a release of energy that we had to have. But to see it now you can’t tell maybe but it was this amazing energy place!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>I asked Jim what he learned from his time as the Marijuana Minister?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Let you let your acts of love guide you, even if it means great risk, the greater love, the greater the risk, and you will never regret acts of great love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HOST OUTRO\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That was reporter, producer and Bay Curious sound engineer Christopher Beale. He also hosts Stereotypes, the podcast where he first aired this documentary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Reverend Jim Mitulski, Todd and Miguel Atkins Whitley, the Castro Patrol, Kyana Moghadam and Josh Taylor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. With support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hope to see you at our AIDS Memorial Grove Walking Tours this weekend. Again, find details and tickets at KQED.org/LIVE.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When people talk about San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood in the late 1970s, they describe it as a place of freedom for gay people. A place where you could be who you were in public and feel safe. Where love bloomed for many who thought they might never find it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But by the early 80s, death started to move in to that joyful space. During the height of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, in a small church a few blocks from the heart of the Castro, one pastor changed the experience of communion and committed felonies to comfort his flock. Reporter Christopher Beale brings us this story, which he originally produced for his podcast “Stereotypes: Straight Talk from Queer Voices,” and later aired on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11902998/the-marijuana-minister-of-the-castro\">The California Report Magazine.\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> When people talk about San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood in the late 1970s, they describe it as a place of freedom for gay people. A place where you could be who you were in public and feel safe. Where love bloomed for many who thought they might never find it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by the early 80s, death started to move in to that joyful space. San Francisco’s gay community was hit early and hard by HIV and AIDS. People watched friends turn from vibrant to emaciated in a matter of weeks. At the height of the AIDS crisis, close to half the city’s gay men were dying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was a time before the treatments we have today, of course. and for some, the one thing that helped ease their pain – was marijuana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But pot either medical or recreational, wasn’t legal back then, and state politicians were beginning to crack down on it’s use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> At the expense of people with HIV\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. This week on Bay Curious: how a San Francisco pastor changed the experience of communion, and committed felonies to comfort his flock…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I took a risk. I used my body. I acted on a belief that was motivated by my desire to provide healing and comfort for my friends. And I didn’t know what else to do, that I could do. But this was something I could do. And I did it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>This story was first produced by KQED’s Christopher Beale for his podcast Stereotypes: Straight Talk from Queer Voices … and later aired on The California Report Magazine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re sharing it this week ahead of our theatrical walking tours of the AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco .. taking place Nov. 4 and 5. I was just at rehearsals last week and trust me, you don’t want to miss these tours. They feature live music from cellist, El Beh. Very moving dance performances and a ritual with the Sisters of Perpetual indulgence. I’ll be kicking off each tour and I hope to see you. We’ll put a link in the show notes, or you can find your way to KQED.org/live for details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After this quick break, we return with the Marijuana Minister. I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>Before we get started: just a heads up this story includes frank discussions of death, sex, religion and drugs. KQED’s Christopher Beale takes it from here…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>STORY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale:\u003c/strong> Cities all across America have gay neighborhoods, I like to call them “gayborhoods.” In San Francisco, ours is called the Castro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m a few blocks away from the rainbow crosswalk, and the gay bars of The Castro, here on Eureka Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m surrounded by row houses and fourplexes. This block is mostly residential and quiet. The uniformity broken only by this boarded up church building with a lavender sign. It says “a house of prayer for all people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was the home of the Castro’s gay church. Where LGBTQIA people came to celebrate their faith, and pray for hope.\u003cbr>\nIt was this amazing energy place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The man at the pulpit in the 80s and 90s…was a gay pastor named Jim Mitulski.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I did always love going to church. And, that was the place that it was quiet. It was pretty, people were nice to each other,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale:\u003c/strong> Jim grew up in a little town northwest of Detroit called Royal Oak, Michigan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski: \u003c/strong>My family life was rather unhappy, and it was a respite, frankly. And I looked forward to it every week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale:\u003c/strong> Can you recall the first time you actually felt the presence of God?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Uh, it definitely happened for me during music in church. my earliest survival skill in church was don’t listen, if they’re talking, just pay attention when they’re singing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t think I’ve ever met a piece of music. I didn’t like and especially in a religious setting. It wasn’t until later that I came to understand that you could actually use the pulpit part for something positive or useful. That didn’t come till college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim went to Columbia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> It was a men’s college at that time in New York City. So who do you think goes to a men’s college in New York? In the seventies? Gay guys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale:\u003c/strong> Did that ring out to be true?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> It turned out to be totally true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Music} \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim had come out in high school, and even dated a little. In 1970s New York he discovered a love of queer activism. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski: \u003c/strong>I was a political gay and I was very involved in gay politics and by politics, I mean in the streets politics. And my grades reflected it by the way, I was a terrible student. I found myself in those activities. I found my voice. I found my vocation. I found my sense of self, my identity. I found my friends. I found my sexuality, You know, the people you’ve protested with in addition to being friends, we were all lovers. And that was a word we used by the way, an army of lovers can not be defeated, which is a classical phrase but we meant it. I probably had sexual adventures every day. From the time I was 18 until I was 25, with different people. And I wasn’t particularly more promiscuous than anyone in my peer group. It was several thousand people. And I know these numbers are horrifying to the post AIDS person. \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>By 1979 – Jim had dropped out of college. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> This was not unusual in my class, as it turns out \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>And it was around this time Jim discovered a gay church in Greenwich Village. The MCC, or Metropolitan Community Church had been founded just a year earlier on the west coast by a Gay Reverend named Troy Perry. The “denomination” was hardly even that at this stage, but it was designed by Gay Christians, for Gay Christians. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> It was church, not like church. We were anti-church. We were deconstructing Christianity church. We were out in the streets protesting church. We were wear t-shirts not wear vestments church. We wore ragged jeans and pink triangles on our shirts church and it was magical. \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>One day Jim had this kind of epiphany. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I didn’t occur to me that you could be gay and be a priest. Now, this was hilarious to the gay priests that I met eventually. \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim went back to school to become a pastor, and after serving at the MCC in New York for a few years he got his first senior pastor job offer in San Francisco. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I got off the plane just to interview, even. It was like, are you kidding me? It’s beautiful here. It’s so much lighter here. It’s so much brighter. The quality of the sun was something I noticed and people are happier here. And, they’re friendlier, you know, New Yorkers will cut, you dead if you say hello or smile or something, you know, the Castro was hi. Hi. \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>So Jim, now in his twenties, packed up and moved to San Francisco. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Gay heaven. It was was so gay (gay gay gay) we had a gay bank (gay gay gay), we had a gay church (gay gay gay) or gay drug store. We had a gay supermarket, you know, everything was gay, gay, gay. We loved it. And it was a protest every Friday night, which turned into a dance party. you know, we got our news from the BAR \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>The Bay Area Reporter, still active in San Francisco today. \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski: \u003c/strong>And we did read the Chronicle and the examiner, but mostly, to get the latest installment of the Armistead Maupin column. \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>You might know that column, it spawned several books and a few TV series, it’s called “Tales of the City.” \u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> And that was the mood, that was the feel, that was the San Francisco I came to. And it was a great community in the midst of a terrible tragedy unfolding. And that was evident, but still it was a cool place to be. It was still happy. (gay gay gay) \u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim began hosting Sunday services at the little Metropolitan Community Church on Eureka St in 1986. And immediately the congregation began to grow. The community was in need, and eventually the church added a second, and then a third service to accommodate all of the people. [beeping sound]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>A lot of those parishioners were visibly dying of AIDS and they were on delicately timed medications…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> They had to take it every four hours and people had timers. like if you were in church, you’d hear, ‘ding ding’ all the time or anywhere, if you’re at a restaurant anywhere, you kept, always heard the ding ding go off. It became a sound like crickets all the time chirping, which is a weird soundtrack in the background.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Over the next few years the MCC in the Castro became the de facto LGBTQIA community center, the doors were pretty much always open. Church services, community meetings…weddings…and an ever-increasing number of funerals took place there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I just was not equipped for the sheer numbers of it. Now the part of me that is good in crises, just dug right in and did it. I found that I’ll listen to anybody and nothing freaks me out. In fact I found that I was good at going with someone to a difficult topic. I could be with dying people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>After a while, hospital visits just became a normal part of the week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> The people that I saw were emaciated. They were dying and in great pain. And in some instances, barely able to talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each and every person I talked to was convinced they had brought this on themselves. They were worried about going to hell. Many of them were experiencing rejection from friends, family, and loved ones, including gay friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>The LA Times wrote, in 1988, that about 4% of San Francisco’s population, including an astonishing half of the cities estimated 60+ thousand gay men had AIDS. Without an effective cure, most of those men would die within the next 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Here’s what I remember of this guy who said, “Will you hold my hand and pray with me?” Which of course I did. And he said that the only person who would hold his hand and pray with him was that one of the nurses on the night shift who always prayed that he would be delivered of his sin of homosexuality before he died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I do honestly believe she meant what she was praying. She wanted him to be saved. He was so alone there. That’s what really shook me to my core. This is why we have a gay church. This is why we do this because people should not have to be in this circumstance. And the only person who will pray with them as someone who also wants them to be cured of homosexuality. That made me angry, that’s how I became an activist, the anger part, it wasn’t the sad part that became the activist. It was the angry part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim’s work was taking a physical and emotional toll on him. He gained 80 pounds, then started working out furiously to lose it. He got a therapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> There was a group of us who connected that summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>He made some new friends. Started going out more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> We used to call ourselves class of 95.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> We might’ve known each other from around. I mean The Castro’s a small town. We found ourselves dancing on Sunday nights at the pleasure dome. And most of us had been pretty good boys until then. And after a while, a lot of people had slept with a lot of people. And I don’t mean that in a disdainful way. I mean, that respectfully it was part of how we connected. It was part of how we were with each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time anyone realized AIDS was sexually transmitted the damage was widespread. The disease could strike a fit, healthy, young guy, and he’d be dead in months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our moods became darker, our hope dissipated. And I became kind of nihilistic. My capacity to sustain an interior sense of self-preservation waned. And I became less protective of my own sexual behavior. I didn’t care. I didn’t care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We felt like our world was dying and this is impossible to communicate to people who weren’t there. But you asked and I’m going to tell you, we just didn’t care. We did care about our friends. We did care about those who are dying. We didn’t remember what it meant to care anymore, necessarily about not becoming part of this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that was the summer. We discovered separately, individually that we were not that we were no longer HIV negative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And we started, doing the things that good boys never did…dancing all night, doing recreational drugs that were related to that activity. Using our bodies we felt like we belonged. We were in something together. And we had regrets, but we also weren’t, we weren’t gonna just give up on our lives either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the truth. I’m telling you the truth, because I think my story is different from others, but my story is not unusual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MUSIC FADES\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Today there are medications that make it possible to live with HIV, but in 1995 everything that seemed to work was experimental…Jim says he tried a drug called Crixivan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> 36 pills a day. Uh, 36? Yeah. Big pills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong> Can I ask you to compare that to your pill regimen for HIV today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> My, uh, for just, just treating HIV? One.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>In the 90s those early medications managed to prolong lives, but they could make AIDS patients desperately ill. Those patients quickly discovered that cannabis, or marijuana actually helped with the symptoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> It did two things. One, it suppressed nausea, so people would eat and they wouldn’t eat otherwise because they just felt sick all the time. And the other thing is it took the pain away or enough away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>In the 80s and 90s San Francisco was pretty progressive on marijuana when compared to the rest of the country, even the rest of the state. That had a lot to do with the city’s dying gay population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Medical Marijuana clubs, kind of the 90s equivalent of a dispensary, were where patients got their pot, the government looked the other way and everything was fine. That is until politicians got involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Dan Lungren who was running for attorney general. No he was attorney general, he wanted to run for governor, saw this as an issue that he thought could be a popular enforcement issue as a law and order guy. And without consulting with city officials, exercised his authority as a state official, probably with the support of the federal government to one day overnight, crack down on and close without warning, all of the marijuana outlets and distributors in San Francisco. At the expense of people with HIV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>One day a friend named Allen White approached Jim…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> And he was a character no other word for it, but he was the journalist of the gay community in the seventies, eighties, nineties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>White had been talking with a few politicians and had an idea of how to help those AIDS patients get their much-needed medication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> They wondered who could they get to distribute marijuana that the government would think twice about arresting. The risk was high because at that time, the government could seize your asset. They came to me though and said, ‘We want you to do a public distribution of marijuana from the church building to people with HIV.’ So it was a little loosey goosey, but, you know, In a general way. I understood what was at stake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim thought about if for a bit, then reached out to his friend Phyllis Nelson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> She shared my heart for social justice and also she kind of ran the church administratively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>She came to the church for a variety of reasons. She and her husband, they wanted a place where he could come out. We didn’t know he was gay at first. Also they had a gay son who, uh, had AIDS, so they needed a community of support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their son’s name was Glenn. Jim officiated his wedding to a man named Rob.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Then sadly, Glenn dies, then Rob dies. And until scenario through all this together, we were standing outside together, I still remember Saturday afternoon after Rob’s funeral sometimes you don’t need words, but we were definitely bonded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>After being approached by Allen White about distributing medical marijuana at church, Jim called Phyllis and said…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> It’s not without risks. And I don’t know if I should or not. And, um, she said to me, of course he will. And I’ll stand right next to you if you do it because, how can you not?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I knew what she was referring to that moment when we had stood outside. It’s the sunset, uh, just sort of being in that, uh, kind of painful silence, um, after her son and son-in-law had died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was after my own diagnosis. This was a change in me facing my own mortality made me realize we’re only here as long as we’re here. What are you, what are you being so cautious about? My ministry changed right after that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Do you have a lighter? Cuz I don’t know if I have one. \u003cem>[sound of someone lighting a joint]\u003c/em> In your experience, when someone experiencing, HIV or AIDS would smoke a joint, what do you think was happening for those AIDS patients that was so medically necessary?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> AIDS is in itself a disease, right? It’s a— it’s a susceptibility to any number of physical symptoms, including those which are painful to the stomach or to your skin or other kinds of nerve damage. I saw this happen. They would actually feel pain relief and your whole body would just, you know, then it also, and this is something that is something I have experienced the stress around worrying about mortality or about, uh, your circumstances and whether or not you’re going to get everything done that you want to get done while you still can do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And things like that becomes so overwhelming that it’s all you can think about. just, uh, a period of release from that. And fortunately with this, uh, it’s, it lasts for half an hour, an hour or whatever, not all day, not all night. Um, right. But sometimes the freedom from the omnipresent anxiety, uh, is, is important…it’s welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Alright, it’s the summer of 1996, and Jim is getting ready to begin giving out pot to AIDS patients in church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> We had rules, no money could be exchanged. The pot had to be donated. People had to provide a note. We did have security and we were promised by the supervisors and the health department that the city would protect us as much as they could. There would be no city prosecution, and they would try to protect us from any state or federal prosecution, which they couldn’t guarantee wouldn’t happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>That first Sunday, it seemed like everyone was watching. The media was there in the back row.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> I preached on, if you want to have an increase in your spiritual growth or spiritual life, act on your conscience. That was my sermon. I took a risk. I used my body. I acted on a belief that was motivated by my desire to provide healing and comfort for my friends. And I didn’t know what else to do that I could do, but this was something I could do. And I did it. When you talk about did you experience God? I experienced God then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MUSIC UP\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> And the risk was real and the spiritual intensity was real. And the tangible relief for the people who, who used it was real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here’s what Phyllis said that I still remember.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said, “If the attorney general had to spend a whole morning trying to get his son to eat a half a bowl of cereal, like I did, \u003cem>[tearing up]\u003c/em> he would understand what we’re doing right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After church patients would come forward, presented their notes, and left with a small baggie of marijuana. And that first Sunday the police and officials, the they all stayed away. In fact the entire length of the ministry there were no arrests, and no harassment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I swear angels protected us I still believe that and many people were praying for us. They could have arrested us. They could have, but they didn’t. And whether it was optics or whether it was, I think that a lot of people knew we were doing the right thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was in the summer and by the fall, there was a proposition on the state ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Proposition 215, which permitted the use of medical cannabis in California was passed by voters on November 5, 1996.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Yup. And then we just stopped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong> How many people would you say you reached with that ministry\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski: \u003c/strong> Oh, a couple of thousand, probably. Not all of them, gay or people with AIDS, but many of them were, but other people too, that was interesting to me that there was this whole other kind of community that had been that benefited from the gay community’s model of using community, organizing around HIV to achieve a shift in policy around health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> What’s my regret? That we did all that activism on health care on AIDS healthcare on AIDS care in the eighties and nineties, and somehow did not end up with universal healthcare. Crazy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>A few months ago I took Jim back to Eureka St.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the caretaker unlocked the now abandoned church Jim walked down the sidewalk examining these memorial plaques honoring church members, and other allies in the community…many of whom have died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Can you read some of them to me?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> In a minute… \u003cem>[sounds of crying]\u003c/em> I remember all these people. Good Lord. People whose both weddings and funerals I did. Good God.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>There’s your name on this plaque of senior pastors…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I still rode that horse longer than anybody else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>So can we go in?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Let me get the other door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>Jim left the Metropolitan Community Church in the Castro in 2000, and hasn’t been back in the church in over a decade..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> So of course in my mind, this was the size of grace cathedral but I can see now it really isn’t very big is it? But it seemed bigger and I will say, we used every square inch of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sunday nights in the Castro was a thing. Seven o’clock this room filled, it sometimes filled early. And it was all about singing, we sang gospel music. Sometimes for two hours, two-and-a-half hours. It started and it built. And you know there was the sermon and there was communion and then it just kept going.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’d try and end the service and people wouldn’t stop because it was just a release of energy that we had to have. But to see it now you can’t tell maybe but it was this amazing energy place!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Christopher Beale: \u003c/strong>I asked Jim what he learned from his time as the Marijuana Minister?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jim Mitulski:\u003c/strong> Let you let your acts of love guide you, even if it means great risk, the greater love, the greater the risk, and you will never regret acts of great love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HOST OUTRO\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/strong>That was reporter, producer and Bay Curious sound engineer Christopher Beale. He also hosts Stereotypes, the podcast where he first aired this documentary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Reverend Jim Mitulski, Todd and Miguel Atkins Whitley, the Castro Patrol, Kyana Moghadam and Josh Taylor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. With support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hope to see you at our AIDS Memorial Grove Walking Tours this weekend. Again, find details and tickets at KQED.org/LIVE.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Murder in the Belfry: How the Story of Theodore Durrant Captivated Victorian San Francisco",
"headTitle": "Murder in the Belfry: How the Story of Theodore Durrant Captivated Victorian San Francisco | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ne hundred twenty-eight years ago, San Francisco was haunted by a bizarre, brutal murder case. And in terms of macabre ingredients, this story truly had it all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To make matters worse, this all happened inside one of the city’s revered churches. A mild-mannered \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">gentleman\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">”\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> suspected of killing two young women who knew and trusted him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His name was Theodore Durrant, but the press called him “The Demon of the Belfry.” \u003c/span>[baycuriousbug]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Back in 1895, San Franciscans found themselves completely obsessed with this case. But if you ask someone living here now whether they know about “the Demon of the Belfry,” there’s a good chance they’ve never even heard of it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was it about these murders that possessed this city? And how did such an infamous case virtually disappear from the Bay Area’s memory? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The church on Bartlett Street\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you try to find the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz002hrvgg\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Emmanuel Baptist Church\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> these days, you’ll be out of luck as the building was torn down at the turn of the century. But head to the 24th and Mission BART station and walk just a few blocks northwest, and you’ll find yourself near the site that obsessed 1890s San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, only an apartment building and Victorian houses are on this tree-lined stretch of Bartlett Street between 22nd and 23rd streets. But back then, this huge church would have dominated this street. And at the very top, reaching into the sky above the Mission District, was the church’s bell tower, or belfry — a dark, lonely room which, for several years in the 1890s, became the most dreaded space in San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 1895, the days of this place being a muddy, chaotic mining backwater were long gone, and San Francisco had become a bustling, modern city staring down a new century. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For almost 20 years, these streets had felt the hum of electricity and the rattle of cable cars alongside the endless thrum of the sheer number of people living within these 7 square miles — around 300,000 of them. The devastating earthquake and fire of 1906 was still more than a decade away.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At this time, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/1054/files/Mission_District_context_111607%20(2).pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the Mission District was called a streetcar suburb\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: a place increasingly well-connected by mass transit to downtown and heavily inhabited by a working-class mix of immigrants, the majority at this time from Europe.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the middle of it all, on Bartlett Street, was the Emmanuel Baptist Church — where a quiet, mild-mannered young medical student in his early 20s called Theo Durrant volunteered at the Sunday School.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965545\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Emmanuel-Baptist.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11965545\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Emmanuel-Baptist-800x549.png\" alt=\"Black and white image of the front of a large stone church\" width=\"800\" height=\"549\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Emmanuel-Baptist-800x549.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Emmanuel-Baptist-160x110.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Emmanuel-Baptist.png 901w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The front of the Emanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco, 1895. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the California History Room, California State Library, Sacramento, California.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘In the shadow of the altar’\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One afternoon in early April 1895, a young Mission District schoolteacher named Blanche Lamont vanished. She was last seen with a friend of hers: Theo Durrant. When Lamont didn’t come home, Durrant was questioned, but police ultimately had no evidence of foul play.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Police were “utterly baffled,” \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SFC18950410.2.198&srpos=4&e=------189-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22blanche+lamont%22----1895---\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">wrote the \u003cem>San Francisco Call\u003c/em> newspaper\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, at how “Blanche Lamont, a beautiful girl … has disappeared as mysteriously as if the earth had swallowed her.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nine days after Lamont disappeared, another young woman who attended the Emmanuel Baptist Church, Minnie Williams, didn’t come home either. Like Lamont, Williams was last seen with Theo Durrant — who’d been spotted walking her into the church.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The morning after Williams went missing, a volunteer setting up for the church’s Easter service the next day, opened one of the church closets and found Williams’ murdered body lying on the floor inside, covered in blood. She had been beaten, raped, stabbed and strangled, and rags had been stuffed down her throat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When police searched the rest of the building, the last place they looked was the very top — in the belfry — and discovered the naked body of Lamont, who had died by strangulation. Her corpse had been laid out as if asleep and hidden up there for almost two weeks.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instantly, the \u003cem>San Francisco Call\u003c/em> newspaper dubbed it “one of the most atrocious murders ever committed in San Francisco,” with the headline “Struck Down in the Shadow of the Altar.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Theo Durrant was immediately the prime suspect. And from the moment he was arrested, San Francisco’s mania for the “Demon of the Belfry” caught fire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965565\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11965565\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie-800x471.jpg\" alt=\"Side by side portraits of two young woman with dark curly hair, taken in the 1890s.\" width=\"800\" height=\"471\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie-800x471.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie-1020x601.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie-160x94.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie-1536x905.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Portraits of Blanche Lamont (left) and Minnie Williams (right). \u003ccite>(Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>An instant sensation\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s hard to convey just how\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">all-consuming this case was in 1895 — dominating the local news and spilling out into newspaper coverage that extended far beyond San Francisco. There was even a play about the case called \u003cem>Crime of a Century\u003c/em> that started running in San Francisco \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">during \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the trial.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As for why this case sparked such immediate interest, “\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">there was the undercurrent of that if this could happen in a church … it could happen anywhere,” said Virginia McConnell, author of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://books.google.com/books/about/Sympathy_for_the_Devil.html?id=dKra0SYhzc0C\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cem>Sympathy For the Devil: The Emmanuel Baptist Murders of Old San Francisco\u003c/em>.\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not just that, but, “It could happen in your home.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This murder trial had all the elements to mesmerize a willing city. It had a cast of young characters: well-spoken medical student Durrant and the two young women (whose attractiveness was frequently noted by the press) that he stood accused of violently murdering with his bare hands.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The fact that this crime happened in such a church — and was perpetrated by a young man with all the outward appearances of a total gentleman — reinforced all those fears that people living in a big, growing metropolis can become susceptible to. Namely, a panic that their city was sinking into an unprecedented moral decay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was an anxiety all too eagerly stoked by the newspapers, both local and further afield, that framed these crimes as the ultimate sign of San Francisco’s irredeemable rot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As Grass Valley’s \u003cem>Morning Union\u003c/em> newspaper wrote, the cases were \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MU18950416.2.23&srpos=26&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22emmanuel+baptist+church%22----1895---\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Casting reproach upon the already too low standard of morals in that city\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and a cloud of shame on the good name of our beautiful State.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was also breathless speculation about the sexual elements of the case. Had Durrant been romantically involved with either of the two women? Was this “gentleman,” in fact, a depraved pervert who’d habitually harassed and exposed his way through the Mission District, as was rumored? Whispers about the latter were straight-up “misconceptions,” McConnell said, but that didn’t stop the press from running with them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘Spinal shivers’ in court\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the evidence against him mounted up, Durrant’s only hope was winning over the jury on the stand, which he truly failed to do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Durrant constantly contradicted his alibis and introduced new implausible theories about anyone else who could have murdered Lamont and Williams rather than himself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He did not do himself any favors by getting on the stand,” McConnell said, but his lawyers saw no other route to success. “They had no defense for him.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965546\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11965546\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709-800x608.jpg\" alt=\"Illustration of a courtroom scene\" width=\"800\" height=\"608\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709-800x608.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709-1020x776.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709-160x122.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709-1536x1168.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of the courtroom scene during Theo Durrant’s trial, published in the San Francisco Examiner. \u003ccite>(Newspapers.com)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Added to all this was a media fascination with Durrant’s family and the dynamics of their relationship. Rumors of an inappropriate closeness between Durrant, his mother Isabella and his sister Maud spread like wildfire. It was all stoked by Isabella’s proud, unabashed demeanor in court as she watched her son on the stand.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The courtroom was packed every day. The Bay Area didn’t just indulge their fascination with this case through the papers but also physically descended on the courtroom in person. Attending the trial became a sport for many, who craned their necks to see Durrant and his infamous family in the flesh, desperate to hear every gory detail. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“So vivid were the stories, so graphic the pictures, so awful the scenes depicted that men and women leaned forward with straining eyes and hard-drawn breath, catching at every word, hypnotized by the horror of it,” \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/457751594/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">wrote the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em>.\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The people had been lured into court by those same irresistible, addictive newspaper accounts they were reading every single day. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The major San Francisco newspapers, including the \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em>, competed feverishly for who could attract the most readers with stories that were melodramatic, gossipy and wildly readable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just the \u003ci>Examiner’s\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sfexaminer.newspapers.com/image/457751594/?terms=annie%20laurie%20durrant\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> description of the crime scene details\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that were read aloud in the courtroom reads like an excerpt from a gothic horror novel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Men with a good turn at description had pictured the finding of the bodies of the murdered girls. They had spattered the blood upon the walls. They had dragged Lamont up the belfry’s croaking stairs. The shuddering wind whistled and moaned about that haunted steeple,” one excerpt reads.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the trial progressed, the coverage became more lurid, outlandish, and highly unethical, with reporters assigning themselves the kind of investigative role during the trial that you might expect more from the lawyers themselves or the police.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “They knew that the more sensational it was — the more information they could get — they could sell newspapers,” McConnell said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exaggeration often tipped over into the fabrication of whole events, McConnell said, as when one newspaper printed a dramatic story about Durrant going on the run and terrorizing the city, “running through people’s backyards in the Mission District.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this case, “That whole thing was fake,” McConnell said. “The newspaper had nothing else to print” that day. But nonetheless, the press was secure in the knowledge that their readers craved these kinds of stories. \u003c/span>[emailsignup newslettername=\"baycurious\" align=\"right\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A growing taste for true crime\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">1890s San Francisco was already familiar with the tropes and thrills of what we’d now term true crime. As horribly new as this double murder seemed back in 1895, there \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">precedent for these kinds of famous killings. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just seven years before Theo went up to the belfry, the serial killer called “Jack the Ripper” terrorized another foggy city, London, in a saga that may have unfolded thousands of miles away but became a worldwide sensation, thanks to the popular press. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The moment the story of Lamont and Williams’ murders broke, the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> wrote, “\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The analogy with the murderous career of Jack the Ripper in London will at once suggest itself,” asking, “Is the same bloody drama to be repeated in San Francisco?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The trial of Lizzie Borden, accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an ax in their Massachusetts home, had happened just three years before. Boston had even had its own Belfry Murderer 20 years earlier — dubbed “the Bat.” So, by 1895, readers were well and truly familiar with the true crime playbook.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As gruesome as the details were, for many people, reading about the case or getting a front-row seat in the courtroom was a distraction from the grind of daily life. Or as McConnell put it, “This is entertainment. Think about what the entertainment \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">back then: zippo.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965626\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 535px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Durrant-526.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965626\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Durrant-526.jpg\" alt=\"Victorian portrait of a man with a mustache\" width=\"535\" height=\"670\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Durrant-526.jpg 535w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Durrant-526-160x200.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 535px) 100vw, 535px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Theo Durrant\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Man or demon?\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One enduring claim about these murders is the idea that Durrant was a necrophiliac who killed and hid Lamont and Williams specifically to be able to sexually abuse their bodies after their death. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, McConnell said, even though an examination found that Williams \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">raped before her death, there is virtually no evidence that necrophilia ever occurred — just rumor and speculation. And for McConnell, the fact that these particular allegations \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">are \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">still taken as absolute fact is a testament not just to perennial appetites for ghoulish detail but also to the difficulty so many onlookers in 1895 had with the notion that a man could kill just for the sake of killing — not for money, or to satisfy depraved sexual desires. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Surely, the line of thought went that such a man must have a monster hidden inside him. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s no coincidence that in 1895, you’d have seen Durrant compared to Jekyll and Hyde in the press, both local and national — like in the \u003cem>Utica Saturday Globe\u003c/em>, which boasted that an upcoming issue would contain a full account of Durrant’s “remarkable crime and of his Jekyll and Hyde life, together with special photo-engravings illustrating to the horrible story of murder at which the whole world stood aghast.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Robert Louis Stevenson had only written \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in 1886\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> —\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> not even a decade before the belfry murders took place. In that relatively short time, this gothic horror novella had already become a common reference point for a normal-looking exterior that concealed a fiendish, murdering alter-ego. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The papers endlessly reported how small and meek Durrant seemed in court, with his neat clothes and hair and slightly oddball manners — as if it was all a disguise he would dramatically rip off at any moment to reveal the real fiend underneath.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A tale of two victims\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the idea of what a criminal does — and doesn’t — “look like” is still recognizable today, then the idea of a “perfect victim” is unfortunately just as relevant.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though Durrant was charged with the murders of both Lamont and Williams (and Williams’ killing was by far the more bloody, physically brutal one), the all-male prosecution team only chose to try him for the murder of Lamont. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965544\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche_Lamont_with_students.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965544\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche_Lamont_with_students.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white image of a group of children sitting on the stairs that lead up to their wooden schoolhouse. Their teacher stands to the left of the staircase wearing a modest black dress and hat.\" width=\"640\" height=\"477\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche_Lamont_with_students.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche_Lamont_with_students-160x119.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blanche Lamont with a group of her students in Hecla, Montana, in October 1893. Lamont was then 20 years old. \u003ccite>(Library of Congress)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There was thinking in terms of what is more appealing to an all-male jury,” noted McConnell. Lamont was seen as an upstanding, modest woman with a respectable profession as a teacher in training. By contrast, servant girl Williams was a child of divorce with a patchy employment record: a \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lower-class woman hustling solo in the Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Williams “frequently did things that back then would have been looked at askance,” McConnell said. “She went out on her own. She was frequently out after dark because she had no one to escort her.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was this necessary self-sufficiency in life that made Williams ultimately less sympathetic in death — echoing broader male anxieties about the independence that women were increasingly acquiring in the shadow of a new century. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even the popularity of bicycles among women and how they encouraged them to wear large “bloomer” pants to ride them was a cause for concern around this time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But this wasn’t even the only way that women’s behavior was itself tacitly on trial alongside Durrant himself. The women who packed out the courtroom became the subject of scathing commentary from the reporters who were there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Several of the major newspaper reporters were themselves women. One of them conducted many jailhouse interviews with Durrant and extracted what amounted to a confession from him — albeit in the third person. Another, so-called “sob sister,” Annie Laurie, reserved her worst ire for the women in the crowd in her courtroom sketches — \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/457751621/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">some of whom, she wrote, “simpered and giggled\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> whenever they saw anyone looking at them.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laurie wrote that the women she saw in court “were all triumphant at getting in, they were all well dressed, and they all looked like women who had someone who ought to have made them stay home.” Lamont and Williams reflected those male anxieties about women leaving the domestic space. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“She criticized all the women, and yet she was trying to establish herself,” McConnell said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like several modern serial killers, Durrant also attracted female admirers who sent gifts to him in jail. One of these was so infamous she even got her name in the press: a married Oakland woman dubbed “The Sweet Pea Girl” because of the flowers she lavished upon the alleged murderer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But with women of the time shut out from many aspects of public life, it’s not hard to imagine why inserting themselves into momentous events might have appealed — even if it’s hard to stomach now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>An end to the trial\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the end, it took the jury 20 minutes to unanimously find Durrant guilty of Lamont’s murder. He was taken to San Quentin State Prison, even as his parents steadfastly campaigned for their son’s release. They even \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/insidecdcr/2018/07/14/1897-film-of-convicted-killer-durrant-shapes-prison-policy/\">hired a filmmaker to \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">bring an early movie camera — a kinetoscope — into San Quentin\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to film Durrant looking suitably sensitive in the prison’s flower garden. No known copies of the film have survived.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In January 1898, almost three years after he killed Lamont and Williams, Theo Durrant was executed by hanging at the age of 27. On the scaffold, he gave one last speech, calling himself, “An innocent boy who has \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">not \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">stained his hands with crimes that have been put upon him by the press of San Francisco.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But after all of the scandal, all of the column inches screaming about gore and sex, it’s the figures of Lamont and Williams that should linger with us — not their killer. In particular, it’s hard not to dwell on Williams, in particular. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unlike Lamont, her death never even warranted a trial. “Minnie was somewhat disposable because she really had nothing going for her” in the eyes of the male prosecution team and jury, McConnell said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While Lamont’s body was sent home to Montana for a family burial, Williams was buried in San Francisco — only to be dug up decades later when burials within the city limits were outlawed. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/10779164/why-are-so-many-dead-people-in-colma-and-so-few-in-san-francisco\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her body was shipped down to Colma with tens of thousands of others\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and dumped in a mass, anonymous grave. An “imperfect victim,” discarded just as much in death as she was in life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A relic of the past\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though the Emmanuel Baptist Church swiftly resumed services, neighbors clamored for years that the building be demolished and the stain cleaned from Bartlett Street. In 1906, damage from the earthquake forced the issue. Finally, the church and its infamous belfry were torn down — and every trace of this place was wiped from the face of San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965630\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11965630\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127-800x770.jpg\" alt=\"Image taken in the middle of a city street, a 3 story gray building is visible to the right side of the street. There are trees on the left and right sides of the image. \" width=\"800\" height=\"770\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127-800x770.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127-1020x982.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127-160x154.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127-1536x1479.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The spot on Bartlett Street where the Emanuel Baptist Church once stood. \u003ccite>(Carly Severn/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And in a way, Durrant has been too. Back then, San Francisco thought he could be their Jack the Ripper, the ultimate boogeyman stopped in his tracks before he truly could get started. Or \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MU18950416.2.23&srpos=26&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22emmanuel+baptist+church%22----1895---\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">as the \u003cem>Morning Union\u003c/em> newspaper penned\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, “in the criminal history of California, there possibly has never been a fouler double murder committed.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Durrant \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the worst thing the Bay Area could imagine back then. But just think of a few infamous serial murder cases that have stalked California and the West Coast since ‘the Demon in the Belfry.’ We’ve had the Zodiac. Ted Bundy. The Manson Family. The Night Stalker. The Golden State Killer. McConnell said Durrant is “boring compared to them” — and this kind of murder event is “no longer an anomaly.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While the belfry murders might sometimes be listed as part of San Francisco’s macabre history or occasionally do the rounds on true crime podcasts, Durrant does not occupy anywhere near the space in the public consciousness as those other killers. When he is mentioned, it’s often in conjunction with\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/lgbtq-history-maud-allan-unnatural-practices-women/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the wild and compelling adventures of his sister Maud,\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> who moved to Europe shortly before the murders, changed her name to avoid any link to her murderer brother and became an avant-garde dancer who would be entangled in one of the most infamous libel trials of the early 20th century.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Durrant case may be a slice of Old San Francisco that hasn’t quite kept our attention today. But even as many things have changed beyond recognition here when it comes to true crime — and how it makes us act, makes us feel? Some things never change.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> 128 years ago, San Francisco was haunted by a bizarre, brutal murder case. A mild-mannered, upstanding \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“gentleman” was\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> suspected of killing two young women who knew and trusted him. And to make matters worse, it happened inside one of the city’s revered churches. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Church bell ringing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The suspect came to be known as “The Demon of the Belfry.” And in 1895, San Franciscans found themselves completely obsessed with this case.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> If you ask someone living here now whether they know about “the Demon of the Belfry,” there’s a good chance they’ve never even heard of it. I was one of them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Boo Curious. And we’ve made it to our final installment in the series. This week, we’re revisiting The Demon of the Belfry case to learn: What happened inside that church? What was it about these murders that possessed the city? And how did such an infamous case virtually disappear from the Bay Area’s memory? We’ll find out just ahead. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Now, stay close. You don’t want to get lost. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[spooky laugh]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[church bell ringing]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Demon of the Belfry murders were the talk of the town in San Francisco around the turn of the century. Here to tell us the tale is KQED’s Carly Severn.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music shift] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[sound of a busy cityscape, street cars]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By 1895, San Francisco’s earlier life as a muddy, chaotic mining backwater was all but gone. This place was now a bustling, modern city staring down a new century. For almost 20 years, these streets had felt the hum of electricity and the rattle of cable cars. Seven by 7 miles \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">packed \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">with people — around 300,000 of them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Back then, the Mission District was what was called a streetcar suburb, a place increasingly well-connected by mass transit to downtown and heavily inhabited by a working-class mix of immigrants, the majority at this time from Europe.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[sound of church bells] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And in the middle of it all, on Bartlett Street, was the Emmanuel Baptist Church. A huge, imposing building. And on the very top, reaching into the sky above the Mission District, was the church’s bell tower — the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">belfry\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And for several years in the 1890s, that dark, lonely belfry\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">became the most dreaded space in San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[church bells fade] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s a short version of the case: A quiet, mild-mannered young medical student in his early twenties called Theo Durrant volunteered at the Sunday School. One afternoon in early April 1895, a young Mission District schoolteacher called Blanche Lamont was last seen with a friend of hers … Theo Durrant. When Blanche didn’t come home, Theo was questioned, but the police had no evidence of foul play.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The police are utterly baffled. Blanche Lamont, a beautiful girl … has disappeared as mysteriously as if the earth had swallowed her.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nine days after Blanche disappeared, another young woman who attended the Emmanuel Baptist church — Minnie Williams — didn’t come home either. Like Blanche, she was last seen with Theo Durrant … walking into the church.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams were members of the Emmanuel Baptist church and members of the Sunday school class. Both were 21-year-old brunettes, pretty and modest girls.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The morning after Minnie went missing, a volunteer opened one of the church closets … and found Minnie’s murdered body lying on the floor inside. And when police searched the rest of the building, the last place they looked was the very top: in the belfry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They broke in the door. It was so dark they could not see, and one of them struck a match. As the light flared, they saw before them the dead body of the girl for whom they were searching. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The body of Blanche Lamont had been hidden up there for almost two weeks. Theo Durrant was immediately the prime suspect. And from the moment he was arrested, San Francisco’s mania for the “Demon of the Belfry” caught fire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was the undercurrent of that, that this could happen in a church if it could happen in a church. It could happen anywhere. It could happen in your home.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music ends]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Writer Virginia McConnell used to practice law in San Francisco in the 1970s. When she moved into teaching, she also began digging into criminal histories of the past … and wound up writing a whole book on the Theo Durrant case. This murder trial had all the elements to mesmerize a willing city. It had a cast of young characters: well-spoken medical student Theo and the two attractive young women he stood accused of violently murdering with his bare hands. And this horrific double murder had taken place in a sacred space – the Emmanuel Baptist Church – which had then become these women’s tomb. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was the horror of, you know, is not the same as if, you know, you did it down at the local bar, but you did it in a church. So where was God now? Supposedly protecting his people. What happened to these two girls? That they could not be protected? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not only that, this reinforced all those fears that people living in a big, growing metropolis are susceptible to. That panic that their city was sinking into an unprecedented moral decay – an anxiety stoked by the newspapers that framed these crimes as the ultimate sign of San Francisco’s irredeemable rot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Casting reproach upon the already too low standard of morals in that city and a cloud of shame on the good name of our beautiful State.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music begins] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">there was the breathless speculation about sex — scandalous, intriguing, salacious. Had Theo been romantically involved with either of the two women? Was this “gentleman,” in fact, a depraved pervert who’d habitually harassed and exposed his way through the Mission District, as was rumored?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They still have these misconceptions that Theo was luring women into the church and exposing himself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">then \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">there was Theo’s family. Rumors of an \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">inappropriate \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">closeness between Theo, his mother, and his sister spread like wildfire. It’s hard to convey just how\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> all-consuming\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> this case was in 1895. It dominated the news, swallowing up all the oxygen, and was covered far beyond San Francisco, all across the country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music ends]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as the evidence against him mounted up, Theo Durrant’s only hope was winning over the jury on the stand, which this oddly mannered young man truly failed to do. He constantly contradicted his own alibis and introduced new implausible theories about anyone else who could have murdered Blanche and Minnie rather than himself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He did not do himself any favors by getting on the stand, but they had no other …. They had no defense for him. They had no defense.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[sounds of people talking in a courtroom]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s the thing: this courtroom was packed. Because the Bay Area didn’t \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">just \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">indulge their fascination with this case through the papers. They also physically descended on the courtroom in person.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So vivid were the stories, so graphic the pictures, so awful the scenes depicted that men and women leaned forward with straining eyes and hard-drawn breath, catching at every word, hypnotized by the horror of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The major San Francisco newspapers, including the Chronicle, competed feverishly for who could attract the most readers with stories that were melodramatic, gossipy and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">crazy\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">-readable. And as the trial progressed, the coverage became more lurid, more outlandish, and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">highly \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">unethical. With reporters assigning themselves the kind of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">investigative \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">role \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">during the trial itself \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that you might more expect from the lawyers themselves or the police.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Because they knew that [the] more sensational it was, the more information they could get. They could sell newspapers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One newspaper printed a dramatic story about Theo going on the run and terrorizing the city:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They were going to arrest him, and he had escaped, and he was running through people’s backyards in the Mission district.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a great story! Except… it never happened.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That whole thing was fake. That was false. The newspaper had nothing else to print. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the papers knew their readers \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">wanted \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">this. Humans have \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">always \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">wanted to gobble up true crime stories – whether in the daily paper back then or on our TV screens. Or increasingly, in our podcast feeds. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello there. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as horribly new as this double murder seemed back in 1895, there was precedent for these kinds of famous killings.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The analogy with the murderous career of Jack the Ripper in London will at once suggest itself … Is the same bloody drama to be repeated in San Francisco?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just seven years before Theo went up to the belfry, the serial killer called “Jack the Ripper” terrorized \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">another \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">foggy city, London — in a saga that may have unfolded thousands of miles away but became a worldwide sensation thanks to the popular press. The trial of Lizzie Borden, accused of murdering her own father and stepmother with an ax in their Massachusetts home, had happened just \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">three\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> years before. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boston \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">had even had its own Belfry Murderer 20 years earlier — dubbed “the Bat.” So, by 1895, there \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">playbook \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">for this stuff. And as horrible as it was, for many people, this was a distraction from the grind of daily life:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is entertainment. Think about what the entertainment was back then. Zippo. That’s what it was. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But many onlookers in 1895 clearly \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">had difficulty \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">with the notion that a man could kill \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">just \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">for the sake of killing — not for profit or to satisfy depraved desires. Which is maybe why the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">worst \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">legends about Theo Durrant were based around what he might have done to Blanche and Minnie’s bodies \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">after \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">their death — gruesome speculation about his “true” motive that endures to this day. It’s no coincidence that you’d have seen Theo compared to “Jekyll and Hyde” in the press — a book that was published not \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">long before the Belfry case but had already become a\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">n understood reference for a normal-looking exterior that concealed a fiendish, murdering alter-ego. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a way, I think, of coming to terms with people who seem to be good can do bad things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the idea of what a criminal does — and doesn’t — “look like” is still recognizable today … then the idea of a “perfect victim” is unfortunately just as relevant. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though Theo was charged with the murders of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">both \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blanche and Minnie and Minnie’s killing was by far the more bloody, physically brutal one, the all-male prosecution team chose to only try him for the murder of Blanche. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There was thinking in terms of what is more appealing to an all-male jury. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blanche was seen as an upstanding woman with a respectable profession as a teacher in training. By contrast, servant girl Minnie was a child of divorce with a patchy employment record: a \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lower-class woman hustling solo in the Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She was on her own. She frequently did things that back then would have been looked at askance. She went out on her own. She was frequently out, you know, after dark because she had no one to escort her. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it was this necessary self-sufficiency in life that made Minnie ultimately less sympathetic in death — echoing wider male anxieties about the independence that women were increasingly acquiring in the shadow of a new century. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But this wasn’t \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">even \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the only way that the behavior of women was itself tacitly on trial alongside Theo himself. The \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">women \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">who packed out that courtroom became the subject of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">scathing \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">commentary from the reporters who were there — some of whom, for what it’s worth, were women themselves.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were all well dressed, and they all looked like women who had someone who ought to have made them stay home.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like several \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">modern \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">serial killers, Theo also attracted admirers – groupies, even, who sent gifts to him in jail. One of these was so infamous she even got her own name in the press: a married Oakland woman dubbed “The Sweet Pea Girl” because of the flowers she lavished upon Theo. But with women of the time shut out from many aspects of public life, it’s not hard to imagine why inserting themselves into momentous events might have held an appeal — even if it’s hard to stomach now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the end, it took the jury just 20 minutes to unanimously find Theo Durrant guilty of Blanche’s murder. He was taken to San Quentin State Prison, even as his parents steadfastly campaigned for their son’s release. In January 1898 — almost three years after he killed Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams — Theo Durrant was executed by hanging age 27. On the scaffold, he gave one last speech, calling himself: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading Theo Durrant quote: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An innocent boy who has \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">not \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">stained his hands with crimes that have been put upon him by the press of San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music starts]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But after all of the scandal, all of the column inches screaming about gore and sex, it’s the figures of Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams that should linger with us — not their killer. And it’s hard not to be left with thoughts of Minnie Williams in particular. Unlike Blanche, her death never even warranted a trial. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Minnie was somewhat disposable because she really had nothing going for her. You know, that’s what was in their in their eyes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And while Blanche’s body was sent home to Montana for a family burial, Minnie was buried in San Francisco — only to be dug up several decades later when cemeteries started moving south to make way for a growing city. Her body was shipped down to Colma with tens of thousands of others and dumped in a mass, anonymous grave. An “imperfect victim,” discarded just as much in death as she was in life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music stops]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though the Emmanuel Baptist Church swiftly resumed services, neighbors clamored for years that the building be demolished and the stain cleaned from Bartlett Street. In 1906, damage from the earthquake forced the issue. Finally, the Church and its infamous belfry were torn down — and every trace of this place was wiped from the face of San Francisco. And in a way, Theo Durrant has been too. Back then, San Francisco thought Theo could be their Jack the Ripper, the ultimate boogeyman stopped in his tracks before he truly could get started. Or, as one newspaper put it:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the criminal history of California, there possibly has never been a fouler double murder committed than that just brought to light in San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Theo \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">worst \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">thing the Bay Area could imagine back then. But just think of a few of the infamous serial murder cases that have stalked California and the West Coast since ‘The Demon in the Belfry.’ We’ve had the Zodiac. Ted Bundy. The Manson Family. The Night Stalker. The Golden State Killer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> He’s boring compared to them. So I think that is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">probably the biggest thing is that it’s no longer a, you know, an anomaly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">may \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">be a slice of Old San Francisco that hasn’t quite kept our attention today. But even as many things have changed beyond recognition when it comes to true crime — and the way it makes us \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">act\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, makes us \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">feel\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">? Some things \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">never \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">change here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was reporter Carly Severn. And with that, we blow out the candles on this Boo Curious series. Thank you for listening along. We learned that Sarah Winchester may have just been doing her best when she designed her spooky mansion. We saw how a legend, true or not, can bring a community like Hayward together. Then there was the Church of Satan — more performance art than anything truly sinister. And the Dunsmuir Estate — more of a fixer-upper than a house of horrors. As the saying goes, things are not always what they seem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. The show is produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia Allen-Price. The vocal performers in this episode were Paul Lancour, Dan Brekke, Bianca Taylor, and Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman. Additional support for Bay Curious comes from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan, and the whole KQED Family. I hope you have a wonderful week and a safe and celebratory Halloween. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "San Francisco in the 1890s was whipped into a frenzy by media coverage of a double murder committed by a man they compared to Jack the Ripper.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">O\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>ne hundred twenty-eight years ago, San Francisco was haunted by a bizarre, brutal murder case. And in terms of macabre ingredients, this story truly had it all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To make matters worse, this all happened inside one of the city’s revered churches. A mild-mannered \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">gentleman\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">”\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> suspected of killing two young women who knew and trusted him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His name was Theodore Durrant, but the press called him “The Demon of the Belfry.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Back in 1895, San Franciscans found themselves completely obsessed with this case. But if you ask someone living here now whether they know about “the Demon of the Belfry,” there’s a good chance they’ve never even heard of it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was it about these murders that possessed this city? And how did such an infamous case virtually disappear from the Bay Area’s memory? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The church on Bartlett Street\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you try to find the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz002hrvgg\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Emmanuel Baptist Church\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> these days, you’ll be out of luck as the building was torn down at the turn of the century. But head to the 24th and Mission BART station and walk just a few blocks northwest, and you’ll find yourself near the site that obsessed 1890s San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, only an apartment building and Victorian houses are on this tree-lined stretch of Bartlett Street between 22nd and 23rd streets. But back then, this huge church would have dominated this street. And at the very top, reaching into the sky above the Mission District, was the church’s bell tower, or belfry — a dark, lonely room which, for several years in the 1890s, became the most dreaded space in San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 1895, the days of this place being a muddy, chaotic mining backwater were long gone, and San Francisco had become a bustling, modern city staring down a new century. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For almost 20 years, these streets had felt the hum of electricity and the rattle of cable cars alongside the endless thrum of the sheer number of people living within these 7 square miles — around 300,000 of them. The devastating earthquake and fire of 1906 was still more than a decade away.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At this time, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/1054/files/Mission_District_context_111607%20(2).pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the Mission District was called a streetcar suburb\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: a place increasingly well-connected by mass transit to downtown and heavily inhabited by a working-class mix of immigrants, the majority at this time from Europe.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the middle of it all, on Bartlett Street, was the Emmanuel Baptist Church — where a quiet, mild-mannered young medical student in his early 20s called Theo Durrant volunteered at the Sunday School.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965545\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Emmanuel-Baptist.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11965545\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Emmanuel-Baptist-800x549.png\" alt=\"Black and white image of the front of a large stone church\" width=\"800\" height=\"549\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Emmanuel-Baptist-800x549.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Emmanuel-Baptist-160x110.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Emmanuel-Baptist.png 901w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The front of the Emanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco, 1895. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the California History Room, California State Library, Sacramento, California.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘In the shadow of the altar’\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One afternoon in early April 1895, a young Mission District schoolteacher named Blanche Lamont vanished. She was last seen with a friend of hers: Theo Durrant. When Lamont didn’t come home, Durrant was questioned, but police ultimately had no evidence of foul play.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Police were “utterly baffled,” \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SFC18950410.2.198&srpos=4&e=------189-en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22blanche+lamont%22----1895---\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">wrote the \u003cem>San Francisco Call\u003c/em> newspaper\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, at how “Blanche Lamont, a beautiful girl … has disappeared as mysteriously as if the earth had swallowed her.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nine days after Lamont disappeared, another young woman who attended the Emmanuel Baptist Church, Minnie Williams, didn’t come home either. Like Lamont, Williams was last seen with Theo Durrant — who’d been spotted walking her into the church.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The morning after Williams went missing, a volunteer setting up for the church’s Easter service the next day, opened one of the church closets and found Williams’ murdered body lying on the floor inside, covered in blood. She had been beaten, raped, stabbed and strangled, and rags had been stuffed down her throat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When police searched the rest of the building, the last place they looked was the very top — in the belfry — and discovered the naked body of Lamont, who had died by strangulation. Her corpse had been laid out as if asleep and hidden up there for almost two weeks.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instantly, the \u003cem>San Francisco Call\u003c/em> newspaper dubbed it “one of the most atrocious murders ever committed in San Francisco,” with the headline “Struck Down in the Shadow of the Altar.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Theo Durrant was immediately the prime suspect. And from the moment he was arrested, San Francisco’s mania for the “Demon of the Belfry” caught fire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965565\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11965565\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie-800x471.jpg\" alt=\"Side by side portraits of two young woman with dark curly hair, taken in the 1890s.\" width=\"800\" height=\"471\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie-800x471.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie-1020x601.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie-160x94.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie-1536x905.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche-and-Minnie.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Portraits of Blanche Lamont (left) and Minnie Williams (right). \u003ccite>(Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>An instant sensation\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s hard to convey just how\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">all-consuming this case was in 1895 — dominating the local news and spilling out into newspaper coverage that extended far beyond San Francisco. There was even a play about the case called \u003cem>Crime of a Century\u003c/em> that started running in San Francisco \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">during \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the trial.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As for why this case sparked such immediate interest, “\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">there was the undercurrent of that if this could happen in a church … it could happen anywhere,” said Virginia McConnell, author of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://books.google.com/books/about/Sympathy_for_the_Devil.html?id=dKra0SYhzc0C\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cem>Sympathy For the Devil: The Emmanuel Baptist Murders of Old San Francisco\u003c/em>.\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not just that, but, “It could happen in your home.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This murder trial had all the elements to mesmerize a willing city. It had a cast of young characters: well-spoken medical student Durrant and the two young women (whose attractiveness was frequently noted by the press) that he stood accused of violently murdering with his bare hands.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The fact that this crime happened in such a church — and was perpetrated by a young man with all the outward appearances of a total gentleman — reinforced all those fears that people living in a big, growing metropolis can become susceptible to. Namely, a panic that their city was sinking into an unprecedented moral decay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was an anxiety all too eagerly stoked by the newspapers, both local and further afield, that framed these crimes as the ultimate sign of San Francisco’s irredeemable rot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As Grass Valley’s \u003cem>Morning Union\u003c/em> newspaper wrote, the cases were \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MU18950416.2.23&srpos=26&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22emmanuel+baptist+church%22----1895---\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Casting reproach upon the already too low standard of morals in that city\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and a cloud of shame on the good name of our beautiful State.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was also breathless speculation about the sexual elements of the case. Had Durrant been romantically involved with either of the two women? Was this “gentleman,” in fact, a depraved pervert who’d habitually harassed and exposed his way through the Mission District, as was rumored? Whispers about the latter were straight-up “misconceptions,” McConnell said, but that didn’t stop the press from running with them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘Spinal shivers’ in court\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the evidence against him mounted up, Durrant’s only hope was winning over the jury on the stand, which he truly failed to do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Durrant constantly contradicted his alibis and introduced new implausible theories about anyone else who could have murdered Lamont and Williams rather than himself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He did not do himself any favors by getting on the stand,” McConnell said, but his lawyers saw no other route to success. “They had no defense for him.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965546\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11965546\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709-800x608.jpg\" alt=\"Illustration of a courtroom scene\" width=\"800\" height=\"608\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709-800x608.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709-1020x776.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709-160x122.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709-1536x1168.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1895_07_23_page_3-scaled-e1698258698709.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of the courtroom scene during Theo Durrant’s trial, published in the San Francisco Examiner. \u003ccite>(Newspapers.com)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Added to all this was a media fascination with Durrant’s family and the dynamics of their relationship. Rumors of an inappropriate closeness between Durrant, his mother Isabella and his sister Maud spread like wildfire. It was all stoked by Isabella’s proud, unabashed demeanor in court as she watched her son on the stand.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The courtroom was packed every day. The Bay Area didn’t just indulge their fascination with this case through the papers but also physically descended on the courtroom in person. Attending the trial became a sport for many, who craned their necks to see Durrant and his infamous family in the flesh, desperate to hear every gory detail. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“So vivid were the stories, so graphic the pictures, so awful the scenes depicted that men and women leaned forward with straining eyes and hard-drawn breath, catching at every word, hypnotized by the horror of it,” \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/457751594/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">wrote the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em>.\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The people had been lured into court by those same irresistible, addictive newspaper accounts they were reading every single day. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The major San Francisco newspapers, including the \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em>, competed feverishly for who could attract the most readers with stories that were melodramatic, gossipy and wildly readable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just the \u003ci>Examiner’s\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sfexaminer.newspapers.com/image/457751594/?terms=annie%20laurie%20durrant\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> description of the crime scene details\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that were read aloud in the courtroom reads like an excerpt from a gothic horror novel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Men with a good turn at description had pictured the finding of the bodies of the murdered girls. They had spattered the blood upon the walls. They had dragged Lamont up the belfry’s croaking stairs. The shuddering wind whistled and moaned about that haunted steeple,” one excerpt reads.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the trial progressed, the coverage became more lurid, outlandish, and highly unethical, with reporters assigning themselves the kind of investigative role during the trial that you might expect more from the lawyers themselves or the police.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “They knew that the more sensational it was — the more information they could get — they could sell newspapers,” McConnell said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exaggeration often tipped over into the fabrication of whole events, McConnell said, as when one newspaper printed a dramatic story about Durrant going on the run and terrorizing the city, “running through people’s backyards in the Mission District.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this case, “That whole thing was fake,” McConnell said. “The newspaper had nothing else to print” that day. But nonetheless, the press was secure in the knowledge that their readers craved these kinds of stories. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A growing taste for true crime\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">1890s San Francisco was already familiar with the tropes and thrills of what we’d now term true crime. As horribly new as this double murder seemed back in 1895, there \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">precedent for these kinds of famous killings. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just seven years before Theo went up to the belfry, the serial killer called “Jack the Ripper” terrorized another foggy city, London, in a saga that may have unfolded thousands of miles away but became a worldwide sensation, thanks to the popular press. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The moment the story of Lamont and Williams’ murders broke, the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> wrote, “\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The analogy with the murderous career of Jack the Ripper in London will at once suggest itself,” asking, “Is the same bloody drama to be repeated in San Francisco?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The trial of Lizzie Borden, accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an ax in their Massachusetts home, had happened just three years before. Boston had even had its own Belfry Murderer 20 years earlier — dubbed “the Bat.” So, by 1895, readers were well and truly familiar with the true crime playbook.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As gruesome as the details were, for many people, reading about the case or getting a front-row seat in the courtroom was a distraction from the grind of daily life. Or as McConnell put it, “This is entertainment. Think about what the entertainment \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">back then: zippo.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965626\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 535px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Durrant-526.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965626\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Durrant-526.jpg\" alt=\"Victorian portrait of a man with a mustache\" width=\"535\" height=\"670\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Durrant-526.jpg 535w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Durrant-526-160x200.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 535px) 100vw, 535px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Theo Durrant\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Man or demon?\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One enduring claim about these murders is the idea that Durrant was a necrophiliac who killed and hid Lamont and Williams specifically to be able to sexually abuse their bodies after their death. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, McConnell said, even though an examination found that Williams \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">raped before her death, there is virtually no evidence that necrophilia ever occurred — just rumor and speculation. And for McConnell, the fact that these particular allegations \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">are \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">still taken as absolute fact is a testament not just to perennial appetites for ghoulish detail but also to the difficulty so many onlookers in 1895 had with the notion that a man could kill just for the sake of killing — not for money, or to satisfy depraved sexual desires. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Surely, the line of thought went that such a man must have a monster hidden inside him. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s no coincidence that in 1895, you’d have seen Durrant compared to Jekyll and Hyde in the press, both local and national — like in the \u003cem>Utica Saturday Globe\u003c/em>, which boasted that an upcoming issue would contain a full account of Durrant’s “remarkable crime and of his Jekyll and Hyde life, together with special photo-engravings illustrating to the horrible story of murder at which the whole world stood aghast.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Robert Louis Stevenson had only written \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in 1886\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> —\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> not even a decade before the belfry murders took place. In that relatively short time, this gothic horror novella had already become a common reference point for a normal-looking exterior that concealed a fiendish, murdering alter-ego. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The papers endlessly reported how small and meek Durrant seemed in court, with his neat clothes and hair and slightly oddball manners — as if it was all a disguise he would dramatically rip off at any moment to reveal the real fiend underneath.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A tale of two victims\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the idea of what a criminal does — and doesn’t — “look like” is still recognizable today, then the idea of a “perfect victim” is unfortunately just as relevant.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though Durrant was charged with the murders of both Lamont and Williams (and Williams’ killing was by far the more bloody, physically brutal one), the all-male prosecution team only chose to try him for the murder of Lamont. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965544\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche_Lamont_with_students.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11965544\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche_Lamont_with_students.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white image of a group of children sitting on the stairs that lead up to their wooden schoolhouse. Their teacher stands to the left of the staircase wearing a modest black dress and hat.\" width=\"640\" height=\"477\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche_Lamont_with_students.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Blanche_Lamont_with_students-160x119.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blanche Lamont with a group of her students in Hecla, Montana, in October 1893. Lamont was then 20 years old. \u003ccite>(Library of Congress)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There was thinking in terms of what is more appealing to an all-male jury,” noted McConnell. Lamont was seen as an upstanding, modest woman with a respectable profession as a teacher in training. By contrast, servant girl Williams was a child of divorce with a patchy employment record: a \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lower-class woman hustling solo in the Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Williams “frequently did things that back then would have been looked at askance,” McConnell said. “She went out on her own. She was frequently out after dark because she had no one to escort her.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was this necessary self-sufficiency in life that made Williams ultimately less sympathetic in death — echoing broader male anxieties about the independence that women were increasingly acquiring in the shadow of a new century. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even the popularity of bicycles among women and how they encouraged them to wear large “bloomer” pants to ride them was a cause for concern around this time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But this wasn’t even the only way that women’s behavior was itself tacitly on trial alongside Durrant himself. The women who packed out the courtroom became the subject of scathing commentary from the reporters who were there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Several of the major newspaper reporters were themselves women. One of them conducted many jailhouse interviews with Durrant and extracted what amounted to a confession from him — albeit in the third person. Another, so-called “sob sister,” Annie Laurie, reserved her worst ire for the women in the crowd in her courtroom sketches — \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/457751621/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">some of whom, she wrote, “simpered and giggled\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> whenever they saw anyone looking at them.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laurie wrote that the women she saw in court “were all triumphant at getting in, they were all well dressed, and they all looked like women who had someone who ought to have made them stay home.” Lamont and Williams reflected those male anxieties about women leaving the domestic space. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“She criticized all the women, and yet she was trying to establish herself,” McConnell said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like several modern serial killers, Durrant also attracted female admirers who sent gifts to him in jail. One of these was so infamous she even got her name in the press: a married Oakland woman dubbed “The Sweet Pea Girl” because of the flowers she lavished upon the alleged murderer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But with women of the time shut out from many aspects of public life, it’s not hard to imagine why inserting themselves into momentous events might have appealed — even if it’s hard to stomach now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>An end to the trial\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the end, it took the jury 20 minutes to unanimously find Durrant guilty of Lamont’s murder. He was taken to San Quentin State Prison, even as his parents steadfastly campaigned for their son’s release. They even \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/insidecdcr/2018/07/14/1897-film-of-convicted-killer-durrant-shapes-prison-policy/\">hired a filmmaker to \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">bring an early movie camera — a kinetoscope — into San Quentin\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to film Durrant looking suitably sensitive in the prison’s flower garden. No known copies of the film have survived.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In January 1898, almost three years after he killed Lamont and Williams, Theo Durrant was executed by hanging at the age of 27. On the scaffold, he gave one last speech, calling himself, “An innocent boy who has \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">not \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">stained his hands with crimes that have been put upon him by the press of San Francisco.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But after all of the scandal, all of the column inches screaming about gore and sex, it’s the figures of Lamont and Williams that should linger with us — not their killer. In particular, it’s hard not to dwell on Williams, in particular. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unlike Lamont, her death never even warranted a trial. “Minnie was somewhat disposable because she really had nothing going for her” in the eyes of the male prosecution team and jury, McConnell said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While Lamont’s body was sent home to Montana for a family burial, Williams was buried in San Francisco — only to be dug up decades later when burials within the city limits were outlawed. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/10779164/why-are-so-many-dead-people-in-colma-and-so-few-in-san-francisco\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her body was shipped down to Colma with tens of thousands of others\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and dumped in a mass, anonymous grave. An “imperfect victim,” discarded just as much in death as she was in life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A relic of the past\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though the Emmanuel Baptist Church swiftly resumed services, neighbors clamored for years that the building be demolished and the stain cleaned from Bartlett Street. In 1906, damage from the earthquake forced the issue. Finally, the church and its infamous belfry were torn down — and every trace of this place was wiped from the face of San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11965630\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11965630\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127-800x770.jpg\" alt=\"Image taken in the middle of a city street, a 3 story gray building is visible to the right side of the street. There are trees on the left and right sides of the image. \" width=\"800\" height=\"770\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127-800x770.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127-1020x982.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127-160x154.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127-1536x1479.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Bartlett-Street-where-EBC-stood-Carly-Severn-scaled-e1698263132127.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The spot on Bartlett Street where the Emanuel Baptist Church once stood. \u003ccite>(Carly Severn/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And in a way, Durrant has been too. Back then, San Francisco thought he could be their Jack the Ripper, the ultimate boogeyman stopped in his tracks before he truly could get started. Or \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MU18950416.2.23&srpos=26&e=------189-en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-%22emmanuel+baptist+church%22----1895---\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">as the \u003cem>Morning Union\u003c/em> newspaper penned\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, “in the criminal history of California, there possibly has never been a fouler double murder committed.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Durrant \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the worst thing the Bay Area could imagine back then. But just think of a few infamous serial murder cases that have stalked California and the West Coast since ‘the Demon in the Belfry.’ We’ve had the Zodiac. Ted Bundy. The Manson Family. The Night Stalker. The Golden State Killer. McConnell said Durrant is “boring compared to them” — and this kind of murder event is “no longer an anomaly.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While the belfry murders might sometimes be listed as part of San Francisco’s macabre history or occasionally do the rounds on true crime podcasts, Durrant does not occupy anywhere near the space in the public consciousness as those other killers. When he is mentioned, it’s often in conjunction with\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/lgbtq-history-maud-allan-unnatural-practices-women/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the wild and compelling adventures of his sister Maud,\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> who moved to Europe shortly before the murders, changed her name to avoid any link to her murderer brother and became an avant-garde dancer who would be entangled in one of the most infamous libel trials of the early 20th century.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Durrant case may be a slice of Old San Francisco that hasn’t quite kept our attention today. But even as many things have changed beyond recognition here when it comes to true crime — and how it makes us act, makes us feel? Some things never change.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> 128 years ago, San Francisco was haunted by a bizarre, brutal murder case. A mild-mannered, upstanding \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“gentleman” was\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> suspected of killing two young women who knew and trusted him. And to make matters worse, it happened inside one of the city’s revered churches. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Church bell ringing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The suspect came to be known as “The Demon of the Belfry.” And in 1895, San Franciscans found themselves completely obsessed with this case.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> If you ask someone living here now whether they know about “the Demon of the Belfry,” there’s a good chance they’ve never even heard of it. I was one of them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Boo Curious. And we’ve made it to our final installment in the series. This week, we’re revisiting The Demon of the Belfry case to learn: What happened inside that church? What was it about these murders that possessed the city? And how did such an infamous case virtually disappear from the Bay Area’s memory? We’ll find out just ahead. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Now, stay close. You don’t want to get lost. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[spooky laugh]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[church bell ringing]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Demon of the Belfry murders were the talk of the town in San Francisco around the turn of the century. Here to tell us the tale is KQED’s Carly Severn.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music shift] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[sound of a busy cityscape, street cars]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By 1895, San Francisco’s earlier life as a muddy, chaotic mining backwater was all but gone. This place was now a bustling, modern city staring down a new century. For almost 20 years, these streets had felt the hum of electricity and the rattle of cable cars. Seven by 7 miles \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">packed \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">with people — around 300,000 of them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Back then, the Mission District was what was called a streetcar suburb, a place increasingly well-connected by mass transit to downtown and heavily inhabited by a working-class mix of immigrants, the majority at this time from Europe.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[sound of church bells] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And in the middle of it all, on Bartlett Street, was the Emmanuel Baptist Church. A huge, imposing building. And on the very top, reaching into the sky above the Mission District, was the church’s bell tower — the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">belfry\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And for several years in the 1890s, that dark, lonely belfry\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">became the most dreaded space in San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[church bells fade] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s a short version of the case: A quiet, mild-mannered young medical student in his early twenties called Theo Durrant volunteered at the Sunday School. One afternoon in early April 1895, a young Mission District schoolteacher called Blanche Lamont was last seen with a friend of hers … Theo Durrant. When Blanche didn’t come home, Theo was questioned, but the police had no evidence of foul play.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The police are utterly baffled. Blanche Lamont, a beautiful girl … has disappeared as mysteriously as if the earth had swallowed her.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nine days after Blanche disappeared, another young woman who attended the Emmanuel Baptist church — Minnie Williams — didn’t come home either. Like Blanche, she was last seen with Theo Durrant … walking into the church.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams were members of the Emmanuel Baptist church and members of the Sunday school class. Both were 21-year-old brunettes, pretty and modest girls.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The morning after Minnie went missing, a volunteer opened one of the church closets … and found Minnie’s murdered body lying on the floor inside. And when police searched the rest of the building, the last place they looked was the very top: in the belfry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They broke in the door. It was so dark they could not see, and one of them struck a match. As the light flared, they saw before them the dead body of the girl for whom they were searching. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The body of Blanche Lamont had been hidden up there for almost two weeks. Theo Durrant was immediately the prime suspect. And from the moment he was arrested, San Francisco’s mania for the “Demon of the Belfry” caught fire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was the undercurrent of that, that this could happen in a church if it could happen in a church. It could happen anywhere. It could happen in your home.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music ends]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Writer Virginia McConnell used to practice law in San Francisco in the 1970s. When she moved into teaching, she also began digging into criminal histories of the past … and wound up writing a whole book on the Theo Durrant case. This murder trial had all the elements to mesmerize a willing city. It had a cast of young characters: well-spoken medical student Theo and the two attractive young women he stood accused of violently murdering with his bare hands. And this horrific double murder had taken place in a sacred space – the Emmanuel Baptist Church – which had then become these women’s tomb. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was the horror of, you know, is not the same as if, you know, you did it down at the local bar, but you did it in a church. So where was God now? Supposedly protecting his people. What happened to these two girls? That they could not be protected? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not only that, this reinforced all those fears that people living in a big, growing metropolis are susceptible to. That panic that their city was sinking into an unprecedented moral decay – an anxiety stoked by the newspapers that framed these crimes as the ultimate sign of San Francisco’s irredeemable rot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Casting reproach upon the already too low standard of morals in that city and a cloud of shame on the good name of our beautiful State.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music begins] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">there was the breathless speculation about sex — scandalous, intriguing, salacious. Had Theo been romantically involved with either of the two women? Was this “gentleman,” in fact, a depraved pervert who’d habitually harassed and exposed his way through the Mission District, as was rumored?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They still have these misconceptions that Theo was luring women into the church and exposing himself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">then \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">there was Theo’s family. Rumors of an \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">inappropriate \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">closeness between Theo, his mother, and his sister spread like wildfire. It’s hard to convey just how\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> all-consuming\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> this case was in 1895. It dominated the news, swallowing up all the oxygen, and was covered far beyond San Francisco, all across the country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music ends]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as the evidence against him mounted up, Theo Durrant’s only hope was winning over the jury on the stand, which this oddly mannered young man truly failed to do. He constantly contradicted his own alibis and introduced new implausible theories about anyone else who could have murdered Blanche and Minnie rather than himself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He did not do himself any favors by getting on the stand, but they had no other …. They had no defense for him. They had no defense.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[sounds of people talking in a courtroom]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s the thing: this courtroom was packed. Because the Bay Area didn’t \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">just \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">indulge their fascination with this case through the papers. They also physically descended on the courtroom in person.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So vivid were the stories, so graphic the pictures, so awful the scenes depicted that men and women leaned forward with straining eyes and hard-drawn breath, catching at every word, hypnotized by the horror of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The major San Francisco newspapers, including the Chronicle, competed feverishly for who could attract the most readers with stories that were melodramatic, gossipy and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">crazy\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">-readable. And as the trial progressed, the coverage became more lurid, more outlandish, and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">highly \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">unethical. With reporters assigning themselves the kind of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">investigative \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">role \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">during the trial itself \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that you might more expect from the lawyers themselves or the police.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Because they knew that [the] more sensational it was, the more information they could get. They could sell newspapers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One newspaper printed a dramatic story about Theo going on the run and terrorizing the city:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They were going to arrest him, and he had escaped, and he was running through people’s backyards in the Mission district.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a great story! Except… it never happened.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That whole thing was fake. That was false. The newspaper had nothing else to print. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the papers knew their readers \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">wanted \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">this. Humans have \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">always \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">wanted to gobble up true crime stories – whether in the daily paper back then or on our TV screens. Or increasingly, in our podcast feeds. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello there. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as horribly new as this double murder seemed back in 1895, there was precedent for these kinds of famous killings.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The analogy with the murderous career of Jack the Ripper in London will at once suggest itself … Is the same bloody drama to be repeated in San Francisco?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just seven years before Theo went up to the belfry, the serial killer called “Jack the Ripper” terrorized \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">another \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">foggy city, London — in a saga that may have unfolded thousands of miles away but became a worldwide sensation thanks to the popular press. The trial of Lizzie Borden, accused of murdering her own father and stepmother with an ax in their Massachusetts home, had happened just \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">three\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> years before. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boston \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">had even had its own Belfry Murderer 20 years earlier — dubbed “the Bat.” So, by 1895, there \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">playbook \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">for this stuff. And as horrible as it was, for many people, this was a distraction from the grind of daily life:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is entertainment. Think about what the entertainment was back then. Zippo. That’s what it was. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But many onlookers in 1895 clearly \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">had difficulty \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">with the notion that a man could kill \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">just \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">for the sake of killing — not for profit or to satisfy depraved desires. Which is maybe why the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">worst \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">legends about Theo Durrant were based around what he might have done to Blanche and Minnie’s bodies \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">after \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">their death — gruesome speculation about his “true” motive that endures to this day. It’s no coincidence that you’d have seen Theo compared to “Jekyll and Hyde” in the press — a book that was published not \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">long before the Belfry case but had already become a\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">n understood reference for a normal-looking exterior that concealed a fiendish, murdering alter-ego. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a way, I think, of coming to terms with people who seem to be good can do bad things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the idea of what a criminal does — and doesn’t — “look like” is still recognizable today … then the idea of a “perfect victim” is unfortunately just as relevant. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though Theo was charged with the murders of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">both \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blanche and Minnie and Minnie’s killing was by far the more bloody, physically brutal one, the all-male prosecution team chose to only try him for the murder of Blanche. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There was thinking in terms of what is more appealing to an all-male jury. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blanche was seen as an upstanding woman with a respectable profession as a teacher in training. By contrast, servant girl Minnie was a child of divorce with a patchy employment record: a \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lower-class woman hustling solo in the Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She was on her own. She frequently did things that back then would have been looked at askance. She went out on her own. She was frequently out, you know, after dark because she had no one to escort her. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it was this necessary self-sufficiency in life that made Minnie ultimately less sympathetic in death — echoing wider male anxieties about the independence that women were increasingly acquiring in the shadow of a new century. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But this wasn’t \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">even \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the only way that the behavior of women was itself tacitly on trial alongside Theo himself. The \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">women \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">who packed out that courtroom became the subject of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">scathing \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">commentary from the reporters who were there — some of whom, for what it’s worth, were women themselves.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[typing on a typewriter]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were all well dressed, and they all looked like women who had someone who ought to have made them stay home.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like several \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">modern \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">serial killers, Theo also attracted admirers – groupies, even, who sent gifts to him in jail. One of these was so infamous she even got her own name in the press: a married Oakland woman dubbed “The Sweet Pea Girl” because of the flowers she lavished upon Theo. But with women of the time shut out from many aspects of public life, it’s not hard to imagine why inserting themselves into momentous events might have held an appeal — even if it’s hard to stomach now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the end, it took the jury just 20 minutes to unanimously find Theo Durrant guilty of Blanche’s murder. He was taken to San Quentin State Prison, even as his parents steadfastly campaigned for their son’s release. In January 1898 — almost three years after he killed Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams — Theo Durrant was executed by hanging age 27. On the scaffold, he gave one last speech, calling himself: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading Theo Durrant quote: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An innocent boy who has \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">not \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">stained his hands with crimes that have been put upon him by the press of San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music starts]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But after all of the scandal, all of the column inches screaming about gore and sex, it’s the figures of Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams that should linger with us — not their killer. And it’s hard not to be left with thoughts of Minnie Williams in particular. Unlike Blanche, her death never even warranted a trial. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Minnie was somewhat disposable because she really had nothing going for her. You know, that’s what was in their in their eyes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And while Blanche’s body was sent home to Montana for a family burial, Minnie was buried in San Francisco — only to be dug up several decades later when cemeteries started moving south to make way for a growing city. Her body was shipped down to Colma with tens of thousands of others and dumped in a mass, anonymous grave. An “imperfect victim,” discarded just as much in death as she was in life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[music stops]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though the Emmanuel Baptist Church swiftly resumed services, neighbors clamored for years that the building be demolished and the stain cleaned from Bartlett Street. In 1906, damage from the earthquake forced the issue. Finally, the Church and its infamous belfry were torn down — and every trace of this place was wiped from the face of San Francisco. And in a way, Theo Durrant has been too. Back then, San Francisco thought Theo could be their Jack the Ripper, the ultimate boogeyman stopped in his tracks before he truly could get started. Or, as one newspaper put it:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading a newspaper clipping: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the criminal history of California, there possibly has never been a fouler double murder committed than that just brought to light in San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Theo \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">worst \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">thing the Bay Area could imagine back then. But just think of a few of the infamous serial murder cases that have stalked California and the West Coast since ‘The Demon in the Belfry.’ We’ve had the Zodiac. Ted Bundy. The Manson Family. The Night Stalker. The Golden State Killer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Virginia McConnell\u003c/b>\u003cb>:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> He’s boring compared to them. So I think that is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">probably the biggest thing is that it’s no longer a, you know, an anomaly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">may \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">be a slice of Old San Francisco that hasn’t quite kept our attention today. But even as many things have changed beyond recognition when it comes to true crime — and the way it makes us \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">act\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, makes us \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">feel\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">? Some things \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">never \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">change here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was reporter Carly Severn. And with that, we blow out the candles on this Boo Curious series. Thank you for listening along. We learned that Sarah Winchester may have just been doing her best when she designed her spooky mansion. We saw how a legend, true or not, can bring a community like Hayward together. Then there was the Church of Satan — more performance art than anything truly sinister. And the Dunsmuir Estate — more of a fixer-upper than a house of horrors. As the saying goes, things are not always what they seem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. The show is produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia Allen-Price. The vocal performers in this episode were Paul Lancour, Dan Brekke, Bianca Taylor, and Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman. Additional support for Bay Curious comes from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan, and the whole KQED Family. I hope you have a wonderful week and a safe and celebratory Halloween. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "How the Church of Satan Was Born in San Francisco",
"headTitle": "How the Church of Satan Was Born in San Francisco | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has long been associated with countercultural movements — whether it was the Beats of the 1950s, the hippies of the 1960s or the Black Panthers of the 1970s. But often overlooked in that long tradition of local subcultures is the emergence of America’s first official satanic church, which was founded right here in San Francisco. [baycuriousbug]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From its beginnings in a black Victorian house in the Richmond District, to its rapid growth that may have helped kick off a wave of “satanic panic” across the country, the story of the Church of Satan is filled with lust, intrigue and a fair amount of theatrics.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A born showman\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>You can’t describe the \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/\">Church of Satan\u003c/a> without talking about the man who was its founder and central figure for decades, and who even posthumously is probably still the most iconic Satanist. Anton Szandor LaVey was born Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago in 1930. His family moved to the Bay Area when he was still a child, and he \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20120314024245/http://www.pacificsun.com/story.php?story_id=2313\">supposedly attended Tamalpais High School\u003c/a> in Mill Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a young age, LaVey had an interest in magic, the supernatural, and the idea of trickery. In a 1993 documentary about him called “\u003ca href=\"https://mubi.com/en/us/films/speak-of-the-devil\">Speak of the Devil\u003c/a>,” LaVey describes how fascinated he was as a little kid when a friend showed him a copy of the Johnson and Smith Company’s \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Smith_Company\">novelty catalog\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[It was] filled with all of these jokes, tricks, and books on forbidden subjects,” LaVey said. “It had all the most horrid examples of man’s inhumanity to man, all of course presented in the form of good fun and entertainment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey got his own copy of the catalog, and ordered several novelty trick toys from it, including a ‘recorder box’ that would stab a sharp needle into the finger of an unsuspecting victim when a button was pushed. LaVey said he felt the trick was too mean to play on his own friends, but he didn’t feel bad about handing the toy over to a bully. That distinction was perhaps a precursor to the later development of his satanic philosophy, which advocates for bestowing kindness on those who deserve it, but seeking revenge on those who wrong you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That curious nature led LaVey to pursue somewhat unusual jobs. He claimed to have joined the circus at 16, where he said he’d worked with the big cats as a “cage boy.” Likewise, he said he’d done stints as a psychic investigator, paranormal researcher, and hypnotist. He also claimed to have briefly been a crime scene photographer for the SFPD, although there are no official records to back that up.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan\"]‘All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.’[/pullquote]Some have suggested that LaVey may have embellished some details of his early life, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/history-anton-szandor-lavey/\">The Church of Satan, on its site, contends it has evidence\u003c/a> to support his claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey is also known to have worked as an organist and musician and performed at clubs around San Francisco beginning in the late 1940s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the early 1950s, he was already cultivating the kind of dark aesthetic and occult interests that would lead him to found his church. In 1956, he purchased a Victorian house at 6114 California Street, a few blocks from the edge of the Presidio near the center of San Francisco’s Richmond neighborhood, and painted it black. The house had a brick staircase leading up to the front door, with a parlor and a bar downstairs. The room that would become the primary ritual chamber contained a large mantle piece, one that would be featured prominently in future ceremonies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Church of Satan sort of grew out of what he called the Magic Circle,” said Blanche Barton, who is the current \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/history-blanche-barton/\">Magistra Templi Rex\u003c/a> — a ranking member — of the Church of Satan, and one of \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Satanist-Authorized-Biography/dp/1627310029/churchofsatan\">LaVey’s biographers\u003c/a> and a former lover, with whom he had his only son: Satan Xerxes Carnacki LaVey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton says LaVey surrounded himself with friends who shared similar interests. “They were all intrigued by the weird and the unexplained. They started having soirées and that sort of led into ritualizing to see, practically, what happens or if anything happens,” she said. “[LaVey] started presenting seminars on the various topics that he was interested in, from vampires to cannibalism — everything weird and wonderful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964952\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-11964952 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white close up image of a man wearing a hooded cloak with devil horns. He is holding the point of a sword in front of his face. He casts a shadow onto the wall behind him, which features a large pentagram.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-800x535.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1020x683.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1536x1028.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-2048x1370.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1920x1285.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey poses in his Black House in 1967. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘First year of the reign of Satan’\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the spring of 1966, the Church of Satan was officially launched and its congregation was comprised of a handful of people in LaVey’s inner circle. They gathered in his home — which was by then known as “The Black House” — on the night of April 30 to celebrate Walpurgisnacht, a German holiday with pagan origins that’s sometimes called the “night of the witches.” The holiday is, ironically, on the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga, which commemorates the saint who is believed to offer protection from witchcraft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey ritualistically shaved his head in the tradition of medieval executioners and dark magicians and declared 1966 to be the “first year of the reign of Satan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To attract followers to the church outside of his exclusive group of like-minded parishioners, LaVey quickly began spreading word of his satanic philosophy through public speaking engagements and by inviting reporters — and whoever else had interest — into his Black House to witness satanic rituals and masses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rituals themselves were a highly theatrical affair, akin to performance art, featuring satanic iconography and moody organ music. LaVey would wear a hooded cloak with devil horns and a pentagram medallion while invoking the many names of the devil. He’d often wield a sword or sometimes a large snake while a nude woman was draped over an altar in the house’s ritual chamber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blanche Barton says the aesthetics of Satanism were rooted in LaVey’s artistic nature: He was a painter, sculptor and musician, who just happened to have a penchant for dark things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Examples of the early rituals he led can be seen in the 1970 documentary, “\u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/satanis-the-devils-mass-1970\">Satanis: The Devil’s Mass,\u003c/a>” which chronicles the early years of the church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the most amusing parts of the film, almost endearing, is when they go out and talk to the neighbors,” Barton said. “And it’s pretty funny. You know, they say that they see the nude people dancing around in the front. And they saw the lion … eating something! Really quite devilish and intriguing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964956\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964956\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-800x759.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white image of a man with dark curly hair and a goatee seated cross legged on the floor of a room. In front of him is a lion cub, which looks at the camera.\" width=\"800\" height=\"759\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-800x759.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-1020x967.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-160x152.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-1536x1457.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey, founder and self-proclaimed high priest of the Church of Satan, is photographed at home in San Francisco with his pet lion on June 26, 1964. \u003ccite>(Art Frisch/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s right — LaVey actually owned a 500-pound pet lion named Togare, who he’d raised from a cub, and who lived with him in the Black House and slept in his bedroom at night. In the late 1960s, when his neighbors successfully petitioned to have the lion removed, Lavey ended up giving his oversized pet to actress Tippi Hedren, who starred in “The Birds,” and had founded (and apparently still lives on) \u003ca href=\"https://www.shambala.org/about.htm\">a big cat sanctuary\u003c/a> in Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey soon became a well-known personality throughout California and increasingly nationwide, largely supporting himself by collecting church initiation fees and doing paid public speaking engagements. He was frequently interviewed in print publications and on TV, including on \u003cem>The Tonight Show\u003c/em>. Even people who seemed to despise his ideology wanted to talk to him — as is evident in this interview with antagonistic talk show host Joe Pyne:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/Kqb54soKU8M?si=mX0JQztCFy7tjOj2\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A wide variety of people were drawn to LaVey’s dark charm and hedonistic philosophy that promoted a guilt-free, indulgent lifestyle. The church is rumored to have drawn in several notable celebrities in its early years, including Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey also \u003ca href=\"https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4718112/Hollywood-Satanist-Bizarre-Jayne-Mansfield-Anton-LaVey.html\">developed a friendship\u003c/a> with blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield, an actress, nightclub entertainer and Playboy playmate, and the mother of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit star Mariska Hargitay. There was even speculation that Mansfield’s death in 1967, a year after meeting LaVey, was the result of a curse he is believed to have placed on the driver of the car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not surprisingly, LaVey openly courted controversy. In 1967, he \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/SFGate/videos/anton-lavey-oversees-a-satanic-wedding-ceremony-in-san-francisco/10156878589425594/\">publicized and officiated a satanic wedding\u003c/a> between a New York socialite and a journalist. He also performed satanic funerals for servicemen in the Bay Area, at the request of their families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time he started the church, LaVey had divorced his first wife and became involved with another woman, with whom he had a daughter, his second child. In 1967, he baptized the 3-year-old girl into the church, dedicating her to Satan as she sat in a hooded robe next to the nude altar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964962\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964962\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-800x923.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a hooded devil costume kneels in front of a large brick fireplace. A blonde woman kneels to his right. They are both reaching up towards a small girl wearing a hooded robe, who sits on the edge of the mantle, over which is draped a nude woman. A large pentagram featuring the head of Baphomet is painted on the wall behind them.\" width=\"800\" height=\"923\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-800x923.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1020x1176.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-160x185.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1332x1536.jpg 1332w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1776x2048.jpg 1776w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton Szandor LaVey, the leader of the First Church of Satan, taps his gum-chewing 3-year-old daughter, Zeena Galatea LaVey, on the head with a sword during “baptism ceremonies” in San Francisco on May 23, 1967. A naked woman reclines on the altar during the anti-religious ceremony. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Satanic Bible\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 1969, LaVey published \u003ca href=\"https://www.harvard.com/book/the_satanic_bible/\">The Satanic Bible\u003c/a>, outlining his philosophy and detailing the official tenets of his church. At the core are \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/nine-satanic-statements/\">the 9 Satanic Statements\u003c/a>, the last of which is: “Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here LaVey refers to the Christian Church, which he said he found hypocritical for its denial of human nature. “No religion had ever been based on man’s carnal needs or his fleshly pursuits,” he said, in a 1970 interview. “All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The word Satan means adversary, he explained. “I’m supplying a much-needed opposition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the nine statements begin with “Satan represents…” Many people incorrectly assume that Satanists worship the devil. In fact, the Church of Satan’s official position is that the devil doesn’t exist at all. It’s an atheistic religion — really more like a philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What the Satanic Bible tries to advocate is independent study, not worship,” Blanche Barton, his biographer and former lover, said. “There is no dogma.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey’s philosophy grew in popularity throughout the 1970s. But even as the church continued to openly insist that it didn’t worship or believe in the devil, a centuries-old fear inevitably came bubbling to the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The satanic panic\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Beginning in the 1980s, and lasting through the 1990s, LaVey’s church spurred a national wave of fear and conspiracy theories around “satanic cults,” resulting in over 12,000 unsubstantiated claims of satanic ritual abuse and crimes, many centered around children, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/us/satanic-panic.html\">according to the New York Times\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A series of high-profile court cases drew national headlines during this period of “satanic panic.” One notorious case in the early 1980s — the \u003ca href=\"https://famous-trials.com/mcmartin/902-home\">McMartin Preschool trial\u003c/a> in Manhattan Beach in Southern California — originated from a mother’s claim that her son had been sexually abused by his preschool, which she accused of being run by Satanists.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Blanche Barton, LaVey's biographer (and former lover)\"]‘What the Satanic Bible tries to advocate is independent study, not worship. There is no dogma.’[/pullquote]That incited a set of increasingly bizarre claims of satanic child abuse and led to hundreds of children being interrogated by state investigators over allegations that they had been forced to do things like drink the blood of sacrificed animals or dig up graves. The mother who made the initial claim was later found to be prone to schizophrenic delusions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tapes of the children’s interviews were reviewed by a clinical psychologist who said they were coercive and extremely suggestive, leading children to give the answers the interviewers wanted to hear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two separate trials over the course of seven years resulted in no convictions. And at a cost of $15 million, it became the most expensive criminal trial in U.S. history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other similar cases resulted in actual convictions, a large number of them in the state of Texas. Most, however, were ultimately \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/08/24/accused-of-satanism-they-spent-21-years-in-prison-they-were-just-declared-innocent-and-were-paid-millions/\">overturned\u003c/a> due to lack of evidence, sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/10/26/how-satanic-panic-led-a-10-year-old-son-to-falsely-accuse-his-father/\">decades later\u003c/a> after the convicted parties had served \u003ca href=\"https://www.tpr.org/criminal-justice/2023-04-11/after-30-years-a-father-is-exonerated-in-satanic-panic-case\">years in prison\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Accusations weren’t lobbed directly at the Church of Satan, but the group was sometimes cited by police as having an influence on the spread of the ideology — as is the case in this \u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/LawEnforcementGuideToSatanicCults1994VHSOccultHilarity\">police training video\u003c/a>. Filmed in San Francisco in the early 1990s, the video includes stereotypical claims about crimes Satanists might commit, from cannibalism and necrophilia to corpse theft and black market baby sales — despite any evidence of the church ever doing or condoning such things.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Fate of the Black House\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Blanche Barton moved to San Francisco in 1984 at the age of 22 and became romantically involved with LaVey that same year. Five years later, Barton moved into the Black House with LaVey, who sold it to pay off debts, but continued renting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton says, like so many other San Francisco Victorians, the house itself had a long and interesting history dating back to its construction in 1887.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It had trapdoors and it had been used as a [brothel] and a speakeasy,” she said, “It had a bar downstairs. It had secret passageways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964959\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964959\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-800x532.jpg\" alt=\"A mean in a hooded devil costume and cloak emerges from a secret passage way in the fireplace of a a room in his house. There are bookshelves above hi, and a human skeleton mounted in a large display case on the wall to the right.\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-800x532.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-160x106.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, rises out from a hidden corridor behind a false fireplace in his study in 1967. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>LaVey died from heart disease on Oct. 29, 1997, at the age of 67, although according to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1997/11/09/anton-s-lavey-dies-at-67/c546b323-acb9-463e-ad96-7da298f9e4d8/\">obituary in \u003cem>The Washington Post\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, his death certificate listed him as dying several days later, on Halloween. He left behind three children, all from different women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leadership of the church was eventually turned over to longtime church member Peter Gilmore, who still serves as its high priest. The church’s headquarters have since been moved to New York state, where Gilmore and his partner Peggy Nadramia built a new “Black House.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton said she and a group of followers attempted to raise money to buy LaVey’s house back so that it could be preserved as a museum, but those efforts ultimately failed, and the house was eventually sold and torn down in 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was so much a part of his soul,” said Barton, “And as he said, ‘The roots went all the way to hell.’ So he was able to be there until the last, which was great.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What now stands in its place is a rather normal-looking beige apartment building, devoid of any signs that it was once the site of a satanic sanctuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>If you visited San Francisco’s Richmond District before 2001, and made your way to 6114 California Street, you would have found yourself facing a tall Victorian house that was entirely \u003ci>black.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An attention grabbing paint scheme for sure. But it’s what happened inside The Black House that truly intrigued curious San Francsicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was the first headquarters of the Church of Satan … and the personal home of its founder Anton LaVey. His theatrical nature, and controversial beliefs, turned him into a kind of celebrity… here he is in an interview in 1970…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Pyne:\u003c/b> Who ordained you a atanic priest?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey:\u003c/b> I would say, probably, I received the call. Just as any fundamentalist—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> Well most of us do, but we fight it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Why fight it? This is, of course, the whole principle of my religion. All—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> What do you mean you received the call? You mean one day the devil said “Go out, Anton Szandor LaVey, and give people hell!” [audience laughs]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> That’s about it. That’s about it. Because people like to have a hell of a time, don’t they?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Spooky music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> How did the Church of Satan get its start in San Francisco? And what was it like to live in the Black House with the so-called “Black Pope” himself?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Welcome to the third installment of Boo Curious! This October we’re bringing you stories about the creepy, the eerie, the misunderstood places around the Bay Area. Today, we explore what was going on inside that Black House. And who, really, was Anton LaVey?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> Well listen, I’d tell you where to go, but you’d enjoy it… [audience laughs] We’ll be back with another guest…(fade under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Now stay close, you don’t want to get lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[spooky laugh]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b> We sent producer Amanda Font to make a deal with the devil, and learn more about The Black House, and the Church of Satan’s larger-than-life founder…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>The Bay Area is often associated with countercultural movements. You had the beat poets of the 1950s getting arrested for protesting censorship, the free-loving hippies of the 1960s dropping acid in the park, and the Black Panthers in the 1970s fighting back against institutional racism. What you don’t often hear about alongside those other cultural phenomena is that the late 1960s in San Francisco also gave rise to the notorious, indulgent, and wickedly provocative Church of Satan. [\u003ci>demonic vocal effect on “Church of Satan”]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>In this case, when we use the word “church,” it might not be exactly what you’re picturing. They do describe themselves as a religious organization, but there aren’t a lot of physical church buildings associated with Satanism. It’s more like an organization of like-minded people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, the black heart of the church, and perhaps still the most recognizable Satanist, was its founder Anton Szandor LaVey. He was born Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago in 1930, and later his family moved to the Bay Area. From a young age, he had a fascination with the supernatural, magic and the idea of trickery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]: \u003c/b>When I was about 5 years old, I had a friend that had a catalog from the Johnson and Smith company, filled with all of these jokes, tricks, and books on forbidden subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is a clip of LaVey from a 1993 documentary about him called “Speak of the Devil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> It had all the most horrid examples of man’s inhumanity to man, all of course presented in the form of good fun and entertainment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Like a toy “recorder box,” that, when you pushed a button, would stab a sharp needle into the finger of an unsuspecting victim. LaVey recalls he didn’t want to play such a mean trick on his friends… but he didn’t mind if it was a kid who was a bully. A similar thought came into play later, when he developed his satanic philosophy. It’s big on the idea of being kind to those who deserve it, but seeking revenge on those who wrong you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As he got older, LaVey’s curious nature led him to pursue somewhat unusual jobs. In his early life, he claimed to have worked in a circus with big cats, as a psychic investigator, an organist, a hypnotist, and to have been a police photographer for the SFPD (although there are no official records to back that last one.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1956, a decade before he officially created the Church of Satan, he was already cultivating the kind of dark aesthetic that people would come to know him for. LaVey bought the Victorian house at 6114 California Street and painted it black.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> And as he said, the roots went all The way to hell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b> This is Blanche Barton…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> I am the current Magistra Templi Rex of the Church of Satan. I’ve been a member of the organization. Wow, almost 50 years now. And I was a high priestess for a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>She also was Anton LaVey’s romantic partner for 13 years, and they had a child together. Blanche, or Magistra Barton has written two books about the Church of Satan, including a biography of Anton LaVey called “The Secret Life of a Satanist,” and “The Church of Satan: A History of the World’s Most Notorious Religion.” Blanche says even before the house became a satanic sanctuary, like so many old San Francisco Victorians, the house itself had an interesting history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> It was Built in 1887, as far as the stories go, by a Scottish sea captain. And there were timbers in the lower levels that had come to San Francisco During the gold rush, and it had trapdoors and it had been used as a whorehouse and a speakeasy. It had a bar downstairs. It had secret passageways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>When he purchased the house in ‘56, LaVey lived there with his first wife and their young daughter, Karla. And as his interests in the supernatural deepened, he surrounded himself with a group of friends who were curious about the same things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>The Church of Satan, sort of grew out of what he called the Magic Circle. They were all intrigued by the weird and the unexplained. They started sort of having soirees and that sort of led into ritualizing, to see, practically, what happens or if anything happens. He started presenting seminars on the various topics that he was interested in from, vampires to cannibalism. Everything weird and wonderful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[spooky music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> And in 1966, the people in that magic circle became the first members of the Church of Satan… picture it… a dark night, April 30th, Walpurgisnacht — a German holiday with Pagan origins, sometimes called “The night of the witches.” On that night Anton LaVey ritualistically shaved his head in the tradition of medieval executioners and dark magicians, adopting the look he’d have for the rest of his life, and declared 1966 to be the first year of the reign of Satan, thus founding America’s first official Satanic church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And from there, it became a kind of hit…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[swinging music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey claimed that the church had hundreds of members in San Francisco and thousands throughout the world. He was a natural showman, with his shiny polished bald head, black goatee, and intense eyes. He wore all black, a long cloak, large rings, a pentagram medallion, and would make appearances wearing a hooded devil costume with little horns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He had a 500-pound pet lion named Togare who he’d raised from a cub, that slept in his bedroom at night. He invited reporters and the public inside the Black House to attend Satanic Mass…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Archival recording of Satanic Mass]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>…Where he’d invoke the devil while wielding a large sword or sometimes a boa constrictor while a nude woman was draped across the altar in the ritual chamber. He even married people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip of LaVey marrying couple:\u003c/b> “Former New York socialite Judith Chase and John Raymond were joined in unholy wedlock before a live altar, a nude redhead. Self-ordained sorcerer/minister Anton Levey presided at the San Francisco ceremony.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>The media absolutely ate it up. They started calling him the Black Pope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip of LaVey marrying couple:\u003c/b> “As the worst man looks on, the blessings of Lucifer and Beelzebub are invoked. The elaborate rite smacked of publicity, because next day the bride and groom secured a conventional wedding license”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey was charismatic and people seemed to gravitate to him. He became a kind of overnight celebrity. He was interviewed on national television, in magazines, people across the country were seeing his face. Even people who seemed to \u003ci>hate\u003c/i> him wanted to interview him… Like talk show host Joe Pyne…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> Are you married?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Oh yes\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> You have any little devils?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Oh yes. I have two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb> Pyne: \u003c/b>Are you gonna raise them as satanic kids?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Certainly, but not to go around chopping people up as sacrificing human beings just to—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne: \u003c/b> That would be the greatest reward of all. If your kids some night would creep in and set fire to you and your lion, then dance around with pitchforks saying “Hey look at daddy, look at daddy!” (audience laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>But it seemed like all kinds of people were at least curious about the church. At one time, Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace were linked to the Church of Satan. In 1966 the actress Jayne Mansfield met LaVey at a film festival in San Francisco and they began an unlikely friendship. There are numerous photos of them together, even performing a ritual at Mansfield’s home, though Mansfield said she was a Catholic and simply found LaVey intriguing. Some people blame her untimely death in a car crash a year later on an alleged curse LaVey put on the driver of the car… but who’s to say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Controversies made the news. Famously, in 1967 he baptized his then 3-year-old daughter Zeena into the church, dedicating her to Satan while her mother, LaVey’s 2nd partner Diane Hegarty, looked on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival clip of LaVey baptizing Zeena: \u003c/b>In the name of our great god, Satan Lucifer, I command thee to come forth an bestow these blessings upon us…(fades down and LaVey continues)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>So how much of LaVey’s highly theatrical image was serious? Well, while much of the ritualizing was akin to performance art, he was sincere in his philosophy. LaVey published “The Satanic Bible,” which by now has sold over a million copies, outlining his beliefs. The number one sin in Satanism is stupidity or willful ignorance. Herd conformity is also up there. He founded the Church of Satan as an alternative to what he saw as the repression of many other mainstream religions. Denying human nature, he said, was the real sin. Indulgence is key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> No religion had ever been based on man’s carnal needs or his fleshly pursuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is a clip of LaVey from a documentary filmed in those first few years of the church called “Satanis: The Devil’s Mass”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Not everyone was a fan, of course. He was telling people to embrace their animal nature… give in to their dark and lustful desires. Christian groups were appalled, obviously, and what about the neighbors? Here’s Blanche Barton again…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> One of the most amusing parts of the film, almost endearing, is when they go out and talk to the neighbors. And it’s pretty funny. You know, they say that they see the nude people dancing around in the front. And they saw the lion — eating something! Really quite, quite devilish and intriguing. (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip from ‘Satanis: The Devil’s Mass]\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 1:\u003c/b> He’s been in the neighborhood about 14 years and I always knew him as Tony. Just a nice ordinary — well — a little more dramatic than most men in the neighborhood, perhaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 2:\u003c/b> Actually I don’t know what kind of man he is. As soon as you meet him, you think he’s a very very nice man, you know. I just had a feeling I can trust him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 3:\u003c/b> (grumbling) A very undesirable type of a neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Neighbors successfully petitioned to have LaVey’s pet lion relocated in the late 60s. He first landed in a zoo, then ended up at a big cat sanctuary in Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the goings on at the church, the nude rituals, wild events, blaspheming…well, freedom of religion! They weren’t doing anything illegal. Still, by the 70s, LaVey had stopped inviting the press in for all the rituals, instead focusing more on cultivating new members. He was living in a world of his own aesthetic making, which is a primary tenet of his satanic philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> Anton Levey was first and foremost an artist. He felt that aesthetics, whatever you are most drawn to, is what you should use. If you’re really excited about Frankenstein or if you are very drawn to technology. Because what you do in the ritual chamber is you’re evoking your emotions. Nothing comes from outside. It’s not coming from Satan or demons or anything. But we know the power that Humans have for creating a world and a life for yourself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey was making a living through the church, taking speaking engagements and charging initiation fees for new members. He also sometimes worked as an organist at local clubs. He spent more of his time making art, and music, another passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>He got the most joy out of playing. Keyboards because he could control the entire orchestra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Clip of Anton LaVey playing keyboards]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>He even pressed a record. Much of it includes recordings of early satanic masses, but also just, you know, some songs…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Anton LaVey singing a song called ‘Honolulu Baby’]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>His specific aesthetics were very much in the forties. A lot of the precepts of Satanism that he developed are very much, sort of, grounded in his creative self.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Anton LaVey singing, music fades out]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> And then in the Eighties, there was the Satanic Panic going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> In the 1980s and through the 90s there was a national wave of fear that “Satanic Cults” were taking over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video: \u003c/b>Anton LaVey, perhaps the best-known Satanist in America compiled his years of cult knowledge into two books: the Satanic Bible, and the Satanic Rituals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is from an hourlong police training video from 1993, filmed in San Francisco, that was created to teach law enforcement how to spot satanic symbols and investigate “satanic crimes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video:\u003c/b> Now remember, not all satanic people commit crimes. Some of their activities may be perfectly legal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>It has all the highly stereotypical suggestions about what kinds of \u003ci>illegal\u003c/i> activities Satanists might engage in….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video: \u003c/b>Murder, which might include human sacrifice, or mass murders or cannibalism…(fade under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Some of them, frankly, are pretty macabre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video:\u003c/b> Corpse theft, cemetery vandalism, black market sales of bones and skulls, black market baby selling…(fade under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Dramatic music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>To be clear, these things weren’t happening. It’s kind of funny now, especially set to\u003ci> that \u003c/i>music, but at that time the fear that these things \u003ci>were actually\u003c/i> happening was intense. Through the 80s and 90s upwards of 10-thousand unsubstantiated claims of ritualistic abuse by supposed satanic cults were made, though not directly against the Church of Satan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was happening in California, and all over the United States. It was like the witch trials all over again. There were numerous high-profile cases where people were convicted of satanic crimes, only to be exonerated after serving years, sometimes decades, in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> But at the same time, there was a real excitement. From younger people who were. Sort of discovering Satanism because of the satanic. Panic. You know, people were jumping up and down and. Saying, “Oh, this is so evil, this is so. Bad.” And yet they would. Publish the satanic statements and the young kids would say, Well, that seems pretty sensible. To me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Because, here’s the thing a lot of people get wrong about The Church of Satan. Satanists don’t worship the devil. They don’t drink blood, sacrifice babies or animals. They don’t even believe in the literal devil. They’re atheists. Satanism is more of a philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>What the Satanic Bible tries to advocate is independent study, not worship. There is no dogma. You know, we honor animals. We honor children. It’s against self-deceit, kindness to those who deserve it rather than love wasted on ingrates. And the last one, of course, people get a chuckle out of because we say, we recognize that Satan is the best friend that the church has ever had…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> The devil is the guy that’s kept the church in business for many many years. Without him, and the concept of evil, where would the church be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> Using a satanic adversary to represent an ideology of personal freedom and indulging without guilt… Blanche says it’s really more of a style choice. That’s what drew her in…She wanted to embrace her dark and sensual side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> I was looking for a philosophy that really represented women and a freedom for women and their lust. And their desires and their habits and their beauty and their wisdom. And I felt that most organized religions just did not have a voice for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Blanche had been following the Church of Satan through her teenage years and early 20s in Southern California, even coming to San Francisco to meet Anton LaVey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> From our first meeting we felt a draw to each other. And from that time we spent a lot of time on the phone and corresponding back and forth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Less than a year later in 1984, just after graduating college, she moves to San Francisco at the age of 22. Shortly thereafter they became romantically involved. Blanche moved into the Black House in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>We had a wonderful life together. It had a rhythm. Of course, he was very nocturnal. So a lot of times we would get up at four or five in the evening and meet people. Play music, converse, maybe watch a Movie And then we would go to sleep around dawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Rituals were no longer public, but occasional private events. LaVey wasn’t willing to present the Church of Satan as just a curiosity anymore. In 1993, Blanche gave birth to their son, his third child, Satan Xerxes. At that point, LaVey was 63 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MUSIC\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Pyne:\u003c/b> So is it necessary to drive a stake through your heart to kill you, or would an ordinary knock on the head do it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> I will never die.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> You won’t?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> No, of course not. I’ve made arrangements. (audience ooohs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Anton LaVey died from heart disease at St. Mary’s in San Francisco on October 29th, 1997. Although his official death certificate lists his expiration date as Halloween.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what happens when the core of the Church of Satan, the man who was its central flame, gets snuffed out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, Blanche served as high priestess, the top leadership position, for a few years, before stepping down and handing the reins over to longtime member Peter Gilmore, who is still its high priest. The church left San Francisco and now has a new ‘Black House’ in New York state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey’s oldest daughter, Karla, was also high-priestess for a time but left the Church of Satan to start her own “First Satanic Church” in San Francisco. It’s a lot more exclusive and is known for throwing a great Black X-Mass concert in the city every year for the last couple decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zeena, who was dedicated to Satan as a toddler, left Satanism entirely and became a Tantric Buddhist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His son, Satan Xerxes, isn’t involved at all and lives a private life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the infamous Black House…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> It was an amazing house and it should have been preserved. And we did try.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey had been forced to sell the house to a friend in the early 90s though he was allowed to live there until his death. But the house was in disrepair, and the land was just too valuable. When efforts to find a preservation group willing to take it on failed, the property was sold and torn down in 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What stands there now is a very normal-looking apartment building. No lingering signs that it was once a raucous den of sin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That was Bay Curious producer Amanda Font.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s it for today’s installment in our Boo Curious series. If you’ve been digging it, please share with a friend, or leave us a five-star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode was produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, Brendan Willard, and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "From its humble beginnings in a black Victorian house in the Richmond District, to its rapid growth that helped kick off a wave of “satanic panic” across the country, the story of the Church of Satan is filled with lust, intrigue and a fair amount of theatrics.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area has long been associated with countercultural movements — whether it was the Beats of the 1950s, the hippies of the 1960s or the Black Panthers of the 1970s. But often overlooked in that long tradition of local subcultures is the emergence of America’s first official satanic church, which was founded right here in San Francisco. \u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From its beginnings in a black Victorian house in the Richmond District, to its rapid growth that may have helped kick off a wave of “satanic panic” across the country, the story of the Church of Satan is filled with lust, intrigue and a fair amount of theatrics.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A born showman\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>You can’t describe the \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/\">Church of Satan\u003c/a> without talking about the man who was its founder and central figure for decades, and who even posthumously is probably still the most iconic Satanist. Anton Szandor LaVey was born Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago in 1930. His family moved to the Bay Area when he was still a child, and he \u003ca href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20120314024245/http://www.pacificsun.com/story.php?story_id=2313\">supposedly attended Tamalpais High School\u003c/a> in Mill Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a young age, LaVey had an interest in magic, the supernatural, and the idea of trickery. In a 1993 documentary about him called “\u003ca href=\"https://mubi.com/en/us/films/speak-of-the-devil\">Speak of the Devil\u003c/a>,” LaVey describes how fascinated he was as a little kid when a friend showed him a copy of the Johnson and Smith Company’s \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Smith_Company\">novelty catalog\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[It was] filled with all of these jokes, tricks, and books on forbidden subjects,” LaVey said. “It had all the most horrid examples of man’s inhumanity to man, all of course presented in the form of good fun and entertainment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey got his own copy of the catalog, and ordered several novelty trick toys from it, including a ‘recorder box’ that would stab a sharp needle into the finger of an unsuspecting victim when a button was pushed. LaVey said he felt the trick was too mean to play on his own friends, but he didn’t feel bad about handing the toy over to a bully. That distinction was perhaps a precursor to the later development of his satanic philosophy, which advocates for bestowing kindness on those who deserve it, but seeking revenge on those who wrong you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That curious nature led LaVey to pursue somewhat unusual jobs. He claimed to have joined the circus at 16, where he said he’d worked with the big cats as a “cage boy.” Likewise, he said he’d done stints as a psychic investigator, paranormal researcher, and hypnotist. He also claimed to have briefly been a crime scene photographer for the SFPD, although there are no official records to back that up.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Some have suggested that LaVey may have embellished some details of his early life, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/history-anton-szandor-lavey/\">The Church of Satan, on its site, contends it has evidence\u003c/a> to support his claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey is also known to have worked as an organist and musician and performed at clubs around San Francisco beginning in the late 1940s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the early 1950s, he was already cultivating the kind of dark aesthetic and occult interests that would lead him to found his church. In 1956, he purchased a Victorian house at 6114 California Street, a few blocks from the edge of the Presidio near the center of San Francisco’s Richmond neighborhood, and painted it black. The house had a brick staircase leading up to the front door, with a parlor and a bar downstairs. The room that would become the primary ritual chamber contained a large mantle piece, one that would be featured prominently in future ceremonies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Church of Satan sort of grew out of what he called the Magic Circle,” said Blanche Barton, who is the current \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/history-blanche-barton/\">Magistra Templi Rex\u003c/a> — a ranking member — of the Church of Satan, and one of \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Satanist-Authorized-Biography/dp/1627310029/churchofsatan\">LaVey’s biographers\u003c/a> and a former lover, with whom he had his only son: Satan Xerxes Carnacki LaVey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton says LaVey surrounded himself with friends who shared similar interests. “They were all intrigued by the weird and the unexplained. They started having soirées and that sort of led into ritualizing to see, practically, what happens or if anything happens,” she said. “[LaVey] started presenting seminars on the various topics that he was interested in, from vampires to cannibalism — everything weird and wonderful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964952\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-11964952 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white close up image of a man wearing a hooded cloak with devil horns. He is holding the point of a sword in front of his face. He casts a shadow onto the wall behind him, which features a large pentagram.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-800x535.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1020x683.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1536x1028.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-2048x1370.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098328-1920x1285.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey poses in his Black House in 1967. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘First year of the reign of Satan’\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the spring of 1966, the Church of Satan was officially launched and its congregation was comprised of a handful of people in LaVey’s inner circle. They gathered in his home — which was by then known as “The Black House” — on the night of April 30 to celebrate Walpurgisnacht, a German holiday with pagan origins that’s sometimes called the “night of the witches.” The holiday is, ironically, on the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga, which commemorates the saint who is believed to offer protection from witchcraft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey ritualistically shaved his head in the tradition of medieval executioners and dark magicians and declared 1966 to be the “first year of the reign of Satan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To attract followers to the church outside of his exclusive group of like-minded parishioners, LaVey quickly began spreading word of his satanic philosophy through public speaking engagements and by inviting reporters — and whoever else had interest — into his Black House to witness satanic rituals and masses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rituals themselves were a highly theatrical affair, akin to performance art, featuring satanic iconography and moody organ music. LaVey would wear a hooded cloak with devil horns and a pentagram medallion while invoking the many names of the devil. He’d often wield a sword or sometimes a large snake while a nude woman was draped over an altar in the house’s ritual chamber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blanche Barton says the aesthetics of Satanism were rooted in LaVey’s artistic nature: He was a painter, sculptor and musician, who just happened to have a penchant for dark things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Examples of the early rituals he led can be seen in the 1970 documentary, “\u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/satanis-the-devils-mass-1970\">Satanis: The Devil’s Mass,\u003c/a>” which chronicles the early years of the church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the most amusing parts of the film, almost endearing, is when they go out and talk to the neighbors,” Barton said. “And it’s pretty funny. You know, they say that they see the nude people dancing around in the front. And they saw the lion … eating something! Really quite devilish and intriguing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964956\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964956\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-800x759.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white image of a man with dark curly hair and a goatee seated cross legged on the floor of a room. In front of him is a lion cub, which looks at the camera.\" width=\"800\" height=\"759\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-800x759.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-1020x967.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-160x152.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621-1536x1457.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1310361512-scaled-e1697739531621.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey, founder and self-proclaimed high priest of the Church of Satan, is photographed at home in San Francisco with his pet lion on June 26, 1964. \u003ccite>(Art Frisch/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s right — LaVey actually owned a 500-pound pet lion named Togare, who he’d raised from a cub, and who lived with him in the Black House and slept in his bedroom at night. In the late 1960s, when his neighbors successfully petitioned to have the lion removed, Lavey ended up giving his oversized pet to actress Tippi Hedren, who starred in “The Birds,” and had founded (and apparently still lives on) \u003ca href=\"https://www.shambala.org/about.htm\">a big cat sanctuary\u003c/a> in Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey soon became a well-known personality throughout California and increasingly nationwide, largely supporting himself by collecting church initiation fees and doing paid public speaking engagements. He was frequently interviewed in print publications and on TV, including on \u003cem>The Tonight Show\u003c/em>. Even people who seemed to despise his ideology wanted to talk to him — as is evident in this interview with antagonistic talk show host Joe Pyne:\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Kqb54soKU8M'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Kqb54soKU8M'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A wide variety of people were drawn to LaVey’s dark charm and hedonistic philosophy that promoted a guilt-free, indulgent lifestyle. The church is rumored to have drawn in several notable celebrities in its early years, including Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey also \u003ca href=\"https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4718112/Hollywood-Satanist-Bizarre-Jayne-Mansfield-Anton-LaVey.html\">developed a friendship\u003c/a> with blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield, an actress, nightclub entertainer and Playboy playmate, and the mother of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit star Mariska Hargitay. There was even speculation that Mansfield’s death in 1967, a year after meeting LaVey, was the result of a curse he is believed to have placed on the driver of the car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not surprisingly, LaVey openly courted controversy. In 1967, he \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/SFGate/videos/anton-lavey-oversees-a-satanic-wedding-ceremony-in-san-francisco/10156878589425594/\">publicized and officiated a satanic wedding\u003c/a> between a New York socialite and a journalist. He also performed satanic funerals for servicemen in the Bay Area, at the request of their families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the time he started the church, LaVey had divorced his first wife and became involved with another woman, with whom he had a daughter, his second child. In 1967, he baptized the 3-year-old girl into the church, dedicating her to Satan as she sat in a hooded robe next to the nude altar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964962\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964962\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-800x923.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a hooded devil costume kneels in front of a large brick fireplace. A blonde woman kneels to his right. They are both reaching up towards a small girl wearing a hooded robe, who sits on the edge of the mantle, over which is draped a nude woman. A large pentagram featuring the head of Baphomet is painted on the wall behind them.\" width=\"800\" height=\"923\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-800x923.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1020x1176.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-160x185.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1332x1536.jpg 1332w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672-1776x2048.jpg 1776w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515036094-scaled-e1697741210672.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton Szandor LaVey, the leader of the First Church of Satan, taps his gum-chewing 3-year-old daughter, Zeena Galatea LaVey, on the head with a sword during “baptism ceremonies” in San Francisco on May 23, 1967. A naked woman reclines on the altar during the anti-religious ceremony. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Satanic Bible\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 1969, LaVey published \u003ca href=\"https://www.harvard.com/book/the_satanic_bible/\">The Satanic Bible\u003c/a>, outlining his philosophy and detailing the official tenets of his church. At the core are \u003ca href=\"https://www.churchofsatan.com/nine-satanic-statements/\">the 9 Satanic Statements\u003c/a>, the last of which is: “Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here LaVey refers to the Christian Church, which he said he found hypocritical for its denial of human nature. “No religion had ever been based on man’s carnal needs or his fleshly pursuits,” he said, in a 1970 interview. “All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The word Satan means adversary, he explained. “I’m supplying a much-needed opposition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the nine statements begin with “Satan represents…” Many people incorrectly assume that Satanists worship the devil. In fact, the Church of Satan’s official position is that the devil doesn’t exist at all. It’s an atheistic religion — really more like a philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What the Satanic Bible tries to advocate is independent study, not worship,” Blanche Barton, his biographer and former lover, said. “There is no dogma.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey’s philosophy grew in popularity throughout the 1970s. But even as the church continued to openly insist that it didn’t worship or believe in the devil, a centuries-old fear inevitably came bubbling to the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The satanic panic\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Beginning in the 1980s, and lasting through the 1990s, LaVey’s church spurred a national wave of fear and conspiracy theories around “satanic cults,” resulting in over 12,000 unsubstantiated claims of satanic ritual abuse and crimes, many centered around children, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/us/satanic-panic.html\">according to the New York Times\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A series of high-profile court cases drew national headlines during this period of “satanic panic.” One notorious case in the early 1980s — the \u003ca href=\"https://famous-trials.com/mcmartin/902-home\">McMartin Preschool trial\u003c/a> in Manhattan Beach in Southern California — originated from a mother’s claim that her son had been sexually abused by his preschool, which she accused of being run by Satanists.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That incited a set of increasingly bizarre claims of satanic child abuse and led to hundreds of children being interrogated by state investigators over allegations that they had been forced to do things like drink the blood of sacrificed animals or dig up graves. The mother who made the initial claim was later found to be prone to schizophrenic delusions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tapes of the children’s interviews were reviewed by a clinical psychologist who said they were coercive and extremely suggestive, leading children to give the answers the interviewers wanted to hear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two separate trials over the course of seven years resulted in no convictions. And at a cost of $15 million, it became the most expensive criminal trial in U.S. history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other similar cases resulted in actual convictions, a large number of them in the state of Texas. Most, however, were ultimately \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/08/24/accused-of-satanism-they-spent-21-years-in-prison-they-were-just-declared-innocent-and-were-paid-millions/\">overturned\u003c/a> due to lack of evidence, sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/10/26/how-satanic-panic-led-a-10-year-old-son-to-falsely-accuse-his-father/\">decades later\u003c/a> after the convicted parties had served \u003ca href=\"https://www.tpr.org/criminal-justice/2023-04-11/after-30-years-a-father-is-exonerated-in-satanic-panic-case\">years in prison\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Accusations weren’t lobbed directly at the Church of Satan, but the group was sometimes cited by police as having an influence on the spread of the ideology — as is the case in this \u003ca href=\"https://archive.org/details/LawEnforcementGuideToSatanicCults1994VHSOccultHilarity\">police training video\u003c/a>. Filmed in San Francisco in the early 1990s, the video includes stereotypical claims about crimes Satanists might commit, from cannibalism and necrophilia to corpse theft and black market baby sales — despite any evidence of the church ever doing or condoning such things.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Fate of the Black House\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Blanche Barton moved to San Francisco in 1984 at the age of 22 and became romantically involved with LaVey that same year. Five years later, Barton moved into the Black House with LaVey, who sold it to pay off debts, but continued renting it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton says, like so many other San Francisco Victorians, the house itself had a long and interesting history dating back to its construction in 1887.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It had trapdoors and it had been used as a [brothel] and a speakeasy,” she said, “It had a bar downstairs. It had secret passageways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964959\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964959\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-800x532.jpg\" alt=\"A mean in a hooded devil costume and cloak emerges from a secret passage way in the fireplace of a a room in his house. There are bookshelves above hi, and a human skeleton mounted in a large display case on the wall to the right.\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-800x532.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-160x106.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-515098326-scaled-e1697741191291.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, rises out from a hidden corridor behind a false fireplace in his study in 1967. \u003ccite>(Bettmann/Getty)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>LaVey died from heart disease on Oct. 29, 1997, at the age of 67, although according to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1997/11/09/anton-s-lavey-dies-at-67/c546b323-acb9-463e-ad96-7da298f9e4d8/\">obituary in \u003cem>The Washington Post\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, his death certificate listed him as dying several days later, on Halloween. He left behind three children, all from different women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leadership of the church was eventually turned over to longtime church member Peter Gilmore, who still serves as its high priest. The church’s headquarters have since been moved to New York state, where Gilmore and his partner Peggy Nadramia built a new “Black House.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barton said she and a group of followers attempted to raise money to buy LaVey’s house back so that it could be preserved as a museum, but those efforts ultimately failed, and the house was eventually sold and torn down in 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was so much a part of his soul,” said Barton, “And as he said, ‘The roots went all the way to hell.’ So he was able to be there until the last, which was great.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What now stands in its place is a rather normal-looking beige apartment building, devoid of any signs that it was once the site of a satanic sanctuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>If you visited San Francisco’s Richmond District before 2001, and made your way to 6114 California Street, you would have found yourself facing a tall Victorian house that was entirely \u003ci>black.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An attention grabbing paint scheme for sure. But it’s what happened inside The Black House that truly intrigued curious San Francsicans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was the first headquarters of the Church of Satan … and the personal home of its founder Anton LaVey. His theatrical nature, and controversial beliefs, turned him into a kind of celebrity… here he is in an interview in 1970…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Pyne:\u003c/b> Who ordained you a atanic priest?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey:\u003c/b> I would say, probably, I received the call. Just as any fundamentalist—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> Well most of us do, but we fight it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Why fight it? This is, of course, the whole principle of my religion. All—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> What do you mean you received the call? You mean one day the devil said “Go out, Anton Szandor LaVey, and give people hell!” [audience laughs]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> That’s about it. That’s about it. Because people like to have a hell of a time, don’t they?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Spooky music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> How did the Church of Satan get its start in San Francisco? And what was it like to live in the Black House with the so-called “Black Pope” himself?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Welcome to the third installment of Boo Curious! This October we’re bringing you stories about the creepy, the eerie, the misunderstood places around the Bay Area. Today, we explore what was going on inside that Black House. And who, really, was Anton LaVey?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> Well listen, I’d tell you where to go, but you’d enjoy it… [audience laughs] We’ll be back with another guest…(fade under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Now stay close, you don’t want to get lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[spooky laugh]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b> We sent producer Amanda Font to make a deal with the devil, and learn more about The Black House, and the Church of Satan’s larger-than-life founder…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>The Bay Area is often associated with countercultural movements. You had the beat poets of the 1950s getting arrested for protesting censorship, the free-loving hippies of the 1960s dropping acid in the park, and the Black Panthers in the 1970s fighting back against institutional racism. What you don’t often hear about alongside those other cultural phenomena is that the late 1960s in San Francisco also gave rise to the notorious, indulgent, and wickedly provocative Church of Satan. [\u003ci>demonic vocal effect on “Church of Satan”]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>In this case, when we use the word “church,” it might not be exactly what you’re picturing. They do describe themselves as a religious organization, but there aren’t a lot of physical church buildings associated with Satanism. It’s more like an organization of like-minded people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, the black heart of the church, and perhaps still the most recognizable Satanist, was its founder Anton Szandor LaVey. He was born Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago in 1930, and later his family moved to the Bay Area. From a young age, he had a fascination with the supernatural, magic and the idea of trickery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]: \u003c/b>When I was about 5 years old, I had a friend that had a catalog from the Johnson and Smith company, filled with all of these jokes, tricks, and books on forbidden subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is a clip of LaVey from a 1993 documentary about him called “Speak of the Devil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> It had all the most horrid examples of man’s inhumanity to man, all of course presented in the form of good fun and entertainment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Like a toy “recorder box,” that, when you pushed a button, would stab a sharp needle into the finger of an unsuspecting victim. LaVey recalls he didn’t want to play such a mean trick on his friends… but he didn’t mind if it was a kid who was a bully. A similar thought came into play later, when he developed his satanic philosophy. It’s big on the idea of being kind to those who deserve it, but seeking revenge on those who wrong you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As he got older, LaVey’s curious nature led him to pursue somewhat unusual jobs. In his early life, he claimed to have worked in a circus with big cats, as a psychic investigator, an organist, a hypnotist, and to have been a police photographer for the SFPD (although there are no official records to back that last one.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1956, a decade before he officially created the Church of Satan, he was already cultivating the kind of dark aesthetic that people would come to know him for. LaVey bought the Victorian house at 6114 California Street and painted it black.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> And as he said, the roots went all The way to hell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b> This is Blanche Barton…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> I am the current Magistra Templi Rex of the Church of Satan. I’ve been a member of the organization. Wow, almost 50 years now. And I was a high priestess for a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>She also was Anton LaVey’s romantic partner for 13 years, and they had a child together. Blanche, or Magistra Barton has written two books about the Church of Satan, including a biography of Anton LaVey called “The Secret Life of a Satanist,” and “The Church of Satan: A History of the World’s Most Notorious Religion.” Blanche says even before the house became a satanic sanctuary, like so many old San Francisco Victorians, the house itself had an interesting history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> It was Built in 1887, as far as the stories go, by a Scottish sea captain. And there were timbers in the lower levels that had come to San Francisco During the gold rush, and it had trapdoors and it had been used as a whorehouse and a speakeasy. It had a bar downstairs. It had secret passageways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>When he purchased the house in ‘56, LaVey lived there with his first wife and their young daughter, Karla. And as his interests in the supernatural deepened, he surrounded himself with a group of friends who were curious about the same things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>The Church of Satan, sort of grew out of what he called the Magic Circle. They were all intrigued by the weird and the unexplained. They started sort of having soirees and that sort of led into ritualizing, to see, practically, what happens or if anything happens. He started presenting seminars on the various topics that he was interested in from, vampires to cannibalism. Everything weird and wonderful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[spooky music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> And in 1966, the people in that magic circle became the first members of the Church of Satan… picture it… a dark night, April 30th, Walpurgisnacht — a German holiday with Pagan origins, sometimes called “The night of the witches.” On that night Anton LaVey ritualistically shaved his head in the tradition of medieval executioners and dark magicians, adopting the look he’d have for the rest of his life, and declared 1966 to be the first year of the reign of Satan, thus founding America’s first official Satanic church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And from there, it became a kind of hit…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[swinging music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey claimed that the church had hundreds of members in San Francisco and thousands throughout the world. He was a natural showman, with his shiny polished bald head, black goatee, and intense eyes. He wore all black, a long cloak, large rings, a pentagram medallion, and would make appearances wearing a hooded devil costume with little horns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He had a 500-pound pet lion named Togare who he’d raised from a cub, that slept in his bedroom at night. He invited reporters and the public inside the Black House to attend Satanic Mass…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Archival recording of Satanic Mass]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>…Where he’d invoke the devil while wielding a large sword or sometimes a boa constrictor while a nude woman was draped across the altar in the ritual chamber. He even married people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip of LaVey marrying couple:\u003c/b> “Former New York socialite Judith Chase and John Raymond were joined in unholy wedlock before a live altar, a nude redhead. Self-ordained sorcerer/minister Anton Levey presided at the San Francisco ceremony.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>The media absolutely ate it up. They started calling him the Black Pope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip of LaVey marrying couple:\u003c/b> “As the worst man looks on, the blessings of Lucifer and Beelzebub are invoked. The elaborate rite smacked of publicity, because next day the bride and groom secured a conventional wedding license”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey was charismatic and people seemed to gravitate to him. He became a kind of overnight celebrity. He was interviewed on national television, in magazines, people across the country were seeing his face. Even people who seemed to \u003ci>hate\u003c/i> him wanted to interview him… Like talk show host Joe Pyne…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> Are you married?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Oh yes\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> You have any little devils?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Oh yes. I have two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb> Pyne: \u003c/b>Are you gonna raise them as satanic kids?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> Certainly, but not to go around chopping people up as sacrificing human beings just to—\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne: \u003c/b> That would be the greatest reward of all. If your kids some night would creep in and set fire to you and your lion, then dance around with pitchforks saying “Hey look at daddy, look at daddy!” (audience laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>But it seemed like all kinds of people were at least curious about the church. At one time, Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace were linked to the Church of Satan. In 1966 the actress Jayne Mansfield met LaVey at a film festival in San Francisco and they began an unlikely friendship. There are numerous photos of them together, even performing a ritual at Mansfield’s home, though Mansfield said she was a Catholic and simply found LaVey intriguing. Some people blame her untimely death in a car crash a year later on an alleged curse LaVey put on the driver of the car… but who’s to say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Controversies made the news. Famously, in 1967 he baptized his then 3-year-old daughter Zeena into the church, dedicating her to Satan while her mother, LaVey’s 2nd partner Diane Hegarty, looked on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival clip of LaVey baptizing Zeena: \u003c/b>In the name of our great god, Satan Lucifer, I command thee to come forth an bestow these blessings upon us…(fades down and LaVey continues)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>So how much of LaVey’s highly theatrical image was serious? Well, while much of the ritualizing was akin to performance art, he was sincere in his philosophy. LaVey published “The Satanic Bible,” which by now has sold over a million copies, outlining his beliefs. The number one sin in Satanism is stupidity or willful ignorance. Herd conformity is also up there. He founded the Church of Satan as an alternative to what he saw as the repression of many other mainstream religions. Denying human nature, he said, was the real sin. Indulgence is key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> No religion had ever been based on man’s carnal needs or his fleshly pursuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is a clip of LaVey from a documentary filmed in those first few years of the church called “Satanis: The Devil’s Mass”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> All religions are based on abstinence instead of indulgence. All religions therefore have to be based on fear. Well, we don’t feel that fear is necessary to base a religion on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Not everyone was a fan, of course. He was telling people to embrace their animal nature… give in to their dark and lustful desires. Christian groups were appalled, obviously, and what about the neighbors? Here’s Blanche Barton again…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> One of the most amusing parts of the film, almost endearing, is when they go out and talk to the neighbors. And it’s pretty funny. You know, they say that they see the nude people dancing around in the front. And they saw the lion — eating something! Really quite, quite devilish and intriguing. (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip from ‘Satanis: The Devil’s Mass]\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 1:\u003c/b> He’s been in the neighborhood about 14 years and I always knew him as Tony. Just a nice ordinary — well — a little more dramatic than most men in the neighborhood, perhaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 2:\u003c/b> Actually I don’t know what kind of man he is. As soon as you meet him, you think he’s a very very nice man, you know. I just had a feeling I can trust him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Neighbor 3:\u003c/b> (grumbling) A very undesirable type of a neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Neighbors successfully petitioned to have LaVey’s pet lion relocated in the late 60s. He first landed in a zoo, then ended up at a big cat sanctuary in Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the goings on at the church, the nude rituals, wild events, blaspheming…well, freedom of religion! They weren’t doing anything illegal. Still, by the 70s, LaVey had stopped inviting the press in for all the rituals, instead focusing more on cultivating new members. He was living in a world of his own aesthetic making, which is a primary tenet of his satanic philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> Anton Levey was first and foremost an artist. He felt that aesthetics, whatever you are most drawn to, is what you should use. If you’re really excited about Frankenstein or if you are very drawn to technology. Because what you do in the ritual chamber is you’re evoking your emotions. Nothing comes from outside. It’s not coming from Satan or demons or anything. But we know the power that Humans have for creating a world and a life for yourself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey was making a living through the church, taking speaking engagements and charging initiation fees for new members. He also sometimes worked as an organist at local clubs. He spent more of his time making art, and music, another passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>He got the most joy out of playing. Keyboards because he could control the entire orchestra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Clip of Anton LaVey playing keyboards]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>He even pressed a record. Much of it includes recordings of early satanic masses, but also just, you know, some songs…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Anton LaVey singing a song called ‘Honolulu Baby’]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>His specific aesthetics were very much in the forties. A lot of the precepts of Satanism that he developed are very much, sort of, grounded in his creative self.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Anton LaVey singing, music fades out]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> And then in the Eighties, there was the Satanic Panic going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> In the 1980s and through the 90s there was a national wave of fear that “Satanic Cults” were taking over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video: \u003c/b>Anton LaVey, perhaps the best-known Satanist in America compiled his years of cult knowledge into two books: the Satanic Bible, and the Satanic Rituals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>This is from an hourlong police training video from 1993, filmed in San Francisco, that was created to teach law enforcement how to spot satanic symbols and investigate “satanic crimes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video:\u003c/b> Now remember, not all satanic people commit crimes. Some of their activities may be perfectly legal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>It has all the highly stereotypical suggestions about what kinds of \u003ci>illegal\u003c/i> activities Satanists might engage in….\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video: \u003c/b>Murder, which might include human sacrifice, or mass murders or cannibalism…(fade under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Some of them, frankly, are pretty macabre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from training video:\u003c/b> Corpse theft, cemetery vandalism, black market sales of bones and skulls, black market baby selling…(fade under)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Dramatic music]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>To be clear, these things weren’t happening. It’s kind of funny now, especially set to\u003ci> that \u003c/i>music, but at that time the fear that these things \u003ci>were actually\u003c/i> happening was intense. Through the 80s and 90s upwards of 10-thousand unsubstantiated claims of ritualistic abuse by supposed satanic cults were made, though not directly against the Church of Satan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was happening in California, and all over the United States. It was like the witch trials all over again. There were numerous high-profile cases where people were convicted of satanic crimes, only to be exonerated after serving years, sometimes decades, in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> But at the same time, there was a real excitement. From younger people who were. Sort of discovering Satanism because of the satanic. Panic. You know, people were jumping up and down and. Saying, “Oh, this is so evil, this is so. Bad.” And yet they would. Publish the satanic statements and the young kids would say, Well, that seems pretty sensible. To me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Because, here’s the thing a lot of people get wrong about The Church of Satan. Satanists don’t worship the devil. They don’t drink blood, sacrifice babies or animals. They don’t even believe in the literal devil. They’re atheists. Satanism is more of a philosophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>What the Satanic Bible tries to advocate is independent study, not worship. There is no dogma. You know, we honor animals. We honor children. It’s against self-deceit, kindness to those who deserve it rather than love wasted on ingrates. And the last one, of course, people get a chuckle out of because we say, we recognize that Satan is the best friend that the church has ever had…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anton LaVey [archival]:\u003c/b> The devil is the guy that’s kept the church in business for many many years. Without him, and the concept of evil, where would the church be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font:\u003c/b> Using a satanic adversary to represent an ideology of personal freedom and indulging without guilt… Blanche says it’s really more of a style choice. That’s what drew her in…She wanted to embrace her dark and sensual side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> I was looking for a philosophy that really represented women and a freedom for women and their lust. And their desires and their habits and their beauty and their wisdom. And I felt that most organized religions just did not have a voice for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Blanche had been following the Church of Satan through her teenage years and early 20s in Southern California, even coming to San Francisco to meet Anton LaVey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> From our first meeting we felt a draw to each other. And from that time we spent a lot of time on the phone and corresponding back and forth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Less than a year later in 1984, just after graduating college, she moves to San Francisco at the age of 22. Shortly thereafter they became romantically involved. Blanche moved into the Black House in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton: \u003c/b>We had a wonderful life together. It had a rhythm. Of course, he was very nocturnal. So a lot of times we would get up at four or five in the evening and meet people. Play music, converse, maybe watch a Movie And then we would go to sleep around dawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Rituals were no longer public, but occasional private events. LaVey wasn’t willing to present the Church of Satan as just a curiosity anymore. In 1993, Blanche gave birth to their son, his third child, Satan Xerxes. At that point, LaVey was 63 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MUSIC\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe Pyne:\u003c/b> So is it necessary to drive a stake through your heart to kill you, or would an ordinary knock on the head do it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> I will never die.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pyne:\u003c/b> You won’t?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LaVey:\u003c/b> No, of course not. I’ve made arrangements. (audience ooohs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>Anton LaVey died from heart disease at St. Mary’s in San Francisco on October 29th, 1997. Although his official death certificate lists his expiration date as Halloween.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what happens when the core of the Church of Satan, the man who was its central flame, gets snuffed out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, Blanche served as high priestess, the top leadership position, for a few years, before stepping down and handing the reins over to longtime member Peter Gilmore, who is still its high priest. The church left San Francisco and now has a new ‘Black House’ in New York state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LaVey’s oldest daughter, Karla, was also high-priestess for a time but left the Church of Satan to start her own “First Satanic Church” in San Francisco. It’s a lot more exclusive and is known for throwing a great Black X-Mass concert in the city every year for the last couple decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zeena, who was dedicated to Satan as a toddler, left Satanism entirely and became a Tantric Buddhist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His son, Satan Xerxes, isn’t involved at all and lives a private life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the infamous Black House…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanche Barton:\u003c/b> It was an amazing house and it should have been preserved. And we did try.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Amanda Font: \u003c/b>LaVey had been forced to sell the house to a friend in the early 90s though he was allowed to live there until his death. But the house was in disrepair, and the land was just too valuable. When efforts to find a preservation group willing to take it on failed, the property was sold and torn down in 2001.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What stands there now is a very normal-looking apartment building. No lingering signs that it was once a raucous den of sin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That was Bay Curious producer Amanda Font.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s it for today’s installment in our Boo Curious series. If you’ve been digging it, please share with a friend, or leave us a five-star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode was produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, Brendan Willard, and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "The Legend of Lone Tree Connects Us to Hayward's History",
"headTitle": "The Legend of Lone Tree Connects Us to Hayward’s History | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every telling of the Lone Tree legend has its own flair; each with its own set of facts, names, dates and even murder weapons. Some versions are more 20th century romantic, others are as gory as a modern-day horror movie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But at its core, the story set around the centuries-old oak tree in modern day Hayward is about love and betrayal, and the founding of a cemetery that has deep historical significance to people in this East Bay city south of Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A story of star-crossed lovers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Legend of Lone Tree has been told time and time again, in local history books, and in newspaper clippings dating back almost 150 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The basic storyline is the same: A gruesome murder of star-crossed lovers took place at the foot of a lone oak tree in the hills, before the area was officially called Hayward, before California was a state, before the Gold Rush and an influx of European settlers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an early version, the tale starts near Santa Barbara in Southern California in the late 1700s. An illegitimate son and a young girl fall in love and, without the knowledge of their parents, “plighted their troth” to be married.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem was, the girl’s father already promised her hand to a Spanish man arriving by boat. So in the dark of night, with her arranged marriage imminent, the girl and her lover escaped on horseback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“An elopement was of course understood,” recounts a \u003cem>San Jose Mercury News\u003c/em> publishing of the story from 1874 provided by the Hayward Area Historical Society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The newspaper clipping continues the story in old-English speak, describing the father’s immediate pursuit after the two lovers, to the “farthest verge of the New World.” The father is joined by his horse-riding henchmen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964167\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964167\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048-800x450.png\" alt=\"A plaque at Lone Tree Cemetery with small font that details the entire legend. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048-800x450.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048-1020x574.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048-160x90.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048-1536x864.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A plaque at Lone Tree Cemetery and Hayward recounts the legend of 2 lovers allegedly murdered near a nearby oak tree. \u003ccite>(Pauline Bartolone/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The lovers make it all the way up to modern-day Hayward, but their horses give out at the lone oak tree. That’s where their pursuers confronted the pair, and a bloody murder of the lovers took place, the young girl at the hands of her vengeful father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The father of the girl gazed awhile upon his child, and drawing his stiletto, sprang to her side and buried it in her heart,” reads the 1874 story. “She fell and died without a word of outcry, her blood staining his hands.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To add to the drama, the “illegitimate” son was murdered by the Spanish man who was promised the young girl, also with a dagger and without an outcry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an 1897 telling of the tale, the lovers are named Juan and Isabel and they are originally from Mazatlan, Mexico. Here, the class difference between the couple is a fundamental reason the girl’s father would deem their marriage impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Such a thing could not be thought of by the proud Don Pascual, who would never consent to a loss of caste, the only matter of aristocratic pride left to — the scion of a noble family,” reads the 1897 \u003cem>Hayward Review\u003c/em> article, which sets the story in 1830.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The writer of the \u003cem>Hayward Review\u003c/em> piece enjoyed drumming up the drama and emotion of the gory homicide. “Isabel gave one wild, horrible shriek and fell at her father’s feet, her warm blood sprinkling his clothes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 19th century versions both reference an “Indian” boy who apparently witnessed the murder, and lived almost a century; plenty of years to recount the tale to the first Hayward-area settlers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The murder that gave way to a cemetery\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The more modern versions of the legend, printed in history books and on a plaque near the lone oak tree that is still standing, are used as an origin story for what is now called the Lone Tree Cemetery. Many Hayward notables are buried there, including William Hayward himself, the Gold Rush-era settler who created a hotel in the area and founded the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the tale commonly shared these days, including on \u003ca href=\"https://lonetreecemetery.com/legend-of-lone-tree-cemetery/\">the cemetery’s website\u003c/a>, Guillermo Castro, another important figure in Hayward history, plays a prominent role. Castro owned what is now Hayward and Castro Valley through a Mexican land grant starting in the early 1840s, before California was part of the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the legend has it, Señor Guillermo Castro provided the two young lovers with provisions when they arrived in the area during their escape. He met the girl’s father, and sent a search party for the lovers when they didn’t return.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Guillermo Castro had his hacienda and he was known for being incredibly hospitable,” said Caroline Sandoval, a programs manager at the Hayward Area Historical Society, while recounting the tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the bodies of the lovers were supposedly buried at the lone tree, or at least nearby, more and more people were buried around them, and the Lone Tree Cemetery was founded.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Truth or tall tale?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Hector Villaseñor first heard about the Legend of Lone Tree in elementary school about 50 years ago. He grew up in Hayward and he’s now a librarian at the local public library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s kind of like a Romeo-Juliet tragedy,” said Villaseñor after handing over various copies of the tale in a library conference room. “We’re left to say … did it happen or not?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964163\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964163\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093-800x450.png\" alt='Hector Villasenor sits smiling at a table in the library holding a book called \"Hayward... the first 100 years.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093-800x450.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093-1020x574.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093-160x90.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093-1536x864.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hector Villaseñor, grew up in Hayward and is now a librarian at Hayward Public Library. He says he first heard the Legend of Lone Tree while he was in elementary school. \u003ccite>(Pauline Bartolone/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Indeed, there are puzzling discrepancies between the lone tree stories that cast a shadow of doubt on the tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, it’s unclear when the murder would have actually happened. One version set the crime in the late 1700s, another in the 1830s. Others play up Don Guillermo Castro’s role in the whole ordeal, but he wasn’t in the area until 1839 at the earliest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second, the lovers’ geographic origins are in question. In one story, they started their escape from Southern California, in another, a coastal town in Mexico. Either way, that’s a long way to go by horse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 1874 version, an Indigenous man native to Mexico, Ignacio Noiola, was reported to have witnessed the murder. He would have been 10 years old during the crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lastly, one of the original trustees of Lone Tree Cemetery, C.T. Ward, takes credit for writing and publishing the tale. He said the story was based on facts, but who knows what his embellishments or motivations were for pushing the story out into the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caroline Sandoval with the historical society agrees that there are some discrepancies, but she says the original story from 1874 is too detailed to be a complete fabrication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that it certainly has elements of truth to it,” said Sandoval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964172\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964172\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040-800x572.jpg\" alt=\"Caroline Sandoval and Gary Winni stand next to a tall white grave marker in a cemetery. Flowers rest on top.\" width=\"800\" height=\"572\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040-800x572.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040-1020x729.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040-1536x1098.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Caroline Sandoval and Gary Winnie, an administrator at the Lone Tree Cemetery, stand near the gravesite of William Hayward at the cemetery in Hayward. William Hayward is one of the founders of the city of Hayward. \u003ccite>(Pauline Bartolone/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Sandoval, who helped me dig up some old writings related to this story, says the accuracy of the tale may not be what is important. Whenever the legend is retold, she says, it kicks off a conversation, which leads to people talking about accuracy. That’s a good way to “connect more with history,” she says, especially in a place like the Bay Area where many people weren’t born in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s lots of ways that people are really kind of looking to connect to the space that they’re moving into. And the easiest way to find history is by going to a cemetery,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Villaseñor says stories like Lone Tree are called legends because nobody can really pinpoint the facts. At the same time, he says, something probably “did happen for people to talk about [the legend] and for it to be just carried down generations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ray Ortner, general manager of Lone Tree Cemetery says it’s kind of neat to have a legend that the local community can rally around and pass onto future generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t tell you how many legends are true or false. But I do know that you believe in things and that helps you formulate the foundation of how you treat people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can take a \u003ca href=\"https://www.haywardareahistory.org/calendar/2023/11/18/lone-tree-walking-tour\">historical tour of Lone Tree Cemetery with the Hayward Area Historical Society\u003c/a> and decide for yourself which parts of its origin story are fact or fiction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’ll never forget my first horror film. I was probably 7 or 8, spending the night at a friend’s house down the street. She pressed a tape into the VHS player – a movie her dad had rented from the 48 Hour video store that I’m pretty sure we weren’t meant to be watching. We hit play and for the next two hours, we sat … still a stone … taken in by the story of a house so haunted, nobody would make it out alive. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music from “Burnt Offerings” fades up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The film was Burnt Offerings. I didn’t sleep well for weeks. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music fades into the Boo Curious theme song, Hip Hop Halloween\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was only recently that I learned the house in the movie, the one that consumes it’s occupants, is lurking in the Oakland Hills…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Boo Curious. Your eerie tour of the San Francisco Bay Area. Today we have a double feature for you. Part 1 takes you inside the Dunsmuir House, the dusty mansion at the center of several renowned horror films. Then we’ll head to Hayward for a centuries-old legend of love, betrayal … and gruesome murder. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Now stay close. You don’t want to get lost.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Hiding away in the East Bay Hills is a home that has haunted the imaginations of decades of movie-goers … myself included. KQED’s Rachael Myrow went to see what hides within its crumbling walls…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crunch of feet on gravel\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate sits on 50 landscaped acres just south of the Oakland zoo, and as you walk up to the massive Neoclassical Revival Mansion, painted a crisp, almost blinding white, its looming immensity cuts a dramatic line against a backdrop of giant eucalyptus trees and out in front, a vast, rolling green lawn. Three giant columns in front of the front door are so big, they appear to hold up the house. Scary? That depends on whether you’ve seen the movie “Burnt Offerings.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Movie Trailer clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> A young family, found a beautiful old house. They thought it was the answer to their dreams, but it was the beginning of a nightmare. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This 1976 horror movie starred a host of then famous actors like Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Oliver Reed … and Betty Davis in her final role. “Burnt Offerings” terrified generations with its tale of a possessed Victorian mansion that feeds on the life force of its guests, driving them mad, or worse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Movie trailer clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Bong bong bong. Oh God! Oh God! In this old house, up this staircase, behind this locked door, something lives. Something strange. Something powerful. Something evil! (:15 then fade down and under) \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Footsteps, low voices moving through the house.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Half a century later, Dunsmuir is locked up, the interior unavailable to the public … unless you get a special tour…like we did. You’d have to know what you were looking for to find the property, tucked away inside a sleepy residential neighborhood to the east of 580.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow, in scene: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wow, that looks like a torture device! Not a shower.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike other Victorian mansions that have been renovated or repurposed, the insides of Dunsmuir are frozen in time. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ominous piano music begins, mashed up with a demented version of The Sugar Plum Fairy\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The wallpaper is peeling from the ceiling upstairs and broken pieces of furniture sag onto the carpet in the nursery. The house is littered with old Christmas decorations from party preparations years ago. There are four floors from the basement on up, including everything you’d expect in a mansion, like a wine cellar and servants’ quarters. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The couple that built this place in 1899, the Dunsmuirs, barely lived in it. Talk about bad luck: Alexander, the son of a Canadian coal baron, died ON their honeymoon. Josephine, long sick with lung cancer, died about a year later. Other families took up residence, like the Hellmans, but the 37-rooms were barely used before this estate was sold to the city of Oakland in the 1950s. In the years since, a non-profit rented it out for weddings, concerts and other events. But a giant house like this…it’s a lot to take care of.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Burnt Offerings clip of “Ben” speaking to a woman:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I don’t know, with a house this size and only my wife, I don’t know that we can—\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Woman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The house… takes care of itself, Mr. Roth. Believe me. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historian Christopher Pollock wrote Reel San Francisco Stories: An Annotated Filmography of the Bay Area. Dunsmuir appears several times in the book, because “Burnt Offerings” was just the first of several horror movies shot here, at least in part. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have here a piece of preservation that happened by accident, more than anything. But it helped set the stage for these movies that have been filmed here and give you kind of a creep factor.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dunsmuir wasn’t the first or last Victorian to play the haunted house. There’s been something about these aging mansions that haunt the recesses of our fevered imaginations … pretty much since they went out of fashion as living spaces in the late 1920s.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Around the time of the Great Depression. People no longer wanted them. They were dark and dingy to people. They rambled all over the place.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All those dusty nooks and crannies, creaky wood floors, musty, moth eaten carpets, and the spooky sense that people lived — and died — there before you walked in. So when a young filmmaker named Don Coscarelli saw “Burnt Offerings” in 1976, Dunsmuir struck him as the perfect place to film what would become a cult classic … “Phantasm.”\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Phantasm theme song\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dunsmuir, used in the movie as “Morningside Mortuary,” is the setting for a story about an extra-dimensional grave robber, the Tall Man. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from Phantasm: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Boyyyyyy!\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fun fact: my dad co-wrote the music.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> When I met you, I must have been like 19/20, and you were about 5.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coscarelli grew up, as I did, in Southern California, where a certain cemetery holds a lot of the region’s dead people, and there are striking visual similarities with Dunsmuir. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Forest Lawn which has this massive, white, NeoColonial mansion, you know, on a hill.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After “Burnt Offerings,” Dunsmuir wouldn’t let Coscarelli film inside, for fear the shoot might cause more damage to an already crumbling house. And his movie’s massive mausoleum, ostensibly inside the massive white mansion, was shot on a set in Hollywood. But Dunsmuir’s exterior and the lawn outside effectively set the scene for Phantasm, which came out in 1979.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> We had a lot of action out there. You know, we had a 1968 Cadillac hearse that had to speed across the grass at night. At night we had a Plymouth muscle car that came racing out of the thing. And then the finale of Phantasm required this cataclysmic wind storm as the dimensions were shifting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip of the windstorm from the film\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from Phantasm:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> What ever it is, if this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Multiple films followed featuring Dunsmuir, including “The Vineyard” (1989), “So I Married an Axe Murderer” (1993), and “True Crime” (1999). But when tourists post videos on social media from Dunsmuir, they talk about “Burnt Offerings” and “Phantasm.”\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Actually, a fan sent me a photo. They had their wedding at Dunsmuir, and I think they drove off in a hearse!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it comes full circle. Dunsmuir’s notoriety in the movies helps goose the local special events business, run for the last year by the city of Oakland directly. Historian Chris Pollock thinks a little TLC – well, a lot, really – could restore the mansion to the extent it might open the interior to the public, like Filoli in Woodside. Not that there are any imminent plans, but one can hope, given that the Dunsmuir House is listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. And it’s pretty cool. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m hoping Oakland can spend, find the funding in order to do some preservation on this house.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Come see the outside for yourself. It’s a nice walk around the grounds…during daytime… Or treat yourself to a spooky movie tonight. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Phantasm Theme\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was KQED’s Rachael Myrow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Next up, we’re staying in the East Bay, but heading about 10 miles south, to Hayward, where a story of bloody betrayal has been a part of community lore since … before Hayward was even a city. It’s called the Legend of Lone Tree … A Bay Curious listener wrote in asking about it and reporter Pauline Bartolone got intrigued…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This East Bay legend is something of a Romeo and Juliet story… Iterations of the tale have been appearing in newspapers and local history books for almost one hundred and fifty years…Each account has its own flair, with its own set of details…dates, names, even locations. But they all go a little something like this…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Western music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It was in the spring of 1830, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading archival material:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> “One warm summer morning, some four score years ago,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There lived in Southern California a gentleman who had a bastard son…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> he was one for a father to be proud of…although compelled by adverse circumstances to a second place in caste or society.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And who did this illegitimate son love? An aristocratic young Spanish woman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> …Don Pedro was blessed with a daughter whose appearance caused the admiration of all who knew her,/// none could excel her in the dance or song of the country… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their names? Juan and Isabel, at least in one retelling. And they were in love. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music ends with a flourish\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Without the knowledge of the parents the young people had plighted their troth and pledged unchanging love.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem was, Isabel’s father would never allow her marriage to an illegitimate man… And he promised his daughter to a Spaniard. So in the dark of night, with her arranged wedding imminent, Isabel and her lover escaped on horseback.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">when inquiry was made for the bride, she could no- where be found, and it was dis- covered that the two swiftest horses were missing from the corral…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the two lovers had abandoned home, family and friends, for each other,\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An elopement was of course understood.. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the story goes, a chase ensues… Isabel’s father tails the couple with his own band of horse-riding henchmen. And they make it all the way up to modern day Hayward…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In one version, they encounter an important figure in Hayward history… Guillermo Castro. He owned what is now Hayward and Castro Valley … and apparently, Senor Castro’s was the place for any weary traveler.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Guillermo Castro had his hacienda and he was known for being incredibly hospitable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Caroline Sandoval is with the Hayward Area Historical Society recounts the most recent adaptation of the tale.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So this couple actually stopped to water their horses, get supplies, and to just get a little bit of rest after they got what they needed, they were sent on their way. And Mr. Castro started to notice that they were going in the direction of what was called the the old lone tree. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Old Lone Tree is an Oak with winding, gnarly branches that would have stood out on an otherwise grassy hillside.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Because it was one of the only ones of the trees in the areas, it would have been used as a landmark for people on the property. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hayward Public Library’s Hector Villasenor is a local, and first heard this tale as a child.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So what happened was they went out to the lone tree and they didn’t come back. And then in a meantime, somebody stopped looking for the young couple. Older man. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> an older gentleman,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They don’t really know his name. Lost to history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and he asks about the direction of the couple. Have you seen the couple? Where is the couple representing himself to be the young woman’s father.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Saying that, he needed to look for them to give them some news. So they pointed him in the way to where the lone tree was. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dramatic music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The father finally catches up to the young couple at the Lone Tree. This is where the newspaper writers of the late 19th century let their imaginations run amok.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the pair dismounted and placed themselves side by side, and calmly and anxiously awaited their doom.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the parties met, not a word was spoken. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The stern Spanish Don Pascual…approached his daughter and her lover and his face gave evidence of the conflicting emotions…Scorn, pity and rage were depicted and his whole frame shook. (6:04)\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The father/// drawing his stiletto, sprang to her side and buried it in her heart.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> … plunged the cruel blade deeply into the bosom of his only child.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She fell and died without a word of outcry, her blood staining his hands. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Quickly the daggers of his followers were struck into the body of the lover, who expired with scarcely a shudder. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bodies of the lovers were supposedly buried at the lone tree, or at least nearby, and a cemetery took root around them. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Wow. Dramatic! A Hayward twist on star-crossed love. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know right?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ok do we know how much of this story really true or is it just a tall tale? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are some puzzling discrepancies between the stories that make me doubt the tale. One version has the murder taking place back in the late 1700s, another in the 1830s. The later versions play up Don Guillermo Castro’s role in the whole ordeal, but he wasn’t in the area until 1839 at the earliest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In one version, the lovers started their escape from Southern California, in another, a coastal town in Mexico. Either way, that’s a long way to go by horse. Lastly, one of the original trustees of Lone Tree Cemetery takes credit for writing and publishing the tale. He said the story \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">based on facts, but who knows what his embellishments were…. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I will say that Caroline Sandoval with the historical society agrees that there are some discrepancies, but she thinks the stories are too detailed to be a complete fabrication. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">True or not – why does a story like this keep getting told time and time and time again? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well like any local legend, stories like this help us learn about history. And that’s exactly what Sandoval says about Lone Tree. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Such a huge population of people living in this area are not even native to the state. And so there’s lots of ways that people are really kind of looking to connect to, you know, the space that they’re moving into. And the easiest way to find history is by going to a cemetery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ambi of area around tree and music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I of course ventured out to the Lone Tree for this story, which still stands today, next to a small creek at the Lone Tree Cemetery. A headstone nearby dates it back to the 1700s. The tree’s gnarly branches make it look wise. Whether or not young love was brutally stolen here, this tree has lived through decades of history. And its legend… will no doubt continue to ignite people’s imagination and give us all a story to share. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music fades but continues playing softly through the end of episode\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pauline Bartolone – thank you!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you, I was happy to do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s it for today’s installment in our Boo Curious series. If you’ve been digging it, please share with a friend, or leave us a five star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’re gearing up for our next event, a walking tour of the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. Featuring live dance, music and a performance from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence – I think it’s going to be a unique way to connect to the space, and learn about our history along the way. Tickets are limited – get yours today at KQED.org/live.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. We got extra help this week from Brendan Willard and Pauline Bartolone. Thanks also to Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a wonderful week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every telling of the Lone Tree legend has its own flair; each with its own set of facts, names, dates and even murder weapons. Some versions are more 20th century romantic, others are as gory as a modern-day horror movie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But at its core, the story set around the centuries-old oak tree in modern day Hayward is about love and betrayal, and the founding of a cemetery that has deep historical significance to people in this East Bay city south of Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A story of star-crossed lovers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The Legend of Lone Tree has been told time and time again, in local history books, and in newspaper clippings dating back almost 150 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The basic storyline is the same: A gruesome murder of star-crossed lovers took place at the foot of a lone oak tree in the hills, before the area was officially called Hayward, before California was a state, before the Gold Rush and an influx of European settlers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an early version, the tale starts near Santa Barbara in Southern California in the late 1700s. An illegitimate son and a young girl fall in love and, without the knowledge of their parents, “plighted their troth” to be married.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem was, the girl’s father already promised her hand to a Spanish man arriving by boat. So in the dark of night, with her arranged marriage imminent, the girl and her lover escaped on horseback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“An elopement was of course understood,” recounts a \u003cem>San Jose Mercury News\u003c/em> publishing of the story from 1874 provided by the Hayward Area Historical Society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The newspaper clipping continues the story in old-English speak, describing the father’s immediate pursuit after the two lovers, to the “farthest verge of the New World.” The father is joined by his horse-riding henchmen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964167\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964167\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048-800x450.png\" alt=\"A plaque at Lone Tree Cemetery with small font that details the entire legend. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048-800x450.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048-1020x574.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048-160x90.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048-1536x864.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8048.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A plaque at Lone Tree Cemetery and Hayward recounts the legend of 2 lovers allegedly murdered near a nearby oak tree. \u003ccite>(Pauline Bartolone/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The lovers make it all the way up to modern-day Hayward, but their horses give out at the lone oak tree. That’s where their pursuers confronted the pair, and a bloody murder of the lovers took place, the young girl at the hands of her vengeful father.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The father of the girl gazed awhile upon his child, and drawing his stiletto, sprang to her side and buried it in her heart,” reads the 1874 story. “She fell and died without a word of outcry, her blood staining his hands.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To add to the drama, the “illegitimate” son was murdered by the Spanish man who was promised the young girl, also with a dagger and without an outcry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an 1897 telling of the tale, the lovers are named Juan and Isabel and they are originally from Mazatlan, Mexico. Here, the class difference between the couple is a fundamental reason the girl’s father would deem their marriage impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Such a thing could not be thought of by the proud Don Pascual, who would never consent to a loss of caste, the only matter of aristocratic pride left to — the scion of a noble family,” reads the 1897 \u003cem>Hayward Review\u003c/em> article, which sets the story in 1830.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The writer of the \u003cem>Hayward Review\u003c/em> piece enjoyed drumming up the drama and emotion of the gory homicide. “Isabel gave one wild, horrible shriek and fell at her father’s feet, her warm blood sprinkling his clothes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 19th century versions both reference an “Indian” boy who apparently witnessed the murder, and lived almost a century; plenty of years to recount the tale to the first Hayward-area settlers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The murder that gave way to a cemetery\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The more modern versions of the legend, printed in history books and on a plaque near the lone oak tree that is still standing, are used as an origin story for what is now called the Lone Tree Cemetery. Many Hayward notables are buried there, including William Hayward himself, the Gold Rush-era settler who created a hotel in the area and founded the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the tale commonly shared these days, including on \u003ca href=\"https://lonetreecemetery.com/legend-of-lone-tree-cemetery/\">the cemetery’s website\u003c/a>, Guillermo Castro, another important figure in Hayward history, plays a prominent role. Castro owned what is now Hayward and Castro Valley through a Mexican land grant starting in the early 1840s, before California was part of the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the legend has it, Señor Guillermo Castro provided the two young lovers with provisions when they arrived in the area during their escape. He met the girl’s father, and sent a search party for the lovers when they didn’t return.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Guillermo Castro had his hacienda and he was known for being incredibly hospitable,” said Caroline Sandoval, a programs manager at the Hayward Area Historical Society, while recounting the tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the bodies of the lovers were supposedly buried at the lone tree, or at least nearby, more and more people were buried around them, and the Lone Tree Cemetery was founded.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Truth or tall tale?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Hector Villaseñor first heard about the Legend of Lone Tree in elementary school about 50 years ago. He grew up in Hayward and he’s now a librarian at the local public library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s kind of like a Romeo-Juliet tragedy,” said Villaseñor after handing over various copies of the tale in a library conference room. “We’re left to say … did it happen or not?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964163\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964163\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093-800x450.png\" alt='Hector Villasenor sits smiling at a table in the library holding a book called \"Hayward... the first 100 years.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093-800x450.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093-1020x574.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093-160x90.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093-1536x864.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8093.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hector Villaseñor, grew up in Hayward and is now a librarian at Hayward Public Library. He says he first heard the Legend of Lone Tree while he was in elementary school. \u003ccite>(Pauline Bartolone/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Indeed, there are puzzling discrepancies between the lone tree stories that cast a shadow of doubt on the tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, it’s unclear when the murder would have actually happened. One version set the crime in the late 1700s, another in the 1830s. Others play up Don Guillermo Castro’s role in the whole ordeal, but he wasn’t in the area until 1839 at the earliest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second, the lovers’ geographic origins are in question. In one story, they started their escape from Southern California, in another, a coastal town in Mexico. Either way, that’s a long way to go by horse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 1874 version, an Indigenous man native to Mexico, Ignacio Noiola, was reported to have witnessed the murder. He would have been 10 years old during the crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lastly, one of the original trustees of Lone Tree Cemetery, C.T. Ward, takes credit for writing and publishing the tale. He said the story was based on facts, but who knows what his embellishments or motivations were for pushing the story out into the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caroline Sandoval with the historical society agrees that there are some discrepancies, but she says the original story from 1874 is too detailed to be a complete fabrication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that it certainly has elements of truth to it,” said Sandoval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964172\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964172\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040-800x572.jpg\" alt=\"Caroline Sandoval and Gary Winni stand next to a tall white grave marker in a cemetery. Flowers rest on top.\" width=\"800\" height=\"572\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040-800x572.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040-1020x729.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040-1536x1098.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_8040.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Caroline Sandoval and Gary Winnie, an administrator at the Lone Tree Cemetery, stand near the gravesite of William Hayward at the cemetery in Hayward. William Hayward is one of the founders of the city of Hayward. \u003ccite>(Pauline Bartolone/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Sandoval, who helped me dig up some old writings related to this story, says the accuracy of the tale may not be what is important. Whenever the legend is retold, she says, it kicks off a conversation, which leads to people talking about accuracy. That’s a good way to “connect more with history,” she says, especially in a place like the Bay Area where many people weren’t born in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s lots of ways that people are really kind of looking to connect to the space that they’re moving into. And the easiest way to find history is by going to a cemetery,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Villaseñor says stories like Lone Tree are called legends because nobody can really pinpoint the facts. At the same time, he says, something probably “did happen for people to talk about [the legend] and for it to be just carried down generations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ray Ortner, general manager of Lone Tree Cemetery says it’s kind of neat to have a legend that the local community can rally around and pass onto future generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t tell you how many legends are true or false. But I do know that you believe in things and that helps you formulate the foundation of how you treat people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can take a \u003ca href=\"https://www.haywardareahistory.org/calendar/2023/11/18/lone-tree-walking-tour\">historical tour of Lone Tree Cemetery with the Hayward Area Historical Society\u003c/a> and decide for yourself which parts of its origin story are fact or fiction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’ll never forget my first horror film. I was probably 7 or 8, spending the night at a friend’s house down the street. She pressed a tape into the VHS player – a movie her dad had rented from the 48 Hour video store that I’m pretty sure we weren’t meant to be watching. We hit play and for the next two hours, we sat … still a stone … taken in by the story of a house so haunted, nobody would make it out alive. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music from “Burnt Offerings” fades up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The film was Burnt Offerings. I didn’t sleep well for weeks. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music fades into the Boo Curious theme song, Hip Hop Halloween\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was only recently that I learned the house in the movie, the one that consumes it’s occupants, is lurking in the Oakland Hills…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Boo Curious. Your eerie tour of the San Francisco Bay Area. Today we have a double feature for you. Part 1 takes you inside the Dunsmuir House, the dusty mansion at the center of several renowned horror films. Then we’ll head to Hayward for a centuries-old legend of love, betrayal … and gruesome murder. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Now stay close. You don’t want to get lost.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Hiding away in the East Bay Hills is a home that has haunted the imaginations of decades of movie-goers … myself included. KQED’s Rachael Myrow went to see what hides within its crumbling walls…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Crunch of feet on gravel\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate sits on 50 landscaped acres just south of the Oakland zoo, and as you walk up to the massive Neoclassical Revival Mansion, painted a crisp, almost blinding white, its looming immensity cuts a dramatic line against a backdrop of giant eucalyptus trees and out in front, a vast, rolling green lawn. Three giant columns in front of the front door are so big, they appear to hold up the house. Scary? That depends on whether you’ve seen the movie “Burnt Offerings.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Movie Trailer clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> A young family, found a beautiful old house. They thought it was the answer to their dreams, but it was the beginning of a nightmare. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This 1976 horror movie starred a host of then famous actors like Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Oliver Reed … and Betty Davis in her final role. “Burnt Offerings” terrified generations with its tale of a possessed Victorian mansion that feeds on the life force of its guests, driving them mad, or worse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Movie trailer clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Bong bong bong. Oh God! Oh God! In this old house, up this staircase, behind this locked door, something lives. Something strange. Something powerful. Something evil! (:15 then fade down and under) \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Footsteps, low voices moving through the house.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Half a century later, Dunsmuir is locked up, the interior unavailable to the public … unless you get a special tour…like we did. You’d have to know what you were looking for to find the property, tucked away inside a sleepy residential neighborhood to the east of 580.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow, in scene: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wow, that looks like a torture device! Not a shower.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike other Victorian mansions that have been renovated or repurposed, the insides of Dunsmuir are frozen in time. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ominous piano music begins, mashed up with a demented version of The Sugar Plum Fairy\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The wallpaper is peeling from the ceiling upstairs and broken pieces of furniture sag onto the carpet in the nursery. The house is littered with old Christmas decorations from party preparations years ago. There are four floors from the basement on up, including everything you’d expect in a mansion, like a wine cellar and servants’ quarters. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The couple that built this place in 1899, the Dunsmuirs, barely lived in it. Talk about bad luck: Alexander, the son of a Canadian coal baron, died ON their honeymoon. Josephine, long sick with lung cancer, died about a year later. Other families took up residence, like the Hellmans, but the 37-rooms were barely used before this estate was sold to the city of Oakland in the 1950s. In the years since, a non-profit rented it out for weddings, concerts and other events. But a giant house like this…it’s a lot to take care of.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Burnt Offerings clip of “Ben” speaking to a woman:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I don’t know, with a house this size and only my wife, I don’t know that we can—\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Woman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The house… takes care of itself, Mr. Roth. Believe me. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historian Christopher Pollock wrote Reel San Francisco Stories: An Annotated Filmography of the Bay Area. Dunsmuir appears several times in the book, because “Burnt Offerings” was just the first of several horror movies shot here, at least in part. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have here a piece of preservation that happened by accident, more than anything. But it helped set the stage for these movies that have been filmed here and give you kind of a creep factor.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dunsmuir wasn’t the first or last Victorian to play the haunted house. There’s been something about these aging mansions that haunt the recesses of our fevered imaginations … pretty much since they went out of fashion as living spaces in the late 1920s.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Around the time of the Great Depression. People no longer wanted them. They were dark and dingy to people. They rambled all over the place.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All those dusty nooks and crannies, creaky wood floors, musty, moth eaten carpets, and the spooky sense that people lived — and died — there before you walked in. So when a young filmmaker named Don Coscarelli saw “Burnt Offerings” in 1976, Dunsmuir struck him as the perfect place to film what would become a cult classic … “Phantasm.”\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Phantasm theme song\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dunsmuir, used in the movie as “Morningside Mortuary,” is the setting for a story about an extra-dimensional grave robber, the Tall Man. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from Phantasm: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Boyyyyyy!\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fun fact: my dad co-wrote the music.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> When I met you, I must have been like 19/20, and you were about 5.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coscarelli grew up, as I did, in Southern California, where a certain cemetery holds a lot of the region’s dead people, and there are striking visual similarities with Dunsmuir. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Forest Lawn which has this massive, white, NeoColonial mansion, you know, on a hill.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After “Burnt Offerings,” Dunsmuir wouldn’t let Coscarelli film inside, for fear the shoot might cause more damage to an already crumbling house. And his movie’s massive mausoleum, ostensibly inside the massive white mansion, was shot on a set in Hollywood. But Dunsmuir’s exterior and the lawn outside effectively set the scene for Phantasm, which came out in 1979.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> We had a lot of action out there. You know, we had a 1968 Cadillac hearse that had to speed across the grass at night. At night we had a Plymouth muscle car that came racing out of the thing. And then the finale of Phantasm required this cataclysmic wind storm as the dimensions were shifting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clip of the windstorm from the film\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from Phantasm:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> What ever it is, if this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Multiple films followed featuring Dunsmuir, including “The Vineyard” (1989), “So I Married an Axe Murderer” (1993), and “True Crime” (1999). But when tourists post videos on social media from Dunsmuir, they talk about “Burnt Offerings” and “Phantasm.”\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Actually, a fan sent me a photo. They had their wedding at Dunsmuir, and I think they drove off in a hearse!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it comes full circle. Dunsmuir’s notoriety in the movies helps goose the local special events business, run for the last year by the city of Oakland directly. Historian Chris Pollock thinks a little TLC – well, a lot, really – could restore the mansion to the extent it might open the interior to the public, like Filoli in Woodside. Not that there are any imminent plans, but one can hope, given that the Dunsmuir House is listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. And it’s pretty cool. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m hoping Oakland can spend, find the funding in order to do some preservation on this house.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Come see the outside for yourself. It’s a nice walk around the grounds…during daytime… Or treat yourself to a spooky movie tonight. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Phantasm Theme\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was KQED’s Rachael Myrow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Next up, we’re staying in the East Bay, but heading about 10 miles south, to Hayward, where a story of bloody betrayal has been a part of community lore since … before Hayward was even a city. It’s called the Legend of Lone Tree … A Bay Curious listener wrote in asking about it and reporter Pauline Bartolone got intrigued…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This East Bay legend is something of a Romeo and Juliet story… Iterations of the tale have been appearing in newspapers and local history books for almost one hundred and fifty years…Each account has its own flair, with its own set of details…dates, names, even locations. But they all go a little something like this…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Western music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It was in the spring of 1830, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading archival material:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> “One warm summer morning, some four score years ago,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There lived in Southern California a gentleman who had a bastard son…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> he was one for a father to be proud of…although compelled by adverse circumstances to a second place in caste or society.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And who did this illegitimate son love? An aristocratic young Spanish woman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> …Don Pedro was blessed with a daughter whose appearance caused the admiration of all who knew her,/// none could excel her in the dance or song of the country… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their names? Juan and Isabel, at least in one retelling. And they were in love. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music ends with a flourish\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Without the knowledge of the parents the young people had plighted their troth and pledged unchanging love.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem was, Isabel’s father would never allow her marriage to an illegitimate man… And he promised his daughter to a Spaniard. So in the dark of night, with her arranged wedding imminent, Isabel and her lover escaped on horseback.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">when inquiry was made for the bride, she could no- where be found, and it was dis- covered that the two swiftest horses were missing from the corral…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the two lovers had abandoned home, family and friends, for each other,\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An elopement was of course understood.. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the story goes, a chase ensues… Isabel’s father tails the couple with his own band of horse-riding henchmen. And they make it all the way up to modern day Hayward…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In one version, they encounter an important figure in Hayward history… Guillermo Castro. He owned what is now Hayward and Castro Valley … and apparently, Senor Castro’s was the place for any weary traveler.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Guillermo Castro had his hacienda and he was known for being incredibly hospitable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Caroline Sandoval is with the Hayward Area Historical Society recounts the most recent adaptation of the tale.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So this couple actually stopped to water their horses, get supplies, and to just get a little bit of rest after they got what they needed, they were sent on their way. And Mr. Castro started to notice that they were going in the direction of what was called the the old lone tree. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Old Lone Tree is an Oak with winding, gnarly branches that would have stood out on an otherwise grassy hillside.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Because it was one of the only ones of the trees in the areas, it would have been used as a landmark for people on the property. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hayward Public Library’s Hector Villasenor is a local, and first heard this tale as a child.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So what happened was they went out to the lone tree and they didn’t come back. And then in a meantime, somebody stopped looking for the young couple. Older man. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> an older gentleman,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They don’t really know his name. Lost to history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and he asks about the direction of the couple. Have you seen the couple? Where is the couple representing himself to be the young woman’s father.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Saying that, he needed to look for them to give them some news. So they pointed him in the way to where the lone tree was. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dramatic music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The father finally catches up to the young couple at the Lone Tree. This is where the newspaper writers of the late 19th century let their imaginations run amok.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the pair dismounted and placed themselves side by side, and calmly and anxiously awaited their doom.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the parties met, not a word was spoken. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The stern Spanish Don Pascual…approached his daughter and her lover and his face gave evidence of the conflicting emotions…Scorn, pity and rage were depicted and his whole frame shook. (6:04)\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The father/// drawing his stiletto, sprang to her side and buried it in her heart.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> … plunged the cruel blade deeply into the bosom of his only child.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She fell and died without a word of outcry, her blood staining his hands. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Quickly the daggers of his followers were struck into the body of the lover, who expired with scarcely a shudder. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bodies of the lovers were supposedly buried at the lone tree, or at least nearby, and a cemetery took root around them. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Wow. Dramatic! A Hayward twist on star-crossed love. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know right?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ok do we know how much of this story really true or is it just a tall tale? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are some puzzling discrepancies between the stories that make me doubt the tale. One version has the murder taking place back in the late 1700s, another in the 1830s. The later versions play up Don Guillermo Castro’s role in the whole ordeal, but he wasn’t in the area until 1839 at the earliest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In one version, the lovers started their escape from Southern California, in another, a coastal town in Mexico. Either way, that’s a long way to go by horse. Lastly, one of the original trustees of Lone Tree Cemetery takes credit for writing and publishing the tale. He said the story \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">based on facts, but who knows what his embellishments were…. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I will say that Caroline Sandoval with the historical society agrees that there are some discrepancies, but she thinks the stories are too detailed to be a complete fabrication. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">True or not – why does a story like this keep getting told time and time and time again? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well like any local legend, stories like this help us learn about history. And that’s exactly what Sandoval says about Lone Tree. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Such a huge population of people living in this area are not even native to the state. And so there’s lots of ways that people are really kind of looking to connect to, you know, the space that they’re moving into. And the easiest way to find history is by going to a cemetery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ambi of area around tree and music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I of course ventured out to the Lone Tree for this story, which still stands today, next to a small creek at the Lone Tree Cemetery. A headstone nearby dates it back to the 1700s. The tree’s gnarly branches make it look wise. Whether or not young love was brutally stolen here, this tree has lived through decades of history. And its legend… will no doubt continue to ignite people’s imagination and give us all a story to share. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music fades but continues playing softly through the end of episode\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pauline Bartolone – thank you!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you, I was happy to do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s it for today’s installment in our Boo Curious series. If you’ve been digging it, please share with a friend, or leave us a five star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’re gearing up for our next event, a walking tour of the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. Featuring live dance, music and a performance from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence – I think it’s going to be a unique way to connect to the space, and learn about our history along the way. Tickets are limited – get yours today at KQED.org/live.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. We got extra help this week from Brendan Willard and Pauline Bartolone. Thanks also to Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a wonderful week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Dunsmuir: The Oakland Mansion That Inspired Hollywood Nightmares",
"headTitle": "Dunsmuir: The Oakland Mansion That Inspired Hollywood Nightmares | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/topics/dunsmuir-historic-estate\">Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate\u003c/a> sits on 50 landscaped acres just south of the Oakland zoo. As you walk up to the massive Neoclassical Revival mansion, painted a crisp, almost blinding white, its looming immensity cuts a dramatic line against a backdrop of giant eucalyptus trees. Out in front, a vast, rolling green lawn. Three giant columns in the portico are so big, they appear to hold up the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scary? That depends on whether you’ve seen the movie \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074258/\">Burnt Offerings.\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\nThis 1976 horror movie starred a host of then-famous actors like Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Oliver Reed — and Bette Davis in her final role. Burnt Offerings terrified generations with its tale of a possessed Victorian mansion that feeds on the life force of its guests, driving them mad — or worse.\u003cem>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_6Fb5k2lo&t=74s\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A hidden gem in Oakland\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Half a century later, the Dunsmuir house is locked up, the interior unavailable to the public, unless you get a special tour like I did. You’d have to know what you were looking for to find the property, tucked away inside a sleepy residential neighborhood to the east of I-580.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike other Victorian mansions that have been renovated or repurposed, the insides of Dunsmuir are frozen in time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964137\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-11964137 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"A room featuring a broken bed and a dresser in the corner. There are signs of neglect and debris littered around the floor.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a-160x90.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Most of the rooms in the mansion haven’t been touched in years. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The wallpaper is peeling from the ceiling upstairs and broken pieces of furniture sag onto the carpet in the nursery. The house is littered with old Christmas decorations from party preparations years ago. There are four floors from the basement on up, including everything you’d expect in a mansion, like a wine cellar and servants’ quarters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The couple that built this place in 1899, the Dunsmuirs, barely lived in it. Talk about bad luck: Alexander, the son of a Canadian coal baron, died on their honeymoon. Josephine died about a year later. Other families took up residence, like the Hellman family five years later, but the 37-rooms were barely used before this estate was sold to the city of Oakland in the 1950s. In the years since, a nonprofit rented Dunsmuir out for weddings, concerts and other events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historian Christopher Pollock wrote \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Reel-San-Francisco-Stories-Filmography/dp/0578130424#:~:text=Book%20overview&text=More%20than%20600%20movies%2C%20from,your%20curiosity%20and%20identify%20locations.\">Reel San Francisco Stories: An Annotated Filmography of the Bay Area\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. Dunsmuir appears several times in the book, because \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em> was just the first of several horror movies shot here, at least in part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have today here a piece of preservation that happened by accident, more than anything,” he said. “But it helped set the stage for these movies that have been filmed here, and gives you kind of a creep factor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964139\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964139\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"An attic space with one small window. Scattered around the large room are folding chairs, Christmas decorations, and lots of boxes.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a-160x90.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peeling walls and old Christmas decorations are found in an upper floor of the home. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Why Victorian mansions strike us as spooky\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dunsmuir wasn’t the first or last Victorian to play the haunted house. There’s been something about these aging mansions that haunt the recesses of our fevered imaginations, pretty much since they went out of fashion as living spaces in the late 1920s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Around the time of the Great Depression, people no longer wanted them. They were dark and dingy-feeling to people. They rambled all over the place,” Pollock said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All those dusty nooks and crannies, creaky wood floors, musty, moth-eaten carpets, and the spooky sense that people lived — and died — there before you walked in. So when a young filmmaker named Don Coscarelli saw \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em> in 1976, Dunsmuir struck him as the perfect place to film what would become a cult classic: \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079714/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">Phantasm\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dunsmuir, used in the movie as “Morningside Mortuary,” is the setting for a story about an extra-dimensional grave robber, the Tall Man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fun fact: \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13813192/phantasm-fred-myrow\">my dad co-wrote the music\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIRVOepV9Ik\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘This massive, white, Neocolonial mansion, you know, on a hill.’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Coscarelli grew up in Southern California, where Forest Lawn in the Hollywood Hills features a building with \u003ca href=\"https://forestlawn.com/parks/hollywood-hills/park-hollywood/\">striking visual similarity to Dunsmuir\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Forest Lawn has this massive, white, Neocolonial mansion, you know, on a hill,” said Coscarelli.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em>, Dunsmuir wouldn’t let Coscarelli film inside, for fear the shoot might cause more damage to an already crumbling house. His movie’s massive mausoleum, ostensibly inside the massive white mansion, was shot on a set in Hollywood. But Dunsmuir’s exterior and the lawn outside effectively set the scene for \u003cem>Phantasm\u003c/em>, which came out in 1979.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a lot of action out there. You know, we had a 1968 Cadillac hearse that had to speed across the grass at night. At night we had a Plymouth muscle car that came racing out of the thing. And then the finale of \u003cem>Phantasm\u003c/em> required this cataclysmic wind storm as the dimensions were shifting,” Coscarelli said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Multiple films followed featuring Dunsmuir, including \u003cem>The Vineyard\u003c/em> (1989), \u003cem>So I Married an Axe Murderer\u003c/em> (1993), and \u003cem>True Crime\u003c/em> (1999). But when tourists post videos on social media from Dunsmuir, they talk about \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Phantasm\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Actually, a fan sent me a photo,” Coscarelli said. “They had their wedding at Dunsmuir, and I think they drove off in a hearse!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it comes full circle. Dunsmuir’s notoriety in the movies helps goose the local special events business, run for the last year by the city of Oakland directly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historian Christopher Pollock thinks a little TLC — well, a lot, really — could restore the mansion to the extent it might open the interior to the public, like Filoli in Woodside. Not that there are any imminent plans, but one can hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Come see the outside for yourself. It’s a nice walk around the grounds … during the daytime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ll never forget my first horror film. I was probably 7 or 8, spending the night at a friend’s house down the street. She pressed a tape into the VHS player – a movie her dad had rented from the 48 Hour video store that I’m pretty sure we weren’t meant to be watching. We hit play and for the next two hours, we sat … still a stone … taken in by the story of a house so haunted, nobody would make it out alive. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music from “Burnt Offerings” fades up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The film was Burnt Offerings. I didn’t sleep well for weeks. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music fades into the Boo Curious theme song, Hip Hop Halloween\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was only recently that I learned the house in the movie, the one that consumes it’s occupants, is lurking in the Oakland Hills…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Boo Curious. Your eerie tour of the San Francisco Bay Area. Today we have a double feature for you. Part 1 takes you inside the Dunsmuir House, the dusty mansion at the center of several renowned horror films. Then we’ll head to Hayward for a centuries-old legend of love, betrayal … and gruesome murder. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Now stay close. You don’t want to get lost.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hiding away in the East Bay Hills is a home that has haunted the imaginations of decades of movie-goers … myself included. KQED’s Rachael Myrow went to see what hides within its crumbling walls…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crunch of feet on gravel\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate sits on 50 landscaped acres just south of the Oakland zoo, and as you walk up to the massive Neoclassical Revival Mansion, painted a crisp, almost blinding white, its looming immensity cuts a dramatic line against a backdrop of giant eucalyptus trees and out in front, a vast, rolling green lawn. Three giant columns in front of the front door are so big, they appear to hold up the house. Scary? That depends on whether you’ve seen the movie “Burnt Offerings.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Movie Trailer clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A young family, found a beautiful old house. They thought it was the answer to their dreams, but it was the beginning of a nightmare. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This 1976 horror movie starred a host of then famous actors like Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Oliver Reed … and Betty Davis in her final role. “Burnt Offerings” terrified generations with its tale of a possessed Victorian mansion that feeds on the life force of its guests, driving them mad, or worse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Movie trailer clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Bong bong bong. Oh God! Oh God! In this old house, up this staircase, behind this locked door, something lives. Something strange. Something powerful. Something evil! (:15 then fade down and under) \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Footsteps, low voices moving through the house.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Half a century later, Dunsmuir is locked up, the interior unavailable to the public … unless you get a special tour…like we did. You’d have to know what you were looking for to find the property, tucked away inside a sleepy residential neighborhood to the east of 580.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow, in scene: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow, that looks like a torture device! Not a shower.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unlike other Victorian mansions that have been renovated or repurposed, the insides of Dunsmuir are frozen in time. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ominous piano music begins, mashed up with a demented version of The Sugar Plum Fairy\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The wallpaper is peeling from the ceiling upstairs and broken pieces of furniture sag onto the carpet in the nursery. The house is littered with old Christmas decorations from party preparations years ago. There are four floors from the basement on up, including everything you’d expect in a mansion, like a wine cellar and servants’ quarters. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The couple that built this place in 1899, the Dunsmuirs, barely lived in it. Talk about bad luck: Alexander, the son of a Canadian coal baron, died ON their honeymoon. Josephine, long sick with lung cancer, died about a year later. Other families took up residence, like the Hellmans, but the 37-rooms were barely used before this estate was sold to the city of Oakland in the 1950s. In the years since, a non-profit rented it out for weddings, concerts and other events. But a giant house like this…it’s a lot to take care of.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Burnt Offerings clip of “Ben” speaking to a woman:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t know, with a house this size and only my wife, I don’t know that we can—\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Woman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The house… takes care of itself, Mr. Roth. Believe me. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Historian Christopher Pollock wrote Reel San Francisco Stories: An Annotated Filmography of the Bay Area. Dunsmuir appears several times in the book, because “Burnt Offerings” was just the first of several horror movies shot here, at least in part. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have here a piece of preservation that happened by accident, more than anything. But it helped set the stage for these movies that have been filmed here and give you kind of a creep factor.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dunsmuir wasn’t the first or last Victorian to play the haunted house. There’s been something about these aging mansions that haunt the recesses of our fevered imaginations … pretty much since they went out of fashion as living spaces in the late 1920s.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Around the time of the Great Depression. People no longer wanted them. They were dark and dingy to people. They rambled all over the place.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All those dusty nooks and crannies, creaky wood floors, musty, moth eaten carpets, and the spooky sense that people lived — and died — there before you walked in. So when a young filmmaker named Don Coscarelli saw “Burnt Offerings” in 1976, Dunsmuir struck him as the perfect place to film what would become a cult classic … “Phantasm.”\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phantasm theme song\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dunsmuir, used in the movie as “Morningside Mortuary,” is the setting for a story about an extra-dimensional grave robber, the Tall Man. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from Phantasm: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boyyyyyy!\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fun fact: my dad co-wrote the music.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When I met you, I must have been like 19/20, and you were about 5.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coscarelli grew up, as I did, in Southern California, where a certain cemetery holds a lot of the region’s dead people, and there are striking visual similarities with Dunsmuir. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Forest Lawn which has this massive, white, NeoColonial mansion, you know, on a hill.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After “Burnt Offerings,” Dunsmuir wouldn’t let Coscarelli film inside, for fear the shoot might cause more damage to an already crumbling house. And his movie’s massive mausoleum, ostensibly inside the massive white mansion, was shot on a set in Hollywood. But Dunsmuir’s exterior and the lawn outside effectively set the scene for Phantasm, which came out in 1979.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We had a lot of action out there. You know, we had a 1968 Cadillac hearse that had to speed across the grass at night. At night we had a Plymouth muscle car that came racing out of the thing. And then the finale of Phantasm required this cataclysmic wind storm as the dimensions were shifting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Clip of the windstorm from the film\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from Phantasm:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What ever it is, if this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Multiple films followed featuring Dunsmuir, including “The Vineyard” (1989), “So I Married an Axe Murderer” (1993), and “True Crime” (1999). But when tourists post videos on social media from Dunsmuir, they talk about “Burnt Offerings” and “Phantasm.”\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Actually, a fan sent me a photo. They had their wedding at Dunsmuir, and I think they drove off in a hearse!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it comes full circle. Dunsmuir’s notoriety in the movies helps goose the local special events business, run for the last year by the city of Oakland directly. Historian Chris Pollock thinks a little TLC – well, a lot, really – could restore the mansion to the extent it might open the interior to the public, like Filoli in Woodside. Not that there are any imminent plans, but one can hope, given that the Dunsmuir House is listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. And it’s pretty cool. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m hoping Oakland can spend, find the funding in order to do some preservation on this house.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Come see the outside for yourself. It’s a nice walk around the grounds…during daytime… Or treat yourself to a spooky movie tonight. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phantasm Theme\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was KQED’s Rachael Myrow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Next up, we’re staying in the East Bay, but heading about 10 miles south, to Hayward, where a story of bloody betrayal has been a part of community lore since … before Hayward was even a city. It’s called the Legend of Lone Tree … A Bay Curious listener wrote in asking about it and reporter Pauline Bartolone got intrigued…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This East Bay legend is something of a Romeo and Juliet story… Iterations of the tale have been appearing in newspapers and local history books for almost one hundred and fifty years…Each account has its own flair, with its own set of details…dates, names, even locations. But they all go a little something like this…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Western music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was in the spring of 1830, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading archival material:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “One warm summer morning, some four score years ago,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There lived in Southern California a gentleman who had a bastard son…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> he was one for a father to be proud of…although compelled by adverse circumstances to a second place in caste or society.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And who did this illegitimate son love? An aristocratic young Spanish woman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> …Don Pedro was blessed with a daughter whose appearance caused the admiration of all who knew her,/// none could excel her in the dance or song of the country… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Their names? Juan and Isabel, at least in one retelling. And they were in love. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends with a flourish\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Without the knowledge of the parents the young people had plighted their troth and pledged unchanging love.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The problem was, Isabel’s father would never allow her marriage to an illegitimate man… And he promised his daughter to a Spaniard. So in the dark of night, with her arranged wedding imminent, Isabel and her lover escaped on horseback.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">when inquiry was made for the bride, she could no- where be found, and it was dis- covered that the two swiftest horses were missing from the corral…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the two lovers had abandoned home, family and friends, for each other,\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An elopement was of course understood.. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the story goes, a chase ensues… Isabel’s father tails the couple with his own band of horse-riding henchmen. And they make it all the way up to modern day Hayward…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In one version, they encounter an important figure in Hayward history… Guillermo Castro. He owned what is now Hayward and Castro Valley … and apparently, Senor Castro’s was the place for any weary traveler.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Guillermo Castro had his hacienda and he was known for being incredibly hospitable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Caroline Sandoval is with the Hayward Area Historical Society recounts the most recent adaptation of the tale.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So this couple actually stopped to water their horses, get supplies, and to just get a little bit of rest after they got what they needed, they were sent on their way. And Mr. Castro started to notice that they were going in the direction of what was called the the old lone tree. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Old Lone Tree is an Oak with winding, gnarly branches that would have stood out on an otherwise grassy hillside.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Because it was one of the only ones of the trees in the areas, it would have been used as a landmark for people on the property. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hayward Public Library’s Hector Villasenor is a local, and first heard this tale as a child.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what happened was they went out to the lone tree and they didn’t come back. And then in a meantime, somebody stopped looking for the young couple. Older man. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> an older gentleman,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They don’t really know his name. Lost to history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and he asks about the direction of the couple. Have you seen the couple? Where is the couple representing himself to be the young woman’s father.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Saying that, he needed to look for them to give them some news. So they pointed him in the way to where the lone tree was. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dramatic music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The father finally catches up to the young couple at the Lone Tree. This is where the newspaper writers of the late 19th century let their imaginations run amok.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the pair dismounted and placed themselves side by side, and calmly and anxiously awaited their doom.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the parties met, not a word was spoken. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The stern Spanish Don Pascual…approached his daughter and her lover and his face gave evidence of the conflicting emotions…Scorn, pity and rage were depicted and his whole frame shook. (6:04)\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The father/// drawing his stiletto, sprang to her side and buried it in her heart.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> … plunged the cruel blade deeply into the bosom of his only child.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She fell and died without a word of outcry, her blood staining his hands. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Quickly the daggers of his followers were struck into the body of the lover, who expired with scarcely a shudder. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The bodies of the lovers were supposedly buried at the lone tree, or at least nearby, and a cemetery took root around them. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Wow. Dramatic! A Hayward twist on star-crossed love. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know right?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok do we know how much of this story really true or is it just a tall tale? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are some puzzling discrepancies between the stories that make me doubt the tale. One version has the murder taking place back in the late 1700s, another in the 1830s. The later versions play up Don Guillermo Castro’s role in the whole ordeal, but he wasn’t in the area until 1839 at the earliest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In one version, the lovers started their escape from Southern California, in another, a coastal town in Mexico. Either way, that’s a long way to go by horse. Lastly, one of the original trustees of Lone Tree Cemetery takes credit for writing and publishing the tale. He said the story \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">based on facts, but who knows what his embellishments were…. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I will say that Caroline Sandoval with the historical society agrees that there are some discrepancies, but she thinks the stories are too detailed to be a complete fabrication. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">True or not – why does a story like this keep getting told time and time and time again? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well like any local legend, stories like this help us learn about history. And that’s exactly what Sandoval says about Lone Tree. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Such a huge population of people living in this area are not even native to the state. And so there’s lots of ways that people are really kind of looking to connect to, you know, the space that they’re moving into. And the easiest way to find history is by going to a cemetery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ambi of area around tree and music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I of course ventured out to the Lone Tree for this story, which still stands today, next to a small creek at the Lone Tree Cemetery. A headstone nearby dates it back to the 1700s. The tree’s gnarly branches make it look wise. Whether or not young love was brutally stolen here, this tree has lived through decades of history. And its legend… will no doubt continue to ignite people’s imagination and give us all a story to share. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music fades but continues playing softly through the end of episode\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pauline Bartolone – thank you!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you, I was happy to do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s it for today’s installment in our Boo Curious series. If you’ve been digging it, please share with a friend, or leave us a five star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re gearing up for our next event, a walking tour of the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. Featuring live dance, music and a performance from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence – I think it’s going to be a unique way to connect to the space, and learn about our history along the way. Tickets are limited – get yours today at KQED.org/live.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. We got extra help this week from Brendan Willard and Pauline Bartolone. Thanks also to Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a wonderful week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "How did a 19th century estate in Oakland become the undisputed star of spooky films dating back to the 1970s? ",
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"description": "How did a 19th century estate in Oakland become the undisputed star of spooky films dating back to the 1970s? ",
"title": "Dunsmuir: The Oakland Mansion That Inspired Hollywood Nightmares | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/topics/dunsmuir-historic-estate\">Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate\u003c/a> sits on 50 landscaped acres just south of the Oakland zoo. As you walk up to the massive Neoclassical Revival mansion, painted a crisp, almost blinding white, its looming immensity cuts a dramatic line against a backdrop of giant eucalyptus trees. Out in front, a vast, rolling green lawn. Three giant columns in the portico are so big, they appear to hold up the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scary? That depends on whether you’ve seen the movie \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074258/\">Burnt Offerings.\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\nThis 1976 horror movie starred a host of then-famous actors like Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Oliver Reed — and Bette Davis in her final role. Burnt Offerings terrified generations with its tale of a possessed Victorian mansion that feeds on the life force of its guests, driving them mad — or worse.\u003cem>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Oo_6Fb5k2lo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Oo_6Fb5k2lo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003ch2>A hidden gem in Oakland\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Half a century later, the Dunsmuir house is locked up, the interior unavailable to the public, unless you get a special tour like I did. You’d have to know what you were looking for to find the property, tucked away inside a sleepy residential neighborhood to the east of I-580.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike other Victorian mansions that have been renovated or repurposed, the insides of Dunsmuir are frozen in time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964137\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-11964137 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"A room featuring a broken bed and a dresser in the corner. There are signs of neglect and debris littered around the floor.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a-160x90.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/D2BAB5B4-4E9B-4C0D-8873-C4D7012AFF17_1_201_a.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Most of the rooms in the mansion haven’t been touched in years. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The wallpaper is peeling from the ceiling upstairs and broken pieces of furniture sag onto the carpet in the nursery. The house is littered with old Christmas decorations from party preparations years ago. There are four floors from the basement on up, including everything you’d expect in a mansion, like a wine cellar and servants’ quarters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The couple that built this place in 1899, the Dunsmuirs, barely lived in it. Talk about bad luck: Alexander, the son of a Canadian coal baron, died on their honeymoon. Josephine died about a year later. Other families took up residence, like the Hellman family five years later, but the 37-rooms were barely used before this estate was sold to the city of Oakland in the 1950s. In the years since, a nonprofit rented Dunsmuir out for weddings, concerts and other events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historian Christopher Pollock wrote \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Reel-San-Francisco-Stories-Filmography/dp/0578130424#:~:text=Book%20overview&text=More%20than%20600%20movies%2C%20from,your%20curiosity%20and%20identify%20locations.\">Reel San Francisco Stories: An Annotated Filmography of the Bay Area\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. Dunsmuir appears several times in the book, because \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em> was just the first of several horror movies shot here, at least in part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have today here a piece of preservation that happened by accident, more than anything,” he said. “But it helped set the stage for these movies that have been filmed here, and gives you kind of a creep factor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964139\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964139\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"An attic space with one small window. Scattered around the large room are folding chairs, Christmas decorations, and lots of boxes.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a-160x90.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/A19EF36F-50AD-4418-9C5F-45B4354F0544_1_201_a.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peeling walls and old Christmas decorations are found in an upper floor of the home. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Why Victorian mansions strike us as spooky\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Dunsmuir wasn’t the first or last Victorian to play the haunted house. There’s been something about these aging mansions that haunt the recesses of our fevered imaginations, pretty much since they went out of fashion as living spaces in the late 1920s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Around the time of the Great Depression, people no longer wanted them. They were dark and dingy-feeling to people. They rambled all over the place,” Pollock said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All those dusty nooks and crannies, creaky wood floors, musty, moth-eaten carpets, and the spooky sense that people lived — and died — there before you walked in. So when a young filmmaker named Don Coscarelli saw \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em> in 1976, Dunsmuir struck him as the perfect place to film what would become a cult classic: \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079714/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1\">Phantasm\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dunsmuir, used in the movie as “Morningside Mortuary,” is the setting for a story about an extra-dimensional grave robber, the Tall Man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fun fact: \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13813192/phantasm-fred-myrow\">my dad co-wrote the music\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/RIRVOepV9Ik'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/RIRVOepV9Ik'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003ch2>‘This massive, white, Neocolonial mansion, you know, on a hill.’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Coscarelli grew up in Southern California, where Forest Lawn in the Hollywood Hills features a building with \u003ca href=\"https://forestlawn.com/parks/hollywood-hills/park-hollywood/\">striking visual similarity to Dunsmuir\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Forest Lawn has this massive, white, Neocolonial mansion, you know, on a hill,” said Coscarelli.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em>, Dunsmuir wouldn’t let Coscarelli film inside, for fear the shoot might cause more damage to an already crumbling house. His movie’s massive mausoleum, ostensibly inside the massive white mansion, was shot on a set in Hollywood. But Dunsmuir’s exterior and the lawn outside effectively set the scene for \u003cem>Phantasm\u003c/em>, which came out in 1979.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a lot of action out there. You know, we had a 1968 Cadillac hearse that had to speed across the grass at night. At night we had a Plymouth muscle car that came racing out of the thing. And then the finale of \u003cem>Phantasm\u003c/em> required this cataclysmic wind storm as the dimensions were shifting,” Coscarelli said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Multiple films followed featuring Dunsmuir, including \u003cem>The Vineyard\u003c/em> (1989), \u003cem>So I Married an Axe Murderer\u003c/em> (1993), and \u003cem>True Crime\u003c/em> (1999). But when tourists post videos on social media from Dunsmuir, they talk about \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Phantasm\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Actually, a fan sent me a photo,” Coscarelli said. “They had their wedding at Dunsmuir, and I think they drove off in a hearse!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it comes full circle. Dunsmuir’s notoriety in the movies helps goose the local special events business, run for the last year by the city of Oakland directly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Historian Christopher Pollock thinks a little TLC — well, a lot, really — could restore the mansion to the extent it might open the interior to the public, like Filoli in Woodside. Not that there are any imminent plans, but one can hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Come see the outside for yourself. It’s a nice walk around the grounds … during the daytime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ll never forget my first horror film. I was probably 7 or 8, spending the night at a friend’s house down the street. She pressed a tape into the VHS player – a movie her dad had rented from the 48 Hour video store that I’m pretty sure we weren’t meant to be watching. We hit play and for the next two hours, we sat … still a stone … taken in by the story of a house so haunted, nobody would make it out alive. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music from “Burnt Offerings” fades up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The film was Burnt Offerings. I didn’t sleep well for weeks. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music fades into the Boo Curious theme song, Hip Hop Halloween\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was only recently that I learned the house in the movie, the one that consumes it’s occupants, is lurking in the Oakland Hills…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Boo Curious. Your eerie tour of the San Francisco Bay Area. Today we have a double feature for you. Part 1 takes you inside the Dunsmuir House, the dusty mansion at the center of several renowned horror films. Then we’ll head to Hayward for a centuries-old legend of love, betrayal … and gruesome murder. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Now stay close. You don’t want to get lost.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SPONSORSHIP MESSAGE\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hiding away in the East Bay Hills is a home that has haunted the imaginations of decades of movie-goers … myself included. KQED’s Rachael Myrow went to see what hides within its crumbling walls…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crunch of feet on gravel\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate sits on 50 landscaped acres just south of the Oakland zoo, and as you walk up to the massive Neoclassical Revival Mansion, painted a crisp, almost blinding white, its looming immensity cuts a dramatic line against a backdrop of giant eucalyptus trees and out in front, a vast, rolling green lawn. Three giant columns in front of the front door are so big, they appear to hold up the house. Scary? That depends on whether you’ve seen the movie “Burnt Offerings.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Movie Trailer clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A young family, found a beautiful old house. They thought it was the answer to their dreams, but it was the beginning of a nightmare. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This 1976 horror movie starred a host of then famous actors like Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Oliver Reed … and Betty Davis in her final role. “Burnt Offerings” terrified generations with its tale of a possessed Victorian mansion that feeds on the life force of its guests, driving them mad, or worse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Movie trailer clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Bong bong bong. Oh God! Oh God! In this old house, up this staircase, behind this locked door, something lives. Something strange. Something powerful. Something evil! (:15 then fade down and under) \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Footsteps, low voices moving through the house.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Half a century later, Dunsmuir is locked up, the interior unavailable to the public … unless you get a special tour…like we did. You’d have to know what you were looking for to find the property, tucked away inside a sleepy residential neighborhood to the east of 580.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow, in scene: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow, that looks like a torture device! Not a shower.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unlike other Victorian mansions that have been renovated or repurposed, the insides of Dunsmuir are frozen in time. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ominous piano music begins, mashed up with a demented version of The Sugar Plum Fairy\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The wallpaper is peeling from the ceiling upstairs and broken pieces of furniture sag onto the carpet in the nursery. The house is littered with old Christmas decorations from party preparations years ago. There are four floors from the basement on up, including everything you’d expect in a mansion, like a wine cellar and servants’ quarters. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The couple that built this place in 1899, the Dunsmuirs, barely lived in it. Talk about bad luck: Alexander, the son of a Canadian coal baron, died ON their honeymoon. Josephine, long sick with lung cancer, died about a year later. Other families took up residence, like the Hellmans, but the 37-rooms were barely used before this estate was sold to the city of Oakland in the 1950s. In the years since, a non-profit rented it out for weddings, concerts and other events. But a giant house like this…it’s a lot to take care of.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Burnt Offerings clip of “Ben” speaking to a woman:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t know, with a house this size and only my wife, I don’t know that we can—\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Woman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The house… takes care of itself, Mr. Roth. Believe me. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Historian Christopher Pollock wrote Reel San Francisco Stories: An Annotated Filmography of the Bay Area. Dunsmuir appears several times in the book, because “Burnt Offerings” was just the first of several horror movies shot here, at least in part. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have here a piece of preservation that happened by accident, more than anything. But it helped set the stage for these movies that have been filmed here and give you kind of a creep factor.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dunsmuir wasn’t the first or last Victorian to play the haunted house. There’s been something about these aging mansions that haunt the recesses of our fevered imaginations … pretty much since they went out of fashion as living spaces in the late 1920s.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Around the time of the Great Depression. People no longer wanted them. They were dark and dingy to people. They rambled all over the place.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All those dusty nooks and crannies, creaky wood floors, musty, moth eaten carpets, and the spooky sense that people lived — and died — there before you walked in. So when a young filmmaker named Don Coscarelli saw “Burnt Offerings” in 1976, Dunsmuir struck him as the perfect place to film what would become a cult classic … “Phantasm.”\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phantasm theme song\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dunsmuir, used in the movie as “Morningside Mortuary,” is the setting for a story about an extra-dimensional grave robber, the Tall Man. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from Phantasm: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boyyyyyy!\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fun fact: my dad co-wrote the music.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When I met you, I must have been like 19/20, and you were about 5.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coscarelli grew up, as I did, in Southern California, where a certain cemetery holds a lot of the region’s dead people, and there are striking visual similarities with Dunsmuir. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Forest Lawn which has this massive, white, NeoColonial mansion, you know, on a hill.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After “Burnt Offerings,” Dunsmuir wouldn’t let Coscarelli film inside, for fear the shoot might cause more damage to an already crumbling house. And his movie’s massive mausoleum, ostensibly inside the massive white mansion, was shot on a set in Hollywood. But Dunsmuir’s exterior and the lawn outside effectively set the scene for Phantasm, which came out in 1979.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We had a lot of action out there. You know, we had a 1968 Cadillac hearse that had to speed across the grass at night. At night we had a Plymouth muscle car that came racing out of the thing. And then the finale of Phantasm required this cataclysmic wind storm as the dimensions were shifting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Clip of the windstorm from the film\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from Phantasm:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What ever it is, if this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Multiple films followed featuring Dunsmuir, including “The Vineyard” (1989), “So I Married an Axe Murderer” (1993), and “True Crime” (1999). But when tourists post videos on social media from Dunsmuir, they talk about “Burnt Offerings” and “Phantasm.”\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Don Coscarelli:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Actually, a fan sent me a photo. They had their wedding at Dunsmuir, and I think they drove off in a hearse!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it comes full circle. Dunsmuir’s notoriety in the movies helps goose the local special events business, run for the last year by the city of Oakland directly. Historian Chris Pollock thinks a little TLC – well, a lot, really – could restore the mansion to the extent it might open the interior to the public, like Filoli in Woodside. Not that there are any imminent plans, but one can hope, given that the Dunsmuir House is listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. And it’s pretty cool. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Pollock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m hoping Oakland can spend, find the funding in order to do some preservation on this house.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Come see the outside for yourself. It’s a nice walk around the grounds…during daytime… Or treat yourself to a spooky movie tonight. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phantasm Theme\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was KQED’s Rachael Myrow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Next up, we’re staying in the East Bay, but heading about 10 miles south, to Hayward, where a story of bloody betrayal has been a part of community lore since … before Hayward was even a city. It’s called the Legend of Lone Tree … A Bay Curious listener wrote in asking about it and reporter Pauline Bartolone got intrigued…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This East Bay legend is something of a Romeo and Juliet story… Iterations of the tale have been appearing in newspapers and local history books for almost one hundred and fifty years…Each account has its own flair, with its own set of details…dates, names, even locations. But they all go a little something like this…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Western music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was in the spring of 1830, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading archival material:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “One warm summer morning, some four score years ago,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There lived in Southern California a gentleman who had a bastard son…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> he was one for a father to be proud of…although compelled by adverse circumstances to a second place in caste or society.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And who did this illegitimate son love? An aristocratic young Spanish woman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> …Don Pedro was blessed with a daughter whose appearance caused the admiration of all who knew her,/// none could excel her in the dance or song of the country… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Their names? Juan and Isabel, at least in one retelling. And they were in love. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends with a flourish\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Without the knowledge of the parents the young people had plighted their troth and pledged unchanging love.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The problem was, Isabel’s father would never allow her marriage to an illegitimate man… And he promised his daughter to a Spaniard. So in the dark of night, with her arranged wedding imminent, Isabel and her lover escaped on horseback.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">when inquiry was made for the bride, she could no- where be found, and it was dis- covered that the two swiftest horses were missing from the corral…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the two lovers had abandoned home, family and friends, for each other,\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An elopement was of course understood.. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the story goes, a chase ensues… Isabel’s father tails the couple with his own band of horse-riding henchmen. And they make it all the way up to modern day Hayward…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In one version, they encounter an important figure in Hayward history… Guillermo Castro. He owned what is now Hayward and Castro Valley … and apparently, Senor Castro’s was the place for any weary traveler.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Guillermo Castro had his hacienda and he was known for being incredibly hospitable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Caroline Sandoval is with the Hayward Area Historical Society recounts the most recent adaptation of the tale.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So this couple actually stopped to water their horses, get supplies, and to just get a little bit of rest after they got what they needed, they were sent on their way. And Mr. Castro started to notice that they were going in the direction of what was called the the old lone tree. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Old Lone Tree is an Oak with winding, gnarly branches that would have stood out on an otherwise grassy hillside.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Because it was one of the only ones of the trees in the areas, it would have been used as a landmark for people on the property. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hayward Public Library’s Hector Villasenor is a local, and first heard this tale as a child.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what happened was they went out to the lone tree and they didn’t come back. And then in a meantime, somebody stopped looking for the young couple. Older man. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> an older gentleman,\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They don’t really know his name. Lost to history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and he asks about the direction of the couple. Have you seen the couple? Where is the couple representing himself to be the young woman’s father.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Hector Villasenor:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Saying that, he needed to look for them to give them some news. So they pointed him in the way to where the lone tree was. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dramatic music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The father finally catches up to the young couple at the Lone Tree. This is where the newspaper writers of the late 19th century let their imaginations run amok.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the pair dismounted and placed themselves side by side, and calmly and anxiously awaited their doom.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the parties met, not a word was spoken. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The stern Spanish Don Pascual…approached his daughter and her lover and his face gave evidence of the conflicting emotions…Scorn, pity and rage were depicted and his whole frame shook. (6:04)\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The father/// drawing his stiletto, sprang to her side and buried it in her heart.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> … plunged the cruel blade deeply into the bosom of his only child.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1874 newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She fell and died without a word of outcry, her blood staining his hands. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice reading 1897 newspaper clip:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Quickly the daggers of his followers were struck into the body of the lover, who expired with scarcely a shudder. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The bodies of the lovers were supposedly buried at the lone tree, or at least nearby, and a cemetery took root around them. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Wow. Dramatic! A Hayward twist on star-crossed love. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know right?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok do we know how much of this story really true or is it just a tall tale? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are some puzzling discrepancies between the stories that make me doubt the tale. One version has the murder taking place back in the late 1700s, another in the 1830s. The later versions play up Don Guillermo Castro’s role in the whole ordeal, but he wasn’t in the area until 1839 at the earliest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In one version, the lovers started their escape from Southern California, in another, a coastal town in Mexico. Either way, that’s a long way to go by horse. Lastly, one of the original trustees of Lone Tree Cemetery takes credit for writing and publishing the tale. He said the story \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">based on facts, but who knows what his embellishments were…. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I will say that Caroline Sandoval with the historical society agrees that there are some discrepancies, but she thinks the stories are too detailed to be a complete fabrication. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">True or not – why does a story like this keep getting told time and time and time again? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well like any local legend, stories like this help us learn about history. And that’s exactly what Sandoval says about Lone Tree. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Caroline Sandoval:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Such a huge population of people living in this area are not even native to the state. And so there’s lots of ways that people are really kind of looking to connect to, you know, the space that they’re moving into. And the easiest way to find history is by going to a cemetery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ambi of area around tree and music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I of course ventured out to the Lone Tree for this story, which still stands today, next to a small creek at the Lone Tree Cemetery. A headstone nearby dates it back to the 1700s. The tree’s gnarly branches make it look wise. Whether or not young love was brutally stolen here, this tree has lived through decades of history. And its legend… will no doubt continue to ignite people’s imagination and give us all a story to share. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music fades but continues playing softly through the end of episode\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pauline Bartolone – thank you!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you, I was happy to do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s it for today’s installment in our Boo Curious series. If you’ve been digging it, please share with a friend, or leave us a five star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re gearing up for our next event, a walking tour of the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. Featuring live dance, music and a performance from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence – I think it’s going to be a unique way to connect to the space, and learn about our history along the way. Tickets are limited – get yours today at KQED.org/live.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. We got extra help this week from Brendan Willard and Pauline Bartolone. Thanks also to Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a wonderful week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "after-100-years-the-mysteries-of-the-winchester-house-endure",
"title": "After 100 Years, the Mysteries of the Winchester House Endure",
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"headTitle": "After 100 Years, the Mysteries of the Winchester House Endure | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone in the Bay Area has visited the Winchester Mystery House. But even those who’ve never set foot inside it know at least a little about the shadowy legends that surround it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This vast, sprawling mansion in San José dating from 1886, set among lush gardens, is primarily infamous for the bizarre architectural features that greet visitors within its walls — staircases that lead to nowhere … mysteriously placed doors and windows … [baycuriousbug]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Mystery House, which opened its doors to the public one hundred years ago, is also famous for the apparent strangeness of its Victorian creator. This house-like-no-other was the home and brainchild of Sarah Winchester, the widowed heiress to one of the biggest, most successful weapons manufacturers of the time: the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah, so the legend goes, moved from the East Coast to California to build this home after a psychic told her that doing so would appease the angry ghosts of all the people killed by Winchester rifles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 24,000 square feet, the resulting 160-room mansion boasts 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47 stairways, 17 chimneys and 13 bathrooms. In today’s money, the Mystery House’s construction costs would have totaled $71 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a tourist attraction, much is made of the Mystery House’s innate spookiness. And when you’re inside it, on one of the House’s daily public tours, it feels plausible that this mansion was designed by someone who perhaps wasn’t fully operating on this astral plane. But to understand the house — and how it came to be — you have to understand the human behind the legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A move out West\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sarah Winchester was born Sarah Lockwood Pardee in 1839 in Connecticut. After marrying William Winchester, she suffered two waves of devastating loss in her life. The first, in her late twenties, was the death of her only child, Annie, at 5 weeks old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fourteen years later, in 1880, her father-in-law Oliver Winchester died, followed within a matter of months by her husband William. Then Sarah’s elder sister passed away too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was the turning point at which, according to the legend, Sarah heeded a medium’s warning that she must move to the West Coast. But according to Sarah’s biographer, Bay Area writer Mary Jo Ignoffo, “It’s not so much that a psychic told her to go, as family circumstances and life led her to California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963323\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11963323\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage-800x569.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white archival image of a woman sitting in the back of a horse drawn carriage. The man at the front of the carriage is wearing a top hat, and it is pulled by 2 horses. It sits unmoving in front of a house, with trees to either side of the image.\" width=\"800\" height=\"569\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage-800x569.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage-1020x726.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage-1536x1093.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah Winchester in a horse-drawn carriage. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the Winchester Mystery House)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ignoffo says Sarah’s own doctor was urging her to seek out warmer climes that would be better for her health and her grief. What’s more, says Ignoffo, one of Sarah’s surviving sisters was planning her own move out West to Oakland — a relocation that spurred the rest of the family, including Sarah, to join her and make the huge move together. This account sees Sarah move to the Bay Area not as a lone widow hell-bent on a pact with the dead, but as a family — the only family she really had left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But to examine the legend further, is it still possible that Sarah may have felt a creeping worry that the victims of Winchester guns could come back to haunt her? For Ignoffo, the snag with this theory is the extent to which Sarah chose to remain involved with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company after her husband’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as a rich heiress, Sarah stayed on as an active, engaged member on the company’s board when perhaps she really didn’t have to. “If she felt so guilty about money coming from guns, would she have spent so much time, literally years and reams … of paper analyzing the books and investing the money?” asks Ignoffo.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Building a mystery\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Already keenly interested in architecture, in 1886 Sarah purchased the modest two-story farmhouse in the San José area that she would turn into her giant mansion over more than three decades of construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She kind of unleashed her interior design, artistic talents, her desire to be an architect on that house,” said Ignoffo, and this place “was her canvas.” Sarah, the aspiring designer who certainly wasn’t held back by lack of funds, “Would say, ‘Oh, try it this way. No, I don’t like that. Rip it down, let’s try it again. Oh, I like this wood better,’” imagined Ignoffo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah’s new San José neighbors were baffled, and the local press became fascinated. And they weren’t just intrigued by the scale of her ever-expanding compound. They were also mystified by the Winchester widow herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was a hyper-private outsider, who shunned the aristocrats of the South Bay social scene. And despite all that interest, Sarah stayed silent as the grave about what on Earth — or maybe elsewhere — was driving her to keep expanding and transforming her strange, increasingly vast home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963313\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11963313\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137-800x489.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white archival image of a large and sprawling mansion with many pointed towers\" width=\"800\" height=\"489\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137-800x489.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137-1020x623.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137-160x98.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137-1536x938.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A photo of the Winchester House prior to the 1906 earthquake. Several stories of the house were badly damaged in the quake. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the Winchester Mystery House)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She was also one of those most unfathomable creatures: a single woman, who had no interest in making other people comfortable with explanations. And because she wouldn’t engage with the press, they simply, “started creating stories,” said Ignoffo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One rumor claimed that Sarah believed eternally remodeling the house would keep her alive. Others said she obsessively tried to contact the spirit world through seances in the house. Many of these myths took hold in Sarah’s own lifetime, fueled by her silence and withdrawal from public life, but also onlookers’ feelings about the grandeur and expense of her seemingly inexplicable mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The earliest references about her and her house are about how outlandishly large it was,” notes Ignoffo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the last decade of her life, Sarah owned many homes over the South Bay — not just the Winchester Mystery House. It was in one of these other houses that she actually chose to spend most of her final years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the very end, something drew her back — and it was to the Winchester Mystery House that Sarah returned to see out her last days on earth, alone. She died inside the house of heart failure in 1922: A Victorian from another era in the Roaring Twenties, who lived long enough to see the first airplane fly and the Titanic sink. She’d survived the so-called “Spanish Flu” pandemic, and had no idea the World War she’d just lived through wouldn’t be the last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah’s house had fallen silent, but not for long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963332\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11963332\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A preserved Victorian era bedroom with an ornately carved wooden headboard, sitting area, and lace curtains.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah Winchester’s bedroom, preserved. \u003ccite>(Carly Severn/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Opening the doors\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The next year, in the spring of 1923, the mansion was leased by John and Mayme Brown who apparently planned to build an amusement park on the site, but pivoted to public tours of the house, given the existing interest and intrigue that had taken root locally during Sarah’s lifetime. Her home, says Ignoffo, “was turned into a haunted house to attract tourists within months of her death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That year, the doors of Sarah’s house were opened to the general public, who thrilled to finally see the place about which they’d heard so many wild rumors. They were egged on by breathless promotion, like in a 1929 advertisement from the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em> that read: “World’s most marvelous and oddest house; Under construction 36 years; Cost: millions; Builder guided by the spirits … Open every day 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The official legend has it that the name, “Mystery House” was allegedly bestowed by Harry Houdini himself after he visited on Halloween night 1924. But considering the name appears in a local newspaper article in May that year, we can probably attribute that one to a little more early myth-making too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But still, the question remains: Why does this place look so odd? According to the legend, Sarah intended these strange features by design to either confuse the spirits in her house or as a way to pay homage to them. But when it came to architectural design, remember that Sarah was an enthusiastic amateur learning as she went, and a lot of the apparent “mysteries” might simply betray those false starts. They might also be add-ons to the bones of the original farmhouse, says Ignoffo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963333\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11963333\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign-800x597.jpg\" alt='A sign on a cream colored wood paneled wall that says \"Staircase to nowhere.\" The sign also includes an illustration of a hand pointing to the right.' width=\"800\" height=\"597\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign-800x597.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign-1020x761.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign-1536x1146.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Staircases and doors that lead to nowhere are a hallmark of what makes the Winchester House ‘mysterious.’ \u003ccite>(Carly Severn/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There’s also the question of the Great Earthquake of 1906. Sarah’s house, like countless homes across the Bay Area, suffered severe damage from these shockwaves — so much so that the quake actually reduced the building’s height by several stories, says Ignoffo. Which means all those weird doors, all those “stairs to nowhere” could have led somewhere very real when they were first built.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Touching the spirit world\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>And what of the ghosts?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since it first opened its doors, much of the Mystery House’s supernatural appeal has been fueled by the image of Sarah as a devoted Spiritualist, uniquely vulnerable to notions of vengeful spirits, and obsessed with inviting in the denizens of the netherworld through seances held in the Mystery House itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spiritualism — a belief system that hinged on attempting contact with the dead — was absolutely popular among upper-crust women like Sarah. Less than 20 miles away from the Mystery House, Jane Stanford, co-founder of Stanford University, was herself experimenting with seances following the death of her son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Ignoffo says she’s been unable to find any record that Sarah ever attended those Spiritualist gatherings that were going on locally. And what’s more, this picture of Sarah the recluse, shut away in her scary house communing solo with the dead, runs fundamentally contrary to the whole point of Spiritualism, says Ignoffo. “If you were to have a seance, you would not do it in a closet in the middle of your house. You would invite other like-minded people,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At its very most basic level, Spiritualism is a social enterprise,” notes Ignoffo. And Sarah had a well-documented aversion to visitors in her house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite this, the longstanding suggestion of an otherworldly connection has still made the Winchester Mystery House famous worldwide among ghost-hunters and supernatural enthusiasts alike, who report unearthly sightings and unexplained sensed presences in its corridors and rooms. Many who arrive for the Mystery House’s public tours today are visiting in the hope of experiencing just that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963334\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11963334\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"An ornately decorated Victorian dining room with a table in the center. Around the table are seating 4 fake ghosts, covered in white sheets. There are two large candelabras on the table as well as a fake dinner.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Winchester Mystery House holds a special All Hallows Eve event in October 2021, where they really lean into the idea of the house being haunted. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And regardless of your personal threshold for belief in the supernatural, there is something about the claustrophobic proportions of this place — its rabbit-warren feeling, its curious darkness even in the bright San José sunshine — that, combined with the knowledge that you’re deep within a building that has been giving people the shivers for 100 years now, could give even skeptical visitors a shiver down their spine.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A century of mystery\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In many ways, the Mystery House legends represent all the things that feel like they should be true, especially when you think of how you yourself might feel, placed into Sarah Winchester’s shoes. How could a person get rich from making new instruments of death and not feel guilty? How could a lonely woman suffer such tragedy and never once feel the impulse to see if her lost loved ones could talk back?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ghosts aside, the hard facts of Sarah’s life might actually leave us with a far more recognizable story about how people react to overwhelming change and loss — and how they can alienate themselves from the world in the process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But let’s face it: When we talk about death through ghosts and ghouls, we’re offered straightforward, even pleasurable scares. It’s death in the real world, and what it does to the humans left living, that’s truly unsettling to dwell on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, faced with that choice, if you go to the Mystery House and feel a sudden chill down your spine, perhaps it’s hard not to feel your thoughts drawn to the supernatural in the right settings. Especially at this time of year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because sometimes even when we know the facts, it’s just far more appealing to indulge in a little mystery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Where are we, Olivia?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are just outside the entrance to the mansion tour at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. And I’m so excited to be here. I have been here before, but it’s been a really long time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Winchester Mystery House is one of those places that’s in all the tourist guidebooks. A spooky historic attraction that’s kinda like Alcatraz, or riding a cable car, in that many people who grew up here know about it — but have never visited. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Announcement (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Walk of the Spirits tour at 12:10 is departing at the front of the house on the front porch.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One crisp fall day in the South Bay, with Halloween just around the corner, reporter Carly Severn and I braved a tour of the sprawling house.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s a disorienting maze of rooms. Staircases leading to nowhere. And then, there are the ghosts … This is Boo Curious. Your tour of the Bay Area’s creepiest places. Today on the show, to kick off our month-long series, we’re taking you inside the eerie Winchester Mystery House … and unpacking the ghostly legend that’s apparently behind it all. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Now stay close. You don’t want to get lost..\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sponsor message\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Winchester Mystery House may be internationally famous for its bizarre, otherworldly architecture — and stories about the ghosts who still stalk its corridors. But almost 140 years after its construction, the real mystery of this place is actually about the woman who lived … and died … within these walls: Sarah Winchester. Let’s go over the threshold with reporter Carly Severn.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexis, our tour guide:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Welcome to the Winchester Mystery House. My name is Alexis. I’ll be your guide today for your hour-long tour of Mrs. Winchester’s beautiful yet slightly unusual mansion. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Mystery House is so confusing, so labyrinthine, that one of the first things our tour guide tells us is: \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">don’t \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">go wandering off alone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just stick with me at all times. It’s really easy to get lost inside this home. So I’m your only way out of here alive. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if the name of this place sounds familiar to you, that’s because it’s “Winchester” as in “Winchester Rifle” — one of the most notorious guns in history. Death was right there in Sarah Winchester’s name.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Start slow but propulsive by lonesome piano music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was one of the biggest, most profitable weapons manufacturers of the 19th century. And by marrying into the family that owned it, Sarah Winchester was the heiress to that fortune. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The legend goes that Sarah moved from the East Coast to California after a psychic told her that building this bizarre place would appease the angry ghosts of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">all \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">those people killed by Winchester rifles.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound Effect: Ghost moan\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ghosts she spoke to in seances, sequestered inside her house of mystery.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music out\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is also the version of this story that’s repeated in the 2018 horror movie “Winchester,” which stars Helen Mirren \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">as \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Helen Mirren Clip from Film: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The spirits… killed by the rifle…. They guide me. The bells summon them… They communicate through plans, drawings … they want me to reconstruct the rooms they died in … then they can enter our world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when you’re inside it, on one of their public tours, it’s kinda plausible that this mansion \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">designed by someone who wasn’t, shall we say … \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">fully \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">operating on this astral plane?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know what floor we’re on. Like, we could be on the seventh floor. We could be on the third floor, like with the staircases being strangely sized and shaped. It’s very disorienting. Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This place, you kind of get lost the minute you step through the door. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Start weird, slightly campy, mysterious music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Winchester Mystery House sprawls across 24,000 square feet. It has 160 rooms, including 13 bathrooms. There are 17 chimneys, 47 stairways – many of which lead nowhere — 2,000 doors and 10,000 windows. If you built the Mystery House today, construction costs would come to $71 million. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">End music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The house itself \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> fascinating. Yet as the tour makes clear, the woman behind it — the one who locked herself away in this \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">dark\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, doom-laded place — is even more so. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexis:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I really love this house and the history behind it, but mainly I love Sarah more than anything. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But with so much rumor and legend, what do we really know about Sarah Winchester? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Start lonesome percussive string music with swells and quiet\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexis:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Now, everyone knows Sarah as Sarah Winchester, but she was originally born as Sarah Lockwood Pardee. She was born in 1839, New Haven, Connecticut. And she grew up very well-educated in life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarah married the Winchester heir, William, in 1862. But she was then fated to suffer multiple waves of devastating loss in her life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her twenties, she lost her only child when they were just 5 weeks old. Fourteen years later, in 1880, her father-in-law died. Followed closely by her own husband, and then, her sister. And the legend goes, it was at that point that Sarah decided to move out to California — on a desperate quest at the behest of a psychic. Right?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music end\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo Ignoffo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t hold the general public responsible for misperceptions. It’s really a 100-year-old marketing campaign.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Sarah Winchester’s biographer, Bay Area writer Mary Jo Ignoffo. And she says that first off, this spooky relocation theory just doesn’t check out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mary Jo says Sarah’s own \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">doctor \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was urging her to seek out warmer climes that would be better for her health, and grief. What’s more, Sarah didn’t move out here alone. One of her surviving sisters was \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">already \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">planning to leave the East Coast for Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo Ignoffo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s not so much that a psychic told her to go as family circumstances and life led her to California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">could\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sarah have felt that creeping worry that the victims of Winchester guns might come back to haunt her? For Mary Jo, the big problem with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">this \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">theory is how much Sarah chose to remain involved with the Winchester Repeating Arms company even after her husband’s death. Sarah stayed on as an active, highly engaged member on the company’s board for years — when she could have just … cut loose with her money.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music beings: piano, inspired, forward moving, but still lonely\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarah landed in the Bay Area already a keen amateur architect. And in 1886, she purchased a modest two-story farmhouse in the San José area — and converted it into her giant mansion. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was her canvas. She would say, oh, try it this way. No, I don’t like that. Rip it down. Let’s try it again. Oh, I like this wood better. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The construction consumed her for over three decades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She kind of unleashed her interior design, artistic talents, her desire to be an architect on that house.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music end\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarah’s new San Jose neighbors were baffled, and the local press became fascinated. And they weren’t just intrigued by the scale of her ever-expanding compound. They were also mystified by the Winchester widow herself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She was a hyper-private outsider, who shunned the aristocrats of the South Bay social scene. And despite all that interest, Sarah stayed silent as the grave about what on earth — or maybe elsewhere — was driving her to keep expanding and transforming her strange, sprawling home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She was also one of those most unfathomable creatures: a single woman, who had no interest in making other people comfortable with explanations.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She would not talk to the press. And so they started creating stories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One rumor at the time claimed that Sarah believed eternally re-modelling the house would keep \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">her \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">alive. Others said that Sarah was obsessively trying to contact the spirit world through those seances of hers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then finally, the last iteration is: she’s crazy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music enter: cinematic, ambient, matter of fact not too sad\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The new century arrived. Sarah grew older, and older still. By the last decade of her life, she owned many homes around the South Bay — not just the Winchester Mystery House. It was in one of these other houses that she actually chose to spend\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">most of her final years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But in the very end, something drew her back – and it was to the Winchester Mystery House that Sarah returned to see out her last days on earth, alone. She died inside the house of heart failure in 1922: A Victorian from another era in the Roaring Twenties, who lived long enough to see the first airplane fly … and the Titanic sink. After all those years of construction, Sarah’s house finally fell silent…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few seconds of silence…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But … it did not stay silent for long.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music begins: Busy, opening, ’50s-era sounding, faster paced\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just months after Sarah died, in the spring of 1923, the mansion was leased by a couple who apparently planned to build an amusement park on the site, complete with a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">rollercoaster\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, but they pivoted to offering public tours of the place. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her house was turned into a haunted house to attract tourists within months of her death. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The public thrilled to finally see inside Mrs Winchester’s house of intrigue, egged on by breathless promotion … like this 1929 advert from the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em>:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Booming male voice reading newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">World’s most marvelous and oddest house. Under construction 36 years. Cost: millions. Builder guided by the spirits … Open every day 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music out\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But still, the question remains: Why \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">does\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> this place look so odd? According to the legend, Sarah intended these strange features by design to either confuse the spirits in her house — or as a way to pay homage to them, like decorating your home for Halloween.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But remember that when it came to architectural design, Sarah was an enthusiastic amateur learning as she went — and a lot of the apparent “mysteries” might simply betray those false starts. And then … there’s what happened in 1906.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The house at its peak literally was seven stories. And in the earthquake of 1096, the top floors collapsed in on themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">means all those weird doors, all those “stairs to nowhere” … might have led somewhere very real when they were first built. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music begins: ghostly whaling\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So now, we come to it. What about the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ghosts\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">? So much of this place’s appeal has been fueled by this legend of Sarah as a devoted Spiritualist. A lonely widow obsessed with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">inviting in the netherworld \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">through her seances. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the Mystery House tour, you can even place your hands on the table and hear the sounds of a seance echo around you:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from seance demonstration in house:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sing all spirits hearken all souls. We gather to offer a clarion call to the spirit world as we seek to open a window for those who still reside here in the Winchester mansion.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spiritualism was technically a belief system that hinged on attempting contact with the dead. And it \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">popular among upper-crust women like Sarah at this time.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Mary Jo says there’s no record that Sarah ever attended the local Spiritualist gatherings.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this image of Sarah the recluse, shut away in her scary house communing solo with the dead, runs contrary to the whole point of Spiritualism:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you were to have a seance, you would not do it in a closet in the middle of your house. You would invite other like minded people. At its very most basic level, Spiritualism is a social enterprise. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarah \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">had a well documented aversion to visitors in her house.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music begin: playful, harpsichord, percussive\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, this hasn’t stopped over a century of rumors about an “otherworldly connection” making the Winchester Mystery House famous worldwide. Ghost hunters and supernatural enthusiasts report unearthly sightings and unexplained presences sensed in its winding corridors and infinite rooms. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And let’s face it, visitors who arrive at the Mystery House for its public tours today are coming in the hope of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">experiencing just that\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — as our tour guide Alexis can attest to.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We sit down in certain areas on the Spirit tour, and I have had people ask me, what’s the most possessed seat? And I never know what to say to them. And I say, You know what? That one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even a total skeptic has to admit it, in that bright San José sunshine, this place \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">disorienting and claustrophobic enough to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">really \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">give you the creeps. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music end\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In many ways, the Mystery House legends represent all the things that feel like they \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">should \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">be true — especially when you think of how you’d feel in Sarah Winchester’s shoes. How could a person get rich from making new instruments of death and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">not \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">feel guilty? How \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">could\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> a lonely woman \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">s\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">uffer such tragedy and never once feel the impulse to see if her lost loved ones could … talk back? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But what if the hard facts of Sarah’s life actually leave us with a far more recognizable story about how people react to overwhelming change and loss? How they can alienate themselves from the world in the process? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And let’s face it: When we talk about death through ghosts and ghouls, we’re offered straightforward, even pleasurable scares. It’s death in the real world, and what it does to the humans left living, that’s truly unsettling to dwell on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So faced with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">choice? Listen, if you go to the Mystery House and feel a sudden chill down your spine … well, maybe it’s hard \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">not\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to feel your thoughts drawn to the supernatural in the right settings. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Especially\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">this \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">time of year. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">our\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> tour, being led into the Mystery House’s dark, cold basement, we certainly weren’t immune from just that:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay … Descending stairs into the darkness. Okay. [Olivia heard muffled in background: “This is very dark!”] This is the thing; you can come in with all this, you know, “I’ve got my factual hat on”, and then you come into a dark room that’s cold, and you’re like, “Well .. Who’s to say? Who’s to say?!” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because sometimes … even when we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">know \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">facts\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, it’s just far more appealing to indulge … in a little mystery.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boo Curious theme music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>OLIVIA: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was KQED’s Carly Severn.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>OLIVIA: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the first in our four part Boo Curious series this year. That’s right, the whole month of October we’ll be bringing out eerie stories, with a Bay Curious twist. Be sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the fun.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>OLIVIA: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This just in: Bay Curious is up for a Signal Award. That’s a listeners choice award for podcasts. We’d love if you could give us a vote. Find a link in our show notes or at BayCurious.org.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>OLIVIA: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tickets are now available for our upcoming theatrical walking tour of the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. Come Learn about the history of this amazing space from the people who helped create it. Plus live music, dance and The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Space is limited. Learn more at KQED.org/live.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>OLIVIA: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Shout out to Dan Brekke, for his voice work. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family. Have a good one, everybody!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The Winchester Mystery has been thrilling visitors for a century now with its bizarre architecture and ghostly tales about its Victorian creator, Sarah Winchester. Can we ever know the truth behind the legends?",
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"title": "After 100 Years, the Mysteries of the Winchester House Endure | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone in the Bay Area has visited the Winchester Mystery House. But even those who’ve never set foot inside it know at least a little about the shadowy legends that surround it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This vast, sprawling mansion in San José dating from 1886, set among lush gardens, is primarily infamous for the bizarre architectural features that greet visitors within its walls — staircases that lead to nowhere … mysteriously placed doors and windows … \u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Mystery House, which opened its doors to the public one hundred years ago, is also famous for the apparent strangeness of its Victorian creator. This house-like-no-other was the home and brainchild of Sarah Winchester, the widowed heiress to one of the biggest, most successful weapons manufacturers of the time: the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah, so the legend goes, moved from the East Coast to California to build this home after a psychic told her that doing so would appease the angry ghosts of all the people killed by Winchester rifles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 24,000 square feet, the resulting 160-room mansion boasts 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47 stairways, 17 chimneys and 13 bathrooms. In today’s money, the Mystery House’s construction costs would have totaled $71 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a tourist attraction, much is made of the Mystery House’s innate spookiness. And when you’re inside it, on one of the House’s daily public tours, it feels plausible that this mansion was designed by someone who perhaps wasn’t fully operating on this astral plane. But to understand the house — and how it came to be — you have to understand the human behind the legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A move out West\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Sarah Winchester was born Sarah Lockwood Pardee in 1839 in Connecticut. After marrying William Winchester, she suffered two waves of devastating loss in her life. The first, in her late twenties, was the death of her only child, Annie, at 5 weeks old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fourteen years later, in 1880, her father-in-law Oliver Winchester died, followed within a matter of months by her husband William. Then Sarah’s elder sister passed away too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was the turning point at which, according to the legend, Sarah heeded a medium’s warning that she must move to the West Coast. But according to Sarah’s biographer, Bay Area writer Mary Jo Ignoffo, “It’s not so much that a psychic told her to go, as family circumstances and life led her to California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963323\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11963323\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage-800x569.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white archival image of a woman sitting in the back of a horse drawn carriage. The man at the front of the carriage is wearing a top hat, and it is pulled by 2 horses. It sits unmoving in front of a house, with trees to either side of the image.\" width=\"800\" height=\"569\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage-800x569.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage-1020x726.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage-1536x1093.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-Winchester-in-Carriage.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah Winchester in a horse-drawn carriage. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the Winchester Mystery House)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ignoffo says Sarah’s own doctor was urging her to seek out warmer climes that would be better for her health and her grief. What’s more, says Ignoffo, one of Sarah’s surviving sisters was planning her own move out West to Oakland — a relocation that spurred the rest of the family, including Sarah, to join her and make the huge move together. This account sees Sarah move to the Bay Area not as a lone widow hell-bent on a pact with the dead, but as a family — the only family she really had left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But to examine the legend further, is it still possible that Sarah may have felt a creeping worry that the victims of Winchester guns could come back to haunt her? For Ignoffo, the snag with this theory is the extent to which Sarah chose to remain involved with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company after her husband’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as a rich heiress, Sarah stayed on as an active, engaged member on the company’s board when perhaps she really didn’t have to. “If she felt so guilty about money coming from guns, would she have spent so much time, literally years and reams … of paper analyzing the books and investing the money?” asks Ignoffo.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Building a mystery\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Already keenly interested in architecture, in 1886 Sarah purchased the modest two-story farmhouse in the San José area that she would turn into her giant mansion over more than three decades of construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She kind of unleashed her interior design, artistic talents, her desire to be an architect on that house,” said Ignoffo, and this place “was her canvas.” Sarah, the aspiring designer who certainly wasn’t held back by lack of funds, “Would say, ‘Oh, try it this way. No, I don’t like that. Rip it down, let’s try it again. Oh, I like this wood better,’” imagined Ignoffo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah’s new San José neighbors were baffled, and the local press became fascinated. And they weren’t just intrigued by the scale of her ever-expanding compound. They were also mystified by the Winchester widow herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was a hyper-private outsider, who shunned the aristocrats of the South Bay social scene. And despite all that interest, Sarah stayed silent as the grave about what on Earth — or maybe elsewhere — was driving her to keep expanding and transforming her strange, increasingly vast home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963313\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11963313\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137-800x489.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white archival image of a large and sprawling mansion with many pointed towers\" width=\"800\" height=\"489\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137-800x489.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137-1020x623.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137-160x98.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137-1536x938.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Pre-1906-View-from-Water-Tower-cmyk-BW-scaled-e1696376606137.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A photo of the Winchester House prior to the 1906 earthquake. Several stories of the house were badly damaged in the quake. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the Winchester Mystery House)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She was also one of those most unfathomable creatures: a single woman, who had no interest in making other people comfortable with explanations. And because she wouldn’t engage with the press, they simply, “started creating stories,” said Ignoffo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One rumor claimed that Sarah believed eternally remodeling the house would keep her alive. Others said she obsessively tried to contact the spirit world through seances in the house. Many of these myths took hold in Sarah’s own lifetime, fueled by her silence and withdrawal from public life, but also onlookers’ feelings about the grandeur and expense of her seemingly inexplicable mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The earliest references about her and her house are about how outlandishly large it was,” notes Ignoffo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the last decade of her life, Sarah owned many homes over the South Bay — not just the Winchester Mystery House. It was in one of these other houses that she actually chose to spend most of her final years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the very end, something drew her back — and it was to the Winchester Mystery House that Sarah returned to see out her last days on earth, alone. She died inside the house of heart failure in 1922: A Victorian from another era in the Roaring Twenties, who lived long enough to see the first airplane fly and the Titanic sink. She’d survived the so-called “Spanish Flu” pandemic, and had no idea the World War she’d just lived through wouldn’t be the last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah’s house had fallen silent, but not for long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963332\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11963332\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A preserved Victorian era bedroom with an ornately carved wooden headboard, sitting area, and lace curtains.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Sarah-WInchesters-Bedroom.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah Winchester’s bedroom, preserved. \u003ccite>(Carly Severn/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Opening the doors\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The next year, in the spring of 1923, the mansion was leased by John and Mayme Brown who apparently planned to build an amusement park on the site, but pivoted to public tours of the house, given the existing interest and intrigue that had taken root locally during Sarah’s lifetime. Her home, says Ignoffo, “was turned into a haunted house to attract tourists within months of her death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That year, the doors of Sarah’s house were opened to the general public, who thrilled to finally see the place about which they’d heard so many wild rumors. They were egged on by breathless promotion, like in a 1929 advertisement from the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em> that read: “World’s most marvelous and oddest house; Under construction 36 years; Cost: millions; Builder guided by the spirits … Open every day 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The official legend has it that the name, “Mystery House” was allegedly bestowed by Harry Houdini himself after he visited on Halloween night 1924. But considering the name appears in a local newspaper article in May that year, we can probably attribute that one to a little more early myth-making too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But still, the question remains: Why does this place look so odd? According to the legend, Sarah intended these strange features by design to either confuse the spirits in her house or as a way to pay homage to them. But when it came to architectural design, remember that Sarah was an enthusiastic amateur learning as she went, and a lot of the apparent “mysteries” might simply betray those false starts. They might also be add-ons to the bones of the original farmhouse, says Ignoffo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963333\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11963333\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign-800x597.jpg\" alt='A sign on a cream colored wood paneled wall that says \"Staircase to nowhere.\" The sign also includes an illustration of a hand pointing to the right.' width=\"800\" height=\"597\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign-800x597.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign-1020x761.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign-1536x1146.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Staricase-to-nowhere-sign.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Staircases and doors that lead to nowhere are a hallmark of what makes the Winchester House ‘mysterious.’ \u003ccite>(Carly Severn/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There’s also the question of the Great Earthquake of 1906. Sarah’s house, like countless homes across the Bay Area, suffered severe damage from these shockwaves — so much so that the quake actually reduced the building’s height by several stories, says Ignoffo. Which means all those weird doors, all those “stairs to nowhere” could have led somewhere very real when they were first built.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Touching the spirit world\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>And what of the ghosts?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since it first opened its doors, much of the Mystery House’s supernatural appeal has been fueled by the image of Sarah as a devoted Spiritualist, uniquely vulnerable to notions of vengeful spirits, and obsessed with inviting in the denizens of the netherworld through seances held in the Mystery House itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spiritualism — a belief system that hinged on attempting contact with the dead — was absolutely popular among upper-crust women like Sarah. Less than 20 miles away from the Mystery House, Jane Stanford, co-founder of Stanford University, was herself experimenting with seances following the death of her son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Ignoffo says she’s been unable to find any record that Sarah ever attended those Spiritualist gatherings that were going on locally. And what’s more, this picture of Sarah the recluse, shut away in her scary house communing solo with the dead, runs fundamentally contrary to the whole point of Spiritualism, says Ignoffo. “If you were to have a seance, you would not do it in a closet in the middle of your house. You would invite other like-minded people,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At its very most basic level, Spiritualism is a social enterprise,” notes Ignoffo. And Sarah had a well-documented aversion to visitors in her house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite this, the longstanding suggestion of an otherworldly connection has still made the Winchester Mystery House famous worldwide among ghost-hunters and supernatural enthusiasts alike, who report unearthly sightings and unexplained sensed presences in its corridors and rooms. Many who arrive for the Mystery House’s public tours today are visiting in the hope of experiencing just that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963334\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11963334\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"An ornately decorated Victorian dining room with a table in the center. Around the table are seating 4 fake ghosts, covered in white sheets. There are two large candelabras on the table as well as a fake dinner.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/GettyImages-1236199193-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Winchester Mystery House holds a special All Hallows Eve event in October 2021, where they really lean into the idea of the house being haunted. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And regardless of your personal threshold for belief in the supernatural, there is something about the claustrophobic proportions of this place — its rabbit-warren feeling, its curious darkness even in the bright San José sunshine — that, combined with the knowledge that you’re deep within a building that has been giving people the shivers for 100 years now, could give even skeptical visitors a shiver down their spine.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A century of mystery\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In many ways, the Mystery House legends represent all the things that feel like they should be true, especially when you think of how you yourself might feel, placed into Sarah Winchester’s shoes. How could a person get rich from making new instruments of death and not feel guilty? How could a lonely woman suffer such tragedy and never once feel the impulse to see if her lost loved ones could talk back?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ghosts aside, the hard facts of Sarah’s life might actually leave us with a far more recognizable story about how people react to overwhelming change and loss — and how they can alienate themselves from the world in the process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But let’s face it: When we talk about death through ghosts and ghouls, we’re offered straightforward, even pleasurable scares. It’s death in the real world, and what it does to the humans left living, that’s truly unsettling to dwell on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, faced with that choice, if you go to the Mystery House and feel a sudden chill down your spine, perhaps it’s hard not to feel your thoughts drawn to the supernatural in the right settings. Especially at this time of year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because sometimes even when we know the facts, it’s just far more appealing to indulge in a little mystery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Where are we, Olivia?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are just outside the entrance to the mansion tour at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. And I’m so excited to be here. I have been here before, but it’s been a really long time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Winchester Mystery House is one of those places that’s in all the tourist guidebooks. A spooky historic attraction that’s kinda like Alcatraz, or riding a cable car, in that many people who grew up here know about it — but have never visited. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Announcement (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Walk of the Spirits tour at 12:10 is departing at the front of the house on the front porch.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One crisp fall day in the South Bay, with Halloween just around the corner, reporter Carly Severn and I braved a tour of the sprawling house.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s a disorienting maze of rooms. Staircases leading to nowhere. And then, there are the ghosts … This is Boo Curious. Your tour of the Bay Area’s creepiest places. Today on the show, to kick off our month-long series, we’re taking you inside the eerie Winchester Mystery House … and unpacking the ghostly legend that’s apparently behind it all. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Now stay close. You don’t want to get lost..\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sponsor message\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Winchester Mystery House may be internationally famous for its bizarre, otherworldly architecture — and stories about the ghosts who still stalk its corridors. But almost 140 years after its construction, the real mystery of this place is actually about the woman who lived … and died … within these walls: Sarah Winchester. Let’s go over the threshold with reporter Carly Severn.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexis, our tour guide:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Welcome to the Winchester Mystery House. My name is Alexis. I’ll be your guide today for your hour-long tour of Mrs. Winchester’s beautiful yet slightly unusual mansion. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly Severn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Mystery House is so confusing, so labyrinthine, that one of the first things our tour guide tells us is: \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">don’t \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">go wandering off alone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just stick with me at all times. It’s really easy to get lost inside this home. So I’m your only way out of here alive. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if the name of this place sounds familiar to you, that’s because it’s “Winchester” as in “Winchester Rifle” — one of the most notorious guns in history. Death was right there in Sarah Winchester’s name.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Start slow but propulsive by lonesome piano music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was one of the biggest, most profitable weapons manufacturers of the 19th century. And by marrying into the family that owned it, Sarah Winchester was the heiress to that fortune. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The legend goes that Sarah moved from the East Coast to California after a psychic told her that building this bizarre place would appease the angry ghosts of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">all \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">those people killed by Winchester rifles.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound Effect: Ghost moan\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ghosts she spoke to in seances, sequestered inside her house of mystery.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music out\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is also the version of this story that’s repeated in the 2018 horror movie “Winchester,” which stars Helen Mirren \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">as \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Helen Mirren Clip from Film: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The spirits… killed by the rifle…. They guide me. The bells summon them… They communicate through plans, drawings … they want me to reconstruct the rooms they died in … then they can enter our world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when you’re inside it, on one of their public tours, it’s kinda plausible that this mansion \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">designed by someone who wasn’t, shall we say … \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">fully \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">operating on this astral plane?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know what floor we’re on. Like, we could be on the seventh floor. We could be on the third floor, like with the staircases being strangely sized and shaped. It’s very disorienting. Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This place, you kind of get lost the minute you step through the door. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Start weird, slightly campy, mysterious music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Winchester Mystery House sprawls across 24,000 square feet. It has 160 rooms, including 13 bathrooms. There are 17 chimneys, 47 stairways – many of which lead nowhere — 2,000 doors and 10,000 windows. If you built the Mystery House today, construction costs would come to $71 million. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">End music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The house itself \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> fascinating. Yet as the tour makes clear, the woman behind it — the one who locked herself away in this \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">dark\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, doom-laded place — is even more so. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexis:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I really love this house and the history behind it, but mainly I love Sarah more than anything. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But with so much rumor and legend, what do we really know about Sarah Winchester? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Start lonesome percussive string music with swells and quiet\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexis:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Now, everyone knows Sarah as Sarah Winchester, but she was originally born as Sarah Lockwood Pardee. She was born in 1839, New Haven, Connecticut. And she grew up very well-educated in life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarah married the Winchester heir, William, in 1862. But she was then fated to suffer multiple waves of devastating loss in her life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her twenties, she lost her only child when they were just 5 weeks old. Fourteen years later, in 1880, her father-in-law died. Followed closely by her own husband, and then, her sister. And the legend goes, it was at that point that Sarah decided to move out to California — on a desperate quest at the behest of a psychic. Right?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music end\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo Ignoffo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t hold the general public responsible for misperceptions. It’s really a 100-year-old marketing campaign.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Sarah Winchester’s biographer, Bay Area writer Mary Jo Ignoffo. And she says that first off, this spooky relocation theory just doesn’t check out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mary Jo says Sarah’s own \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">doctor \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was urging her to seek out warmer climes that would be better for her health, and grief. What’s more, Sarah didn’t move out here alone. One of her surviving sisters was \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">already \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">planning to leave the East Coast for Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo Ignoffo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s not so much that a psychic told her to go as family circumstances and life led her to California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">could\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sarah have felt that creeping worry that the victims of Winchester guns might come back to haunt her? For Mary Jo, the big problem with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">this \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">theory is how much Sarah chose to remain involved with the Winchester Repeating Arms company even after her husband’s death. Sarah stayed on as an active, highly engaged member on the company’s board for years — when she could have just … cut loose with her money.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music beings: piano, inspired, forward moving, but still lonely\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarah landed in the Bay Area already a keen amateur architect. And in 1886, she purchased a modest two-story farmhouse in the San José area — and converted it into her giant mansion. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was her canvas. She would say, oh, try it this way. No, I don’t like that. Rip it down. Let’s try it again. Oh, I like this wood better. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The construction consumed her for over three decades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She kind of unleashed her interior design, artistic talents, her desire to be an architect on that house.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music end\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarah’s new San Jose neighbors were baffled, and the local press became fascinated. And they weren’t just intrigued by the scale of her ever-expanding compound. They were also mystified by the Winchester widow herself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She was a hyper-private outsider, who shunned the aristocrats of the South Bay social scene. And despite all that interest, Sarah stayed silent as the grave about what on earth — or maybe elsewhere — was driving her to keep expanding and transforming her strange, sprawling home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She was also one of those most unfathomable creatures: a single woman, who had no interest in making other people comfortable with explanations.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She would not talk to the press. And so they started creating stories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One rumor at the time claimed that Sarah believed eternally re-modelling the house would keep \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">her \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">alive. Others said that Sarah was obsessively trying to contact the spirit world through those seances of hers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then finally, the last iteration is: she’s crazy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music enter: cinematic, ambient, matter of fact not too sad\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The new century arrived. Sarah grew older, and older still. By the last decade of her life, she owned many homes around the South Bay — not just the Winchester Mystery House. It was in one of these other houses that she actually chose to spend\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">most of her final years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But in the very end, something drew her back – and it was to the Winchester Mystery House that Sarah returned to see out her last days on earth, alone. She died inside the house of heart failure in 1922: A Victorian from another era in the Roaring Twenties, who lived long enough to see the first airplane fly … and the Titanic sink. After all those years of construction, Sarah’s house finally fell silent…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few seconds of silence…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But … it did not stay silent for long.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music begins: Busy, opening, ’50s-era sounding, faster paced\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just months after Sarah died, in the spring of 1923, the mansion was leased by a couple who apparently planned to build an amusement park on the site, complete with a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">rollercoaster\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, but they pivoted to offering public tours of the place. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her house was turned into a haunted house to attract tourists within months of her death. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The public thrilled to finally see inside Mrs Winchester’s house of intrigue, egged on by breathless promotion … like this 1929 advert from the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em>:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Booming male voice reading newspaper clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">World’s most marvelous and oddest house. Under construction 36 years. Cost: millions. Builder guided by the spirits … Open every day 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music out\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But still, the question remains: Why \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">does\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> this place look so odd? According to the legend, Sarah intended these strange features by design to either confuse the spirits in her house — or as a way to pay homage to them, like decorating your home for Halloween.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But remember that when it came to architectural design, Sarah was an enthusiastic amateur learning as she went — and a lot of the apparent “mysteries” might simply betray those false starts. And then … there’s what happened in 1906.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The house at its peak literally was seven stories. And in the earthquake of 1096, the top floors collapsed in on themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">means all those weird doors, all those “stairs to nowhere” … might have led somewhere very real when they were first built. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music begins: ghostly whaling\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So now, we come to it. What about the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ghosts\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">? So much of this place’s appeal has been fueled by this legend of Sarah as a devoted Spiritualist. A lonely widow obsessed with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">inviting in the netherworld \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">through her seances. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the Mystery House tour, you can even place your hands on the table and hear the sounds of a seance echo around you:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from seance demonstration in house:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sing all spirits hearken all souls. We gather to offer a clarion call to the spirit world as we seek to open a window for those who still reside here in the Winchester mansion.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spiritualism was technically a belief system that hinged on attempting contact with the dead. And it \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">popular among upper-crust women like Sarah at this time.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Mary Jo says there’s no record that Sarah ever attended the local Spiritualist gatherings.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this image of Sarah the recluse, shut away in her scary house communing solo with the dead, runs contrary to the whole point of Spiritualism:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Jo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you were to have a seance, you would not do it in a closet in the middle of your house. You would invite other like minded people. At its very most basic level, Spiritualism is a social enterprise. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarah \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">had a well documented aversion to visitors in her house.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music begin: playful, harpsichord, percussive\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, this hasn’t stopped over a century of rumors about an “otherworldly connection” making the Winchester Mystery House famous worldwide. Ghost hunters and supernatural enthusiasts report unearthly sightings and unexplained presences sensed in its winding corridors and infinite rooms. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And let’s face it, visitors who arrive at the Mystery House for its public tours today are coming in the hope of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">experiencing just that\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — as our tour guide Alexis can attest to.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We sit down in certain areas on the Spirit tour, and I have had people ask me, what’s the most possessed seat? And I never know what to say to them. And I say, You know what? That one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even a total skeptic has to admit it, in that bright San José sunshine, this place \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">disorienting and claustrophobic enough to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">really \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">give you the creeps. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music end\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In many ways, the Mystery House legends represent all the things that feel like they \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">should \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">be true — especially when you think of how you’d feel in Sarah Winchester’s shoes. How could a person get rich from making new instruments of death and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">not \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">feel guilty? How \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">could\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> a lonely woman \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">s\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">uffer such tragedy and never once feel the impulse to see if her lost loved ones could … talk back? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But what if the hard facts of Sarah’s life actually leave us with a far more recognizable story about how people react to overwhelming change and loss? How they can alienate themselves from the world in the process? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And let’s face it: When we talk about death through ghosts and ghouls, we’re offered straightforward, even pleasurable scares. It’s death in the real world, and what it does to the humans left living, that’s truly unsettling to dwell on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So faced with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">choice? Listen, if you go to the Mystery House and feel a sudden chill down your spine … well, maybe it’s hard \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">not\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to feel your thoughts drawn to the supernatural in the right settings. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Especially\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">this \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">time of year. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">our\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> tour, being led into the Mystery House’s dark, cold basement, we certainly weren’t immune from just that:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay … Descending stairs into the darkness. Okay. [Olivia heard muffled in background: “This is very dark!”] This is the thing; you can come in with all this, you know, “I’ve got my factual hat on”, and then you come into a dark room that’s cold, and you’re like, “Well .. Who’s to say? Who’s to say?!” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Carly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because sometimes … even when we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">know \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">facts\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, it’s just far more appealing to indulge … in a little mystery.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boo Curious theme music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>OLIVIA: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was KQED’s Carly Severn.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>OLIVIA: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the first in our four part Boo Curious series this year. That’s right, the whole month of October we’ll be bringing out eerie stories, with a Bay Curious twist. Be sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the fun.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>OLIVIA: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This just in: Bay Curious is up for a Signal Award. That’s a listeners choice award for podcasts. We’d love if you could give us a vote. Find a link in our show notes or at BayCurious.org.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>OLIVIA: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tickets are now available for our upcoming theatrical walking tour of the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. Come Learn about the history of this amazing space from the people who helped create it. Plus live music, dance and The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Space is limited. Learn more at KQED.org/live.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>OLIVIA: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Shout out to Dan Brekke, for his voice work. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family. Have a good one, everybody!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
}
],
"link": "/news/11963206/after-100-years-the-mysteries-of-the-winchester-house-endure",
"authors": [
"3243"
],
"programs": [
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"series": [
"news_17986"
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"categories": [
"news_8",
"news_33520"
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"tags": [
"news_27626",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting next week, we’ve got a whole month of stories about creepy, eerie and potentially haunted places in the Bay Area planned for you, as part of a series we’re calling BOO Curious! To get you in the mood for spooky season, we thought we’d share a ghost story from our friends over at the \u003ca href=\"https://snapjudgment.org/spooked/\">Spooked\u003c/a> podcast, from Snap Judgment Studios and KQED. [baycuriousbug]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show is hosted by Glynn Washington, and if you’re one of those people who really enjoys feeling the goosebumps then Spooked has got you covered with year-round chills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kristen Cortez is a new teacher in beautiful Los Gatos, California. From her classroom window, she can see rolling, golden hills. Redwood trees. The sun is almost always shining. And yet … something lurks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Have you been to the grocery store in the last week or two? There are pumpkins out front as you walk in. Brown jugs of apple cider are hanging out in the produce aisle, pretending to be nutritious. And it seems like at the end of every aisle is a display of pumpkin spice something or another. Happy Pumpkin Spice season to those of you who celebrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For us here at Bay Curious, the change of the seasons means it’s time to start preparing for our annual Halloween episode. And this year, we just had too many ideas. We couldn’t decide what to do. So we did them all! We’re taking over the entire month of October for a series we’re calling … Wait for it … Boo Curious. It will be an eerie tour of the San Francisco Bay Area, made with love by your friends at Bay Curious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To get you in that spooky season spirit, today we’re going to share an episode from the Spooked podcast. If you like scary stories — the kind you might hear around a campfire — Spooked will be a year-round delight for your listening pleasure. The episode we’ll hear today, takes place right here in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Today, Bay Curious presents: Spooked. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>If you want to lean into this listening experience. Turn off the lights. And turn up the sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kristin Cortez:\u003c/b> I had just got my first teaching job as an 11th grade English teacher, and I was really excited about it. The building was a two story old fashioned building with rolling green lawns in the front. I was put in a room in the main building which overlooked the front lawn, and it was in a room upstairs that you could see from the street. I also was going to graduate school in the evenings so I would stay late and work until after dark and then I would leave to go to my night class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I was working in my classroom in the evenings, sometimes I would be overwhelmed with a feeling of melancholy and sadness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I started getting the sensation that somebody was watching me. The little hairs on the back of my neck would stand up like sort of a feeling of static.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I would feel like I could see something out of the periphery of my vision, like a shadow, like a smoky shadow. And then whenever I looked, there would be nothing there. But I kept having this sense that someone was standing there hovering over me at my desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would give me this feeling of wanting to leave the room as fast as possible. But I would often convince myself that I must be delusional or I must be tired. It was under a lot of stress as a new teacher, then, I definitely wasn’t getting enough sleep. So when I began to notice strange things happening in the classroom, I tended to discount what was going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I would go into the classroom early in the morning and I started to notice things that were out of place. In particular, the chalk from the chalkboard tray, this is back when we had blackboards that covered the wall, the chalk would be removed and in a pile in the middle of the room and sometimes look like somebody had stepped on them and crushed them. The chalkboard erasers would be in different places than where I had left them in the chalkboard tray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a new teacher, kids play pranks on you. And I just assumed that maybe I hadn’t noticed the night before that kids had messed with my classroom. One morning, I walked in and again the chalk was on the floor in the middle of the room, there was a message written on the board. It was in the lower right corner and it was somewhat small in kind of a cryptic old fashioned handwriting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Was the word help written in chalk? Even though I was sure I had raised it the night before, I convinced myself that maybe I hadn’t noticed it the night before and maybe the kids had done it, but it didn’t look like a typical student’s handwriting. It was cursive, like old fashioned cursive. I couldn’t think of any student who had that kind of handwriting. I had a rowdy seventh period class, they were notorious for blurting out and asking questions and try to side rail, whatever it was that I was talking about, they used to call me by my last name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One day, one of them said, “Hey Sandoval, what were you doing here last night, like, so late?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I said, What are you talking about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the student said, “I was walking my dog by the school right out on Main Street. And I looked up and I saw that you were still in your classroom. What were you doing?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I said, well, I was working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then the student said, “Well, if you’re working, why were you standing at the window and staring out?” I said, I don’t remember standing at the window and looking out. They said that they couldn’t see my face or my facial expressions, but they tried to wave to me to get my attention. But I was just standing there. Stock still, staring out the window. Again, I discounted it, I didn’t think too much of it, but then one night I had night class and I didn’t have time to pick up dinner and my husband had offered to swing by the high school to drop off food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We picked a time for him to meet me down in this court. That was right next to the corner of the front of the school. And from that court, you could see the window of my classroom. I went downstairs and I went up to the side of his car on the driver’s side, and his back was turned to me because he was looking up at the building where my classroom was. And so I knocked on the window. And when he turned to look at me, he jumped and he looked so startled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he rolled down the window and he said, I could have sworn I just saw you in the window looking down. And I was wondering why you weren’t coming down to meet me and why you were standing there staring at me in the window. And we both looked back up together and there was nothing there. At that point, I was getting scared to be in the classroom, that very oppressive feeling, the classroom started to grow heavier and heavier with time, I began to sense that somebody was in the room with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that must be the figure that other people have seen standing in the window. I was really nervous about asking around or reporting the feelings that I had because it was a new teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I wasn’t sure, you know, if people would think I was crazy and I just — I didn’t want to destroy people’s confidence in me. It was working on a Friday night, it was mid-October. I realized that it was Friday the 13th. I was working very late grading papers and trying to get my work done. I noticed the scent of smoke like a campfire, and at that moment I started to hear whispers. It sounded like they were coming from the vents up above in the ceiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I heard the whisper get louder and it started to build up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then all of a sudden I heard get. I could feel my whole body just clam up with tension, I could feel my heart thudding, I felt a combination of both dread and absolute terror and the feeling of urgency that I needed to just drop everything that I was doing and get out of that room. Nothing was as important as getting out of that room. I left without taking the papers home with me. They were scattered and spread out on my desk and I wasn’t about to take the time to gather them up and get them organized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I just left the room. I decided at that point I wasn’t going to stay and work in my classroom late anymore and I wasn’t going to get there early. I was just going to figure out ways to get my work done, go home in between, or go to a coffee shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was an older teacher who had been there for decades, she had been there so long that she had taught some of the teachers that I was teaching with. So I asked her, has there ever been a fire in the school? I didn’t have the courage to tell her why I was asking. I just told her it smelled like something burning in my room. And she said, oh, well, there was a fire that devastated the entire town way back when.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it was so big that it burned pretty much everything on Main Street where the high school is located. When I looked up the fire that the senior teacher had told me about, I learned that the fire had occurred on October 13th. This building wasn’t even here when it happened, even though the fire had never touched the walls of this building. I started to wonder if maybe there was something, some residue of some kind of tragedy or something that was left over from that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the school year went by in the spring, we had our annual Sadie Hawkins dance, the dances where the girls asked the boys to the dance. I, of course, was assigned to chaperone and it involved me staying late until after the dance shut down at like midnight. I realized after I’d finished chaperoning the dance that I needed to go back to my room to grab my things. You know, most of the teachers, as soon as the administrators release us from our chaperone duties, everybody makes themselves scarce and they take off as fast as they can.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I couldn’t find anybody to go back up there with me. When I went back into the building, it was dark. The only light was the green and red exit signs near each of the main double doors. It felt as if once I entered that building, I was sort of cut off from the rest of the world and cut off from other human contact. I was scared. I was really nervous. And if I didn’t have to get my purse, I would not go back into that building or into my room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I opened up my classroom door. It was dark in the room and the only light that was coming in was from the front windows which faced the street. I looked to the right of the door and in front of the blackboard there was a woman. She was standing with her face, almost touching the blackboard, and all I could see was her back. Her hair was pulled up in an old fashioned kind of hairdo and she had a high color, dark dress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was kind of like a charcoal gray color and it looked like an old period dress. I could not see her shoes because the bottom half was faded out, almost as if her feet had disappeared. At that moment when I saw her, I felt a shot of cold going through the core of me, I knew it was whoever I had felt in that room. I was trying to talk myself into believing that it was somebody who had gotten into the room and not what I thought it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so very tentatively, I said, excuse me, you’re not supposed to be in my room. You need to leave now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there was this weird, awkward pause and the woman didn’t move at first. And then all of a sudden she started to turn her head. And I saw the side of her face looked like her face was burnt. She looked at me out of the corner of her eyes when they locked with mine. It was a strange and overwhelming feeling of recognition, as if I knew her and she knew me. I was just filled with that sense of dread, mixed with terror, mixed with sorrow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a horrible feeling. I just turned and I left as fast as I could. I started calling to see if anybody was in the building. Is anybody here? Is anybody still here? Help me help. I needed to be with another human being and I did not want to be alone. I found the janitor locking up the theater in the main building downstairs. I said, I think there’s somebody in my room. Can you come with me?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we went back in the room, there was nothing there. I was shaking all over. I grabbed my purse and my keys and whatever papers I was going to great over the weekend and I bolted from the room. I had trouble getting my work done that weekend. I had trouble sleeping, I couldn’t stop thinking about that, that vision, that face — the side of her face, the way she looked at me out of the corner of her eye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I really tried hard not to go or stay in my classroom after the bell rang, I didn’t go there in the early morning anymore. I just avoided being in the room as much as possible. Years went by, and I never told that story to anybody until 12 or 13 years later. A lot of things that happened between those years, there wasn’t a new teacher anymore. I had had babies. I had gone through life. It was just a much better, happier time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I felt safe enough and confident enough to start researching, I went to the library and I went through all the historical photo files of Los Gatos and read some of the stories about the fire that destroyed all of the buildings that were on Main Street. I looked at lots and lots of old photos. I searched and searched for a face that might have matched the one that I saw. I became kind of obsessed for a while. I found this old photo of a teacher at an old desk with a blackboard behind her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And to the left of the desk was a window that looked very much like the windows of my classroom. I felt like that picture wanted me to find it. The woman looked just like the woman that I saw. I think that woman who I saw was an old school marm, old in the sense that she had been a school teacher maybe a century prior. I feel like she might have died in that location by fire. When I think of a schoolmarm, I think of a woman whose entire life is devoted to teaching children. Maybe she had spent too long working too long, late at night at school. And maybe that’s why, you know, if there had been a fire in that location and took her life, maybe it was because she was there when she wasn’t teaching. Maybe she had spent extra hours there and had subjected herself to something that could have been avoided if she had been working only the hours that she should be working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During my first year of teaching, I was easily working 16 hour days. I didn’t have any free time. I didn’t even see my new husband very much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I felt very alone. Maybe whatever was there was commiserating with me, it was less of like scaring me out, more of protecting me. I thought maybe there was a warning in there that I shouldn’t be working that much or that late in the building. But maybe that’s why she had decided to show herself to me. And, you know, I think that later on in life, maybe one of the reasons why I didn’t get the same feeling in that room was because I had learned more of a work life balance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I used to have students always ask me for stories about the school, and eventually I decided to tell that story of the presence in the room that I had come face to face with. By about the third year of telling this story, I started thinking about the woman and how she looked, and what was odd is that she looked like me, a little bit. She was about the same size, very similar stature. Her coloring was very similar. She had dark hair, dark eyes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I started thinking it would be fun to dress up as her and show my students what she looked like. So I went down to the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco and went to my favorite vintage clothing store, where they have clothes from every single era. I described to the owner what I was looking for. And of course, I didn’t want to tell her. This was the dress that I thought I saw on a ghost, but I described exactly what it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And she pulled out a dress out of the back that looked exactly like the one that I had seen on the woman in my classroom. I went and looked at some hair tutorials and did my hair exactly like that, that era. And I remember when my students walked in the door, my back was facing them. When they came in the room, they kind of freaked out because they said it looked so realistic. I worried around all day, and then I started to get kind of creeped out about wearing it because it smells a 100 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It smells like history. I think I might have worn it twice, two different years in a row. I have not worn it for a few years, but I will keep it forever. When I retire from teaching, I should probably leave the dress in the room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Glynn Washington: \u003c/b>Thank you, Kristin, for sharing your story with Spooked but you should know that Kristin is a Spooked listener, she reached out to tell us her story and we want you to do the same thing if you have a truly terrifying tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Be sure to drop us a line at spooked@snapjudgement.org. The original score for that story was by Richard Haig. Was produced by Zoë Ferrigno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> That was an episode of Spooked, hosted by Glynn Washington. If you love what you just heard, be sure to subscribe to Spooked wherever you listen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also come out to Spooked Live, Presented by Snap Judgement and KQED Live. It’s a night of true-life supernatural stories from people who can scarcely believe they lived them. And it all comes to life on stage at the Fox Theatre in Oakland on, of course, Friday the 13th. More details and tickets at KQED.org/live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another event coming up, this one by Bay Curious. We’re doing a theatrical walking tour of the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. Learn about the history of this amazing space from the people who helped create it. Plus live music, dance and The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Space is limited. Learn more at KQED.org/live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is made by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad and Holly Kernan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">Read a transcript of this episode.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting next week, we’ve got a whole month of stories about creepy, eerie and potentially haunted places in the Bay Area planned for you, as part of a series we’re calling BOO Curious! To get you in the mood for spooky season, we thought we’d share a ghost story from our friends over at the \u003ca href=\"https://snapjudgment.org/spooked/\">Spooked\u003c/a> podcast, from Snap Judgment Studios and KQED. \u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show is hosted by Glynn Washington, and if you’re one of those people who really enjoys feeling the goosebumps then Spooked has got you covered with year-round chills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kristen Cortez is a new teacher in beautiful Los Gatos, California. From her classroom window, she can see rolling, golden hills. Redwood trees. The sun is almost always shining. And yet … something lurks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Have you been to the grocery store in the last week or two? There are pumpkins out front as you walk in. Brown jugs of apple cider are hanging out in the produce aisle, pretending to be nutritious. And it seems like at the end of every aisle is a display of pumpkin spice something or another. Happy Pumpkin Spice season to those of you who celebrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For us here at Bay Curious, the change of the seasons means it’s time to start preparing for our annual Halloween episode. And this year, we just had too many ideas. We couldn’t decide what to do. So we did them all! We’re taking over the entire month of October for a series we’re calling … Wait for it … Boo Curious. It will be an eerie tour of the San Francisco Bay Area, made with love by your friends at Bay Curious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To get you in that spooky season spirit, today we’re going to share an episode from the Spooked podcast. If you like scary stories — the kind you might hear around a campfire — Spooked will be a year-round delight for your listening pleasure. The episode we’ll hear today, takes place right here in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Today, Bay Curious presents: Spooked. We’ll be right back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>If you want to lean into this listening experience. Turn off the lights. And turn up the sound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kristin Cortez:\u003c/b> I had just got my first teaching job as an 11th grade English teacher, and I was really excited about it. The building was a two story old fashioned building with rolling green lawns in the front. I was put in a room in the main building which overlooked the front lawn, and it was in a room upstairs that you could see from the street. I also was going to graduate school in the evenings so I would stay late and work until after dark and then I would leave to go to my night class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I was working in my classroom in the evenings, sometimes I would be overwhelmed with a feeling of melancholy and sadness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I started getting the sensation that somebody was watching me. The little hairs on the back of my neck would stand up like sort of a feeling of static.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I would feel like I could see something out of the periphery of my vision, like a shadow, like a smoky shadow. And then whenever I looked, there would be nothing there. But I kept having this sense that someone was standing there hovering over me at my desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would give me this feeling of wanting to leave the room as fast as possible. But I would often convince myself that I must be delusional or I must be tired. It was under a lot of stress as a new teacher, then, I definitely wasn’t getting enough sleep. So when I began to notice strange things happening in the classroom, I tended to discount what was going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I would go into the classroom early in the morning and I started to notice things that were out of place. In particular, the chalk from the chalkboard tray, this is back when we had blackboards that covered the wall, the chalk would be removed and in a pile in the middle of the room and sometimes look like somebody had stepped on them and crushed them. The chalkboard erasers would be in different places than where I had left them in the chalkboard tray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a new teacher, kids play pranks on you. And I just assumed that maybe I hadn’t noticed the night before that kids had messed with my classroom. One morning, I walked in and again the chalk was on the floor in the middle of the room, there was a message written on the board. It was in the lower right corner and it was somewhat small in kind of a cryptic old fashioned handwriting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Was the word help written in chalk? Even though I was sure I had raised it the night before, I convinced myself that maybe I hadn’t noticed it the night before and maybe the kids had done it, but it didn’t look like a typical student’s handwriting. It was cursive, like old fashioned cursive. I couldn’t think of any student who had that kind of handwriting. I had a rowdy seventh period class, they were notorious for blurting out and asking questions and try to side rail, whatever it was that I was talking about, they used to call me by my last name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One day, one of them said, “Hey Sandoval, what were you doing here last night, like, so late?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I said, What are you talking about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the student said, “I was walking my dog by the school right out on Main Street. And I looked up and I saw that you were still in your classroom. What were you doing?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I said, well, I was working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then the student said, “Well, if you’re working, why were you standing at the window and staring out?” I said, I don’t remember standing at the window and looking out. They said that they couldn’t see my face or my facial expressions, but they tried to wave to me to get my attention. But I was just standing there. Stock still, staring out the window. Again, I discounted it, I didn’t think too much of it, but then one night I had night class and I didn’t have time to pick up dinner and my husband had offered to swing by the high school to drop off food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We picked a time for him to meet me down in this court. That was right next to the corner of the front of the school. And from that court, you could see the window of my classroom. I went downstairs and I went up to the side of his car on the driver’s side, and his back was turned to me because he was looking up at the building where my classroom was. And so I knocked on the window. And when he turned to look at me, he jumped and he looked so startled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he rolled down the window and he said, I could have sworn I just saw you in the window looking down. And I was wondering why you weren’t coming down to meet me and why you were standing there staring at me in the window. And we both looked back up together and there was nothing there. At that point, I was getting scared to be in the classroom, that very oppressive feeling, the classroom started to grow heavier and heavier with time, I began to sense that somebody was in the room with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that must be the figure that other people have seen standing in the window. I was really nervous about asking around or reporting the feelings that I had because it was a new teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I wasn’t sure, you know, if people would think I was crazy and I just — I didn’t want to destroy people’s confidence in me. It was working on a Friday night, it was mid-October. I realized that it was Friday the 13th. I was working very late grading papers and trying to get my work done. I noticed the scent of smoke like a campfire, and at that moment I started to hear whispers. It sounded like they were coming from the vents up above in the ceiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I heard the whisper get louder and it started to build up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then all of a sudden I heard get. I could feel my whole body just clam up with tension, I could feel my heart thudding, I felt a combination of both dread and absolute terror and the feeling of urgency that I needed to just drop everything that I was doing and get out of that room. Nothing was as important as getting out of that room. I left without taking the papers home with me. They were scattered and spread out on my desk and I wasn’t about to take the time to gather them up and get them organized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I just left the room. I decided at that point I wasn’t going to stay and work in my classroom late anymore and I wasn’t going to get there early. I was just going to figure out ways to get my work done, go home in between, or go to a coffee shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was an older teacher who had been there for decades, she had been there so long that she had taught some of the teachers that I was teaching with. So I asked her, has there ever been a fire in the school? I didn’t have the courage to tell her why I was asking. I just told her it smelled like something burning in my room. And she said, oh, well, there was a fire that devastated the entire town way back when.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it was so big that it burned pretty much everything on Main Street where the high school is located. When I looked up the fire that the senior teacher had told me about, I learned that the fire had occurred on October 13th. This building wasn’t even here when it happened, even though the fire had never touched the walls of this building. I started to wonder if maybe there was something, some residue of some kind of tragedy or something that was left over from that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the school year went by in the spring, we had our annual Sadie Hawkins dance, the dances where the girls asked the boys to the dance. I, of course, was assigned to chaperone and it involved me staying late until after the dance shut down at like midnight. I realized after I’d finished chaperoning the dance that I needed to go back to my room to grab my things. You know, most of the teachers, as soon as the administrators release us from our chaperone duties, everybody makes themselves scarce and they take off as fast as they can.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I couldn’t find anybody to go back up there with me. When I went back into the building, it was dark. The only light was the green and red exit signs near each of the main double doors. It felt as if once I entered that building, I was sort of cut off from the rest of the world and cut off from other human contact. I was scared. I was really nervous. And if I didn’t have to get my purse, I would not go back into that building or into my room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I opened up my classroom door. It was dark in the room and the only light that was coming in was from the front windows which faced the street. I looked to the right of the door and in front of the blackboard there was a woman. She was standing with her face, almost touching the blackboard, and all I could see was her back. Her hair was pulled up in an old fashioned kind of hairdo and she had a high color, dark dress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was kind of like a charcoal gray color and it looked like an old period dress. I could not see her shoes because the bottom half was faded out, almost as if her feet had disappeared. At that moment when I saw her, I felt a shot of cold going through the core of me, I knew it was whoever I had felt in that room. I was trying to talk myself into believing that it was somebody who had gotten into the room and not what I thought it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so very tentatively, I said, excuse me, you’re not supposed to be in my room. You need to leave now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there was this weird, awkward pause and the woman didn’t move at first. And then all of a sudden she started to turn her head. And I saw the side of her face looked like her face was burnt. She looked at me out of the corner of her eyes when they locked with mine. It was a strange and overwhelming feeling of recognition, as if I knew her and she knew me. I was just filled with that sense of dread, mixed with terror, mixed with sorrow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a horrible feeling. I just turned and I left as fast as I could. I started calling to see if anybody was in the building. Is anybody here? Is anybody still here? Help me help. I needed to be with another human being and I did not want to be alone. I found the janitor locking up the theater in the main building downstairs. I said, I think there’s somebody in my room. Can you come with me?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we went back in the room, there was nothing there. I was shaking all over. I grabbed my purse and my keys and whatever papers I was going to great over the weekend and I bolted from the room. I had trouble getting my work done that weekend. I had trouble sleeping, I couldn’t stop thinking about that, that vision, that face — the side of her face, the way she looked at me out of the corner of her eye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I really tried hard not to go or stay in my classroom after the bell rang, I didn’t go there in the early morning anymore. I just avoided being in the room as much as possible. Years went by, and I never told that story to anybody until 12 or 13 years later. A lot of things that happened between those years, there wasn’t a new teacher anymore. I had had babies. I had gone through life. It was just a much better, happier time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I felt safe enough and confident enough to start researching, I went to the library and I went through all the historical photo files of Los Gatos and read some of the stories about the fire that destroyed all of the buildings that were on Main Street. I looked at lots and lots of old photos. I searched and searched for a face that might have matched the one that I saw. I became kind of obsessed for a while. I found this old photo of a teacher at an old desk with a blackboard behind her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And to the left of the desk was a window that looked very much like the windows of my classroom. I felt like that picture wanted me to find it. The woman looked just like the woman that I saw. I think that woman who I saw was an old school marm, old in the sense that she had been a school teacher maybe a century prior. I feel like she might have died in that location by fire. When I think of a schoolmarm, I think of a woman whose entire life is devoted to teaching children. Maybe she had spent too long working too long, late at night at school. And maybe that’s why, you know, if there had been a fire in that location and took her life, maybe it was because she was there when she wasn’t teaching. Maybe she had spent extra hours there and had subjected herself to something that could have been avoided if she had been working only the hours that she should be working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During my first year of teaching, I was easily working 16 hour days. I didn’t have any free time. I didn’t even see my new husband very much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I felt very alone. Maybe whatever was there was commiserating with me, it was less of like scaring me out, more of protecting me. I thought maybe there was a warning in there that I shouldn’t be working that much or that late in the building. But maybe that’s why she had decided to show herself to me. And, you know, I think that later on in life, maybe one of the reasons why I didn’t get the same feeling in that room was because I had learned more of a work life balance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I used to have students always ask me for stories about the school, and eventually I decided to tell that story of the presence in the room that I had come face to face with. By about the third year of telling this story, I started thinking about the woman and how she looked, and what was odd is that she looked like me, a little bit. She was about the same size, very similar stature. Her coloring was very similar. She had dark hair, dark eyes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I started thinking it would be fun to dress up as her and show my students what she looked like. So I went down to the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco and went to my favorite vintage clothing store, where they have clothes from every single era. I described to the owner what I was looking for. And of course, I didn’t want to tell her. This was the dress that I thought I saw on a ghost, but I described exactly what it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And she pulled out a dress out of the back that looked exactly like the one that I had seen on the woman in my classroom. I went and looked at some hair tutorials and did my hair exactly like that, that era. And I remember when my students walked in the door, my back was facing them. When they came in the room, they kind of freaked out because they said it looked so realistic. I worried around all day, and then I started to get kind of creeped out about wearing it because it smells a 100 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It smells like history. I think I might have worn it twice, two different years in a row. I have not worn it for a few years, but I will keep it forever. When I retire from teaching, I should probably leave the dress in the room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Glynn Washington: \u003c/b>Thank you, Kristin, for sharing your story with Spooked but you should know that Kristin is a Spooked listener, she reached out to tell us her story and we want you to do the same thing if you have a truly terrifying tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Be sure to drop us a line at spooked@snapjudgement.org. The original score for that story was by Richard Haig. Was produced by Zoë Ferrigno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> That was an episode of Spooked, hosted by Glynn Washington. If you love what you just heard, be sure to subscribe to Spooked wherever you listen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also come out to Spooked Live, Presented by Snap Judgement and KQED Live. It’s a night of true-life supernatural stories from people who can scarcely believe they lived them. And it all comes to life on stage at the Fox Theatre in Oakland on, of course, Friday the 13th. More details and tickets at KQED.org/live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another event coming up, this one by Bay Curious. We’re doing a theatrical walking tour of the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. Learn about the history of this amazing space from the people who helped create it. Plus live music, dance and The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Space is limited. Learn more at KQED.org/live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is made by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad and Holly Kernan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "cashing-in-on-californias-broken-bottle-deposit-system",
"title": "Cashing In on the Future of California's Bottle Deposit System",
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"headTitle": "Cashing In on the Future of California’s Bottle Deposit System | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Paul Beach was a kid growing up in Maine, he remembers going to a recycling center that was part of a grocery store. He watched people walk into this large space with garbage bags full of bottles and cans. And when he noticed they were walking out with cash, he wanted in on the hustle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would have like $50 in cans. It took me a while to get that much, but it was pretty good income for, like, a 10-year-old,” Beach said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maine and California are two states with \u003ca href=\"https://www.bottlebill.org/index.php/current-and-proposed-laws/usa/california\">a Bottle Bill\u003c/a>, a law that encourages recycling for money. When Beach moved to California, where he’s lived for the past 25 years, he looked up the closest redemption center to him in Oakland and discovered it was 5 miles away. A place called Cash for Cans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Beach, it’s not worth storing several bags of containers in his apartment for a single trip. Instead, he puts his recyclables in the blue bin on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This experience had him wondering: Where does the money go for bottle-and-can redemption if residents don’t turn them into a recycling center? And why is it so hard to recycle them in the first place?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Bottle Bill\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The money Beach is talking about is the California Redemption Value, or CRV — and it’s not exactly free. Whenever someone buys a drink from the store with the letters CRV printed on the label, they’re paying a 5-to-10-cent deposit at the checkout line. To get that deposit back, they have to recycle those containers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This applies mostly to beverages that come in aluminum cans and plastic bottles. The whole point is to encourage recycling and reduce litter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1986, the state passed the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act, also known as the Bottle Bill. The law created the recycling deposit system many use today. California is also one of 10 states in the country with a Bottle Bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susan V. Collins, president of the Container Recycling Institute in Culver City, calls Bottle Bills “the rock stars of recycling” because of the financial incentive behind them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]“People either hold onto their bottle and turn it in for the 5 cents, or if they do litter it, someone else picks it up and takes it in for recycling,” Collins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since passing its Bottle Bill, California has had a good track record with the number of recycled and redeemed containers. One out of five beverage containers recycled in the U.S. \u003ca href=\"https://www.bottlebill.org/index.php/current-and-proposed-laws/usa/california\">are recycled in California\u003c/a>, according to the Container Recycling Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But recycling containers isn’t the same as redeeming them for cash. As redemption centers closed across the state, Californians were left with fewer options to redeem their bottles and cans. According to CRI, the state’s redemption rates have fallen from 74% to 60% in the past decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11962004\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2023/09/21/cashing-in-on-californias-broken-bottle-deposit-system/bottles-ready-to-be-recycled-at-the-recycling-center-at-church-on-market-streets-in-san-francisco-calif-on-friday-august-9-2013-safeway-is-going-to-shut-down-its-recyling-center-here-by-septemb/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11962004\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11962004\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"two bins of glass bottles and cans\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bottles ready to be recycled at the recycling center at Church and Market streets in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Redemption center deserts\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When the Bottle Bill was passed in the 1980s it depended on California’s current recycling center infrastructure. Recycling centers were now obligated to give people back their money for bottles and cans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of these businesses created partnerships with grocery stores to establish convenience for consumers looking for a place to recycle. They set up shop in the parking lots of a store much like the one from Beach’s childhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when revenue started to plummet at these locations because of the falling price of scrap material, many shuttered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2013, more than 40% of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/cash-in-the-can-californias-recycling-run-around/2055057/\">these recycling centers\u003c/a> have closed across the state. Collins said the Bay Area is the epicenter of these closures affecting a majority of people who depend on these centers for extra income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has the least convenient system in the world right now because of these redemption deserts,” Collins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the ’90s, San Francisco once had about 35 redemption centers scattered throughout the city. Today, there are only two and both are located in the Bayview District. CalRecycle \u003ca href=\"https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/BevContainer/RecyclingCenters/\">lists about 1,200 redemption centers\u003c/a> left in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Abandoned deposits\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When bottles and cans end up in landfills and not redeemed, those deposits are considered “unclaimed” by the state. This unclaimed money sits in the Beverage Container Fund, which is managed by CalRecycle. About 400 people in the state agency who work in the beverage container program are paid out of unclaimed deposits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The money is supposed to be used to subsidize the state’s recycling infrastructure to help people get their money back. But for the most part, it stays untouched in the beverage container fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Susan V. Collins, president, Container Recycling Institute\"]‘California has the least convenient system in the world right now because of these redemption deserts.’[/pullquote]Some of the unclaimed deposits are paid out to redemption centers, but not a whole lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, where many rely on blue recycling bins, waste hauling companies get to cash in on the CRV money attached to those bottles and cans thrown out. Collins said only a small percentage of those recyclables are redeemed because waste haulers don’t always do a perfect job of sorting through the recycling. Inevitably, a lot of it ends up in landfill. Last year, only 13% were redeemed for CRV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Collins said, as of last summer, the beverage container fund accumulated $672 million. She indicated that the high balance was a partial failure on behalf of the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consumer advocates argue that redemption center closures and allowing waste haulers to take residents’ CRV is hurting consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s turned into a tax because we don’t have any place to take those bottles and cans to get those dimes and nickels back. That’s the fundamental problem,” said Liza Tucker, consumer advocate for Consumer Watchdog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that working-class communities who \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11714223/when-recycling-pays-and-when-it-doesnt\">depend on recycling to pay bills\u003c/a> are hurting the most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They actually need cash. They need to fill their tanks with gas. They need to buy food,” Tucker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The in-lieu-fee loophole\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Under the Bottle Bill, retailers that sell beverages are required to recycle those beverages if there’s no recycling center nearby. The law was designed for the sake of convenience. But California’s Bottle Bill gives stores the option of paying out of their responsibility to recycle and redeem drink containers. This is known as the “in-lieu fee,” a penalty in lieu of redeeming empty containers — a $100 fee for each day the store is not taking back recyclables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some cases, stores \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/10/business/cvs-3-6-million-fine-california-recycling-trnd/index.html#:~:text=California%20is%20slapping%20CVS%20with,its%20residents%2C%20the%20state%20said\">try to get away with not paying the in-lieu fees at all\u003c/a>. In response, CalRecycle Director Rachel Machi Wagoner said, “It’s incredibly hard to ensure that retailers who say they are taking back in store or are paying the in-lieu fee, are doing exactly what they’re saying.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11962006\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2023/09/21/cashing-in-on-californias-broken-bottle-deposit-system/customers-line-up-to-have-bottles-and-cans-weighed-before-they-receive-a-cash-payment-at-the-our-planet-recycling-collection-center-on-bayshore-boulevard-in-san-francisco-calif-on-thursday-aug-3-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11962006\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11962006\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"people lined up outside a recycling center with trash bags full of recyclable bottles and cans\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1722\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-1020x686.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-1536x1033.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-2048x1377.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-1920x1291.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Customers line up to have bottles and cans weighed before they receive a cash payment at the Our Planet Recycling collection center on Bayshore Boulevard in San Francisco in 2017. Independent recycling centers are struggling to stay open saying the state subsidies aren’t enough to keep them in business. \u003ccite>(Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Lawmakers know the system isn’t working\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2019, the state put aside $5 million to pilot new ways to recycle and redeem our bottles and cans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those pilot programs is called \u003ca href=\"https://sfbottlebank.org/\">BottleBank\u003c/a> in San Francisco. After downloading the app, consumers drop off their containers to any BottleBank mobile drop-off location and then their recyclables get taken to an offsite recycling center for sorting. The CRV is tallied up and the money is electronically delivered to the person’s bank account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our ultimate goal for CRV is to rapidly increase how many people are redeeming. … getting more money back into people’s pockets,” said Charles Sheehan, chief policy and public affairs officer with San Francisco’s Department of the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the program kicked off last year, Sheehan said the department recycled more than 3 million bottles and cans and paid out about $190,000 in CRV as of this summer. There are currently \u003ca href=\"https://sfbottlebank.org/locations/\">20 BottleBank sites\u003c/a> set up around the city with many found parked outside Safeway, Whole Foods and Grocery Outlet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousbug]Consumer advocates, however, aren’t happy with the program, saying the pilot is benefiting supermarkets more than consumers. CalRecycle lists the BottleBank sites on its website as certified recycling centers. Under the Bottle Bill, grocery stores within a certain mile radius of a recycling center don’t have to pay in-lieu fees or take back in store.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So the minute that they approved this particular pilot, 400 stores got off the hook,” Tucker of Consumer Watchdog said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consumer Watchdog added that BottleBank is not recycling enough, because the sites are only open one day out of the week for several hours a day and the program is costing taxpayers too much to operate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After analyzing BottleBank’s expenses, Consumer Watchdog asked the state’s Department of Finance to no longer fund the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is costing 79 cents to return a nickel to consumers. And it will never be sustainable,” it said in \u003ca href=\"https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/LtrBottleBankStephenshaw6-19-23.pdf\">a statement (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In defense of the program, Sheehan stressed that it’s still in the pilot phase, which means making improvements while incurring costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re growing, and as we grow we will continue to kind of bring in more revenues and bring our revenues in line with our costs,” Sheehan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BottleBank’s costs include renting the grocery store parking lot space for its operations, plus labor, marketing materials and transportation for the bottles and cans to the recycling facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to CalRecycle, the state awarded the program $500,000 to expand their services to last until the end of the year. Sheehan said the goal is to get a total of 30 locations running with longer operating hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A new law could change it all\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Other Bottle Bill states like Oregon have a higher redemption rate of 85%. The state has multiple ways to redeem items using reverse vending machines, bag drop programs and in-store take back. The state also utilizes the same app-based technology as BottleBank for consumers to receive their CRV electronically. They can also get a voucher to use at their local grocery store.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting in 2025, it’s possible that California can start looking more like Oregon. SB 1013 passed last year and it will require grocery stores with no nearby recycling centers to be responsible for taking back empty beverage containers starting in January 2025. It also removes the optional $100-a-day in-lieu fee and adds wine and spirits to the list of redemption items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s considered one of the biggest improvements to the Bottle Bill ever. CalRecycle’s Director, Rachel Wagoner, added that the machinery to build this infrastructure will not be cheap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So if the state’s gonna purchase it, we wanna make sure that that is a long-term investment that we’re making in the recycling system,” Wagoner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalRecycle is giving out more than $70 million in grant money to large grocery store chains to create this infrastructure. The agency is currently having public workshops with retailers to answer questions about the grant process. The idea is to create large-scale redemption centers with multiple ways to recycle items, while increasing the state’s redemption rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Wagoner is optimistic that the new law will make a real difference in the number of redeemed containers. And she’s hopeful for 100% redemption.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And even if I don’t hit 100%, let’s see how close we can get,” Wagoner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Collins said her organization, the Container Recycling Institute, first advocated for these changes in 2009. She added that if everything goes according to plan California could have a good system in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet Collins is skeptical about how fast those changes will come. She pointed out that multiple spending programs, and an additional budget bill, passed along with the new law may exceed the resources in the Beverage Container Fund to create the redemption infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.container-recycling.org/images/2023/CRI_CalRecycle_budget_questions_Sen_06132023.pdf\">In a letter (PDF)\u003c/a> asking the state’s Senate Budget Committee to reconsider how they spend the money, Collins wrote, “The complete implementation of AB 179 and SB 1013 over 6 years will cost the beverage container fund and other accounts roughly $1.3 billion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t have money going outta the fund to pay for things that are not bottles and cans when that money is needed to give people their nickels and dimes back,” said Collins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When Paul Beach was a kid growing up in Maine, he would go to this recycling center that was part of a grocery store. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Beach:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was a pretty big space in the grocery store. And you just bring your bottles and cans in. and they sorted them, like green bottles went here, white bottles went there, brown bottles went here.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Paul noticed that people would walk into the recycling center with a bag of … well, garbage, essentially. And they would walk out with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">cash\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. He wanted in on the hustle.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I would have, like $50 in cans. It took me a while to get that much, but it was pretty good income for like a 10 year old.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That experience taught Paul the literal value of recycling. Every bottle or can was worth up to fifteen cents in Maine because of the state’s\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> bottle bill\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. That’s a law designed to encourage recycling. When Paul moved to California, where we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">also\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have a bottle bill, he thought things would work about the same…but his nearest redemption center was far, so he never went … Now, he puts his items on the curb where they’re whisked away by a waste hauling company.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am pretty sure that the company that I pay to take the recycling fishes through and gets all the cans and they get the money for the cans and bottles. // like, you’re getting paid on both sides. It’s like, this just doesn’t seem fair.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This has all left him wondering about a few things…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Where does the money go for bottle and can redemption if we don’t bring the bottles and cans back?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And why is it so hard to find a place to recycle them in the first place?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music change\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In today’s episode of Bay Curious we dig into how this recycling system works and why some argue it’s seriously broken. Plus: Who’s pocketing the CRV money from California’s unclaimed bottles and cans? I’m Olivia Allen-Price. This is Bay Curious. We’ll be right back.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To answer Paul’s questions about bottle and can redemption in California … KQED’s Steven Rascón has been following the money. Hey Steven!\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven Rascón:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hey Olivia.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Paul’s question is all about CRV. Can you explain what exactly that is?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sure. CRV stands for California Redemption Value. And it applies to certain bottled and canned drinks you buy from the store. Anytime you buy one of these beverages with the letters CRV engraved on the lid or printed on the label, you’re paying 5-10 cents extra at the checkout line. Paying this extra charge is supposed to work like a deposit. Because once we’re done with that drink, we’re supposed to recycle it and get back those 10 cents.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And this applies specifically to store-bought beverages… so containers of juice, coffee, water, soda …?\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. This recycling system is part of a law that’s colloquially known as the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bottle Bill\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. We are one of ten states in the country with a Bottle Bill. Beverage containers specifically, continue to make up roughly half of roadside litter across the country. And so in the 80’s, environmentalists and lawmakers decided to do something about it in California… and pass the Bottle Bill. And recycling experts say this system works.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan Collins:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We know that bottle bills on average, reduce beverage container litter by 50%. So we can keep some of those plastics outta the ocean if we have bottle bills in place. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s Susan Collins, she’s the head of the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Container Recycling Institute\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in Culver City California. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The whole reason bottle bills work like magic, why I call them the rock stars of recycling, is because of the incentive that’s attached to it. because people either hold onto their bottle and turn it in for the 5 cents, or if they do litter it, someone else picks it up and takes it in for recycling.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Since California passed its Bottle Bill, the number of recycled containers has shot up. The Container Recycling Institute says one out of five beverage containers recycled in the US are being recycled in California. But…not all of those bottles and cans are getting redeemed for cash. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when that happens…that money just stays in what’s called the beverage container fund. A fund that’s owned by the state.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is the unclaimed money in that fund used for? \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So the unclaimed deposits from those containers, the money \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that no one’s getting\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> belongs to the state. CalRecycle is the state agency that manages the fund and the program. Susan says there’s a lot of work that goes into it that we don’t see. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cal Recycle has about 400 people who work on this program, and those people are paid out of the unclaimed deposits. That money is also supposed to be used to create more ways for recycling our items. CalRecycle gives some of that money to recycling centers who redeem our bottles and cans. Some of it goes to waste hauling companies who pick up our blue bins of recyclables.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I know a lot of people, like our question asker Paul and myself, put our bottles and cans in the blue bin on the curb. But who gets the money for those items? Because I know it’s not me! \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to CalRecycle, the waste hauling companies that pick up our recycling like Recology get to cash in on the bottles and cans we put in them. We’re actually the only state with a Bottle Bill where this is the case. So Paul’s right when he says waste haulers are getting paid twice. Consumer advocates, by the way, are not happy with this arrangement…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another issue with the blue bin….is waste haulers don’t do a perfect job of sorting all the recycling. Oftentimes, food and trash will mix with the bottles and cans…and those containers that don’t get redeemed inevitably end up in the landfill.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Container Recycling Institute says only 13 percent of those bottles and cans being recycled are being redeemed for cash.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So to recap, we’re not getting the money we throw out in blue bins and not all of it is even being recycled. It sounds like everything would be better if took things to the redemption center?\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right but \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If only\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> it were that easy! Yes, redemption centers are the ideal way to recycle our bottles and cans and get our money back. But good luck finding one…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Bay Area is like the epicenter of redemption center closures, and it’s the area of the state that has the least availability of centers and the more people dependent on each and every center.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the 90’s, San Francisco once had about 35 of these centers scattered throughout the city, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">today there are only two\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…both located in the Bayview District. Since 2013 more than forty percent of these centers have closed across the state. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California has the least convenient system in the world right now because of these redemption deserts. Why they’ve had to close is a whole other story, but in short – prices for recycled materials dropped so much…these businesses couldn’t survive.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music out\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is all pretty frustrating, and it’s about to get downright infuriating because Californians should, in theory, be able to take our recyclable beverage containers to the grocery store, just like our question asker Paul did when he was growing up in Maine.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right\u003c/span>\u003cb>. \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And technically it’s the law. Under the Bottle Bill supermarkets and retailers that sell beverages \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">are required\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to recycle them and give us back our money. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It should be just as easy to return your bottle or can for redemption as it was to purchase the bottle in the first place. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: But the problem is most supermarkets don’t take our bottles and cans. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only a small handful actually do. And so if a supermarket refuses to take your empty cans…then they have to pay what’s called…an “in lieu fee.” A penalty in lieu of redeeming empty containers. It’s a hundred dollar fine per day. But this \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">penalty\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> has become a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">loophole. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For a lot of these stores, $100 a day is a bargain to not have to deal with CRV redemption.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Some stores try \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">to get away\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> without paying the in lieu fees at all. I brought this up to CalRecycle and they said “it’s incredibly hard to ensure that retailers who says they are taking back in store or are paying the in lieu fee, are doing exactly what they’re saying.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It sounds like this system is very broken… \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s what a lot of people I spoke to have said…And as a result, with fewer ways to redeem our bottles and cans, the pot of nickels and dimes in the state’s fund just keeps growing. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As of the end of June last year, the beverage container fund had accumulated 672 million dollars. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Susan says you need some of that money to keep the program going but… \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You certainly do not wanna have a fund balance that’s close to 700 million that indicates a program partial failure. \u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that …five or ten cents… extra you pay. Consumer advocates say this might not seem like a big deal for some people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sort of middle class, upper middle class. You know, a lot of them aren’t even aware they’re paying bottle deposits when they go through the line. Um, you know, they’re not even aware.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s Liza Tucker, an advocate \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">with Consumer Watchdog\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> who’s written several reports on the state’s recycling and redemption system. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nLiza: \u003c/b>There are a lot of people in the state of California who actually depend on that money. They actually need cash. They need to fill their tanks with gas. They need to buy food. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But if we can’t redeem, we lose money.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s called a refundable deposit because that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be a tax, but it’s turned into a tax because we don’t have any place to take those bottles and cans to get those dimes and nickels back. That’s the fundamental problem. And so we’re looking at a situation where the system. Is imploding.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This sounds like a huge mess. Has anyone tried to fix this?\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lawmakers know the system isn’t working like it’s supposed to…So in 2019, the state put aside 5 million dollars to pilot new ways to recycle and redeem our bottles and cans. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of those pilots is now operating in San Francisco. It’s called Bottle Bank. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It works through an app on your phone. And you have to have an account in order to recycle with them. The app lists their locations and hours. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I grabbed whatever bottles and cans I could find in my apartment…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of collecting of bottles and cans\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steven in scene: There’s probably like 35 cents in here. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I went to one of their busiest locations outside a Safeway by the beach…to see how their operation works and if I could get some CRV.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steven: “Hello? Hi. How’s it going? Good. Good…Look at all these bags.”\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jon Jon: Yeah. Bottles and cans.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steven: Are these all, all, all from today?\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>Jon Jon: Yes. the morning shift already got about 50, 30, 50 bags.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a Bottle Bank attendant, his name is Jon Jon, he’s collecting bags…. But these aren’t just your typical trash bags… these blue colored garbage bags have a QR code on them that connect to your Bottle Bank account on your phone. Jon Jon takes my bottles and cans and throws them into one of these bags. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Jon Jon\u003ci>:\u003c/i>\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then scan every bag\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> He scans the QR code on the bag…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of machine beeping\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then he scans the app on my phone. The bag of cans is now linked to my Bottle Bank account. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jon Jon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After this day we bring it to the facility and they will process it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My bag along with the other bags of the day will be taken to an offsite recycling center for sorting. This is Jim, he’s another Bottle Bank attendant.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jim:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It distinguishes the material type as well as the size of the container and its value. When we process the bottles and cans. The money goes electronically into the Bottle Bank account. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And after three days, I had about a dollar in my account…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> San Francisco officials who run the program are proud of it. Here is Charles Sheehan, He’s with San Francisco’s Department of the Environment and head of the program.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Charles:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think it’s kind of brought bottle and canned recycling into the modern age, if you will.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As of this past summer, the department said it recycled more than three million bottles and cans and given out about $190,000 in CRV.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Charles: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we think about what our ultimate goal is for CRV, is like, to rapidly increase how many people are redeeming, you know, who is redeeming, getting more money back into people’s pockets.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But Liza from Consumer Watchdog says the pilot is not recycling enough because the Bottle Bank sites are only open-one-day-a-week…only several hours a day in select locations. And it’s …costing taxpayers too much to operate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are advocating strongly not to finance the mobile experiments because they aren’t penciling out.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After analyzing Bottle Bank’s expenses, Consumer Watchdog asked the state’s Department of Finance to no longer fund the program. Saying, quote: “It is costing 79 cents to return a nickel to consumers. And it will never be sustainable.”\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> These costs include renting out the grocery store parking lots where they’re taking bags. Labor, materials, and transporting the bottes to the facility. But Liza says the biggest problem with Bottle Bank is it’s allowing grocery stores in the city \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">to refuse\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> people’s empty bottles and cans… benefiting supermarkets more than consumers.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the minute that they approved this particular pilot, 400 stores got off the hook.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s cause under the Bottle Bill…if a grocery store is within a certain mile radius of \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a recycling center then, the store doesn’t have to recycle or redeem any of our bottles and cans…and they don’t have to pay the in lieu fee. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because a stipulation behind all of these pilot programs is that when they say yes to a pilot is in an underserved location it automatically absolves all the supermarkets in the area from either having to take back in store because there’s no redemption center or pay that a hundred dollars a day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In defense of the program, Charles Sheehan stresses they’re still in the pilot phase, which means making revisions while incurring costs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Charles: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re growing. Um, and as we grow, you know, we will continue to kind of bring in more revenues and bring our revenues in line with our costs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> According to CalRecycle, the state just awarded 500 thousand dollars to expand the program. Sheehan says the goal is to get up to 30 locations running with longer operating hours. Meanwhile, Liza says, the tech Bottle Bank is using isn’t new.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s already proven technology. This is not innovation, quote unquote. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of this is about access to redemption. The more convenient it is, the bigger the volume is of what you take in, and then you’re covering costs and making some money.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>We’re one of ten states with bottle bills. Are other states having more success with their programs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>Absolutely. According to the Container Recycling Institute…we have a redemption rate of 60 percent. In comparison, Maine and Oregon have redemption rates of 80 to 90 percent. In Oregon there are supermarket sized redemption centers near grocery stores with multiple ways to recycle…seven days a week sometimes 24 hours a day. Here’s Susan Collins again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can take your containers inside and they have banks of RVMs. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">RVMs or reverse vending machines…are kiosks with slots in them for you to drop your items. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or if you have a small number of containers, I think if it’s under 50, you just go straight to the front counter and say, count my containers and give me my money. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can also drop your items off in a bag where they’re counted later…and Oregon uses the same technology as Bottle Bank…so if you want the money delivered electronically on your phone you can do that too or get a voucher and use it towards your groceries.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that’s why there’s a contrast between what’s going on in San Francisco. San Francisco does not have all of those locations, does not have all of those layers. And does not have locations that are open for a huge number of hours every week.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it’s possible…that we could start looking a little like Oregon. A law passed last year says that starting in 2025…large grocery stores will no longer have $100 a day\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in lieu fee option. So they will \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">truly\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> be responsible for redeeming our bottles and cans. The idea is to create large scale redemption centers with multiple ways to recycle and redeem items.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The retailers have to establish a convenience infrastructure that is equivalent to what it would be if they had, you know, in-store takeback.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CalRecycle is giving out more than 70 million dollars in grant money to large grocery store chains \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">to create\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> this infrastructure.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s considered one of the biggest improvements to the Bottle Bill ever, and CalRecycle’s director Rachel Wagoner says this is a serious investment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wagoner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This machinery isn’t inexpensive to buy upfront. Right. So if the state’s gonna purchase it, we wanna make sure that that is a long-term investment that we’re making in the recycling system. In addition to the new infrastructure, the new law will be adding wine and spirits to the list of redemption options for 25 cents a bottle.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Wagoner is optimistic that the new law will make a real difference in the number of redeemed containers, taking our current redemption rate from 60 percent to a hundred.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wagoner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, uh, even if I don’t hit a hundred percent, let’s see how close we can get.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Susan is also optimistic…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> If everything goes according to plan. We could have a really good system in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But she is skeptical about how fast the changes will come. She says her organization first advocated for these changes back in 2009.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it happened in 2022. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I also know that if we advocate for something strongly enough and long enough that eventually it will come to pass. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I reached out to Paul, our question asker, and told him how most of the money from unredeemed deposits just sits in the beverage container fund…because most of the redemption centers have closed. We pulled up a map of Oakland and found that the nearest redemption center to his home was more than five miles away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steven: I’m curious, I wanna get your thoughts on that. Is that feasible? What do you think?\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul: I live in a small condo and for me there’s a headache associated with storing a whole separate bag full of cans, like, I’m not gonna go for like two or three cans.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Paul likes the idea of redeeming bottles and cans at supermarkets… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would go to the grocery store to go shopping where I could return my can. So for me it’s an incentive to go shop at their store. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maybe someday soon Paul will once again be able to head to the grocery store with a bag of cans, and come home with a little cash in his pocket.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>OUTRO\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was producer and reporter Steven Rascon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Longtime listeners will know this isn’t our first rodeo talking about how recycling works and sometimes doesn’t. Find links to more episodes in our show notes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you probably know by now, we are in a fundraising period, but I wanted to point something out… \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People ask me all the time how they can get their hands on some Bay Curious swag. And usually the answer is: You have to get on the show and we send you a thank you item for participating. But right now, you can get your hands on one of our thick, luxurious, Bay Curious beanies — which I’ll add are legendary among the question askers who’ve received them. All it takes is becoming a KQED member. Visit \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to learn how and stay toasty with us all winter long. Or, if you don’t need a new hat, you can choose from lots of other great gifts at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">/podcasts. Thank you. Seriously! Thank you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the entire KQED family. Have a wonderful week.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Where does all of our bottle deposit money go given that most Californians do not bring their bottles back for redemption?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>Read a transcript of this episode\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Paul Beach was a kid growing up in Maine, he remembers going to a recycling center that was part of a grocery store. He watched people walk into this large space with garbage bags full of bottles and cans. And when he noticed they were walking out with cash, he wanted in on the hustle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would have like $50 in cans. It took me a while to get that much, but it was pretty good income for, like, a 10-year-old,” Beach said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maine and California are two states with \u003ca href=\"https://www.bottlebill.org/index.php/current-and-proposed-laws/usa/california\">a Bottle Bill\u003c/a>, a law that encourages recycling for money. When Beach moved to California, where he’s lived for the past 25 years, he looked up the closest redemption center to him in Oakland and discovered it was 5 miles away. A place called Cash for Cans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Beach, it’s not worth storing several bags of containers in his apartment for a single trip. Instead, he puts his recyclables in the blue bin on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This experience had him wondering: Where does the money go for bottle-and-can redemption if residents don’t turn them into a recycling center? And why is it so hard to recycle them in the first place?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Bottle Bill\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The money Beach is talking about is the California Redemption Value, or CRV — and it’s not exactly free. Whenever someone buys a drink from the store with the letters CRV printed on the label, they’re paying a 5-to-10-cent deposit at the checkout line. To get that deposit back, they have to recycle those containers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This applies mostly to beverages that come in aluminum cans and plastic bottles. The whole point is to encourage recycling and reduce litter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1986, the state passed the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act, also known as the Bottle Bill. The law created the recycling deposit system many use today. California is also one of 10 states in the country with a Bottle Bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Susan V. Collins, president of the Container Recycling Institute in Culver City, calls Bottle Bills “the rock stars of recycling” because of the financial incentive behind them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>“People either hold onto their bottle and turn it in for the 5 cents, or if they do litter it, someone else picks it up and takes it in for recycling,” Collins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since passing its Bottle Bill, California has had a good track record with the number of recycled and redeemed containers. One out of five beverage containers recycled in the U.S. \u003ca href=\"https://www.bottlebill.org/index.php/current-and-proposed-laws/usa/california\">are recycled in California\u003c/a>, according to the Container Recycling Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But recycling containers isn’t the same as redeeming them for cash. As redemption centers closed across the state, Californians were left with fewer options to redeem their bottles and cans. According to CRI, the state’s redemption rates have fallen from 74% to 60% in the past decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11962004\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2023/09/21/cashing-in-on-californias-broken-bottle-deposit-system/bottles-ready-to-be-recycled-at-the-recycling-center-at-church-on-market-streets-in-san-francisco-calif-on-friday-august-9-2013-safeway-is-going-to-shut-down-its-recyling-center-here-by-septemb/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11962004\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11962004\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"two bins of glass bottles and cans\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1321630841-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bottles ready to be recycled at the recycling center at Church and Market streets in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Redemption center deserts\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When the Bottle Bill was passed in the 1980s it depended on California’s current recycling center infrastructure. Recycling centers were now obligated to give people back their money for bottles and cans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of these businesses created partnerships with grocery stores to establish convenience for consumers looking for a place to recycle. They set up shop in the parking lots of a store much like the one from Beach’s childhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when revenue started to plummet at these locations because of the falling price of scrap material, many shuttered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2013, more than 40% of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/cash-in-the-can-californias-recycling-run-around/2055057/\">these recycling centers\u003c/a> have closed across the state. Collins said the Bay Area is the epicenter of these closures affecting a majority of people who depend on these centers for extra income.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has the least convenient system in the world right now because of these redemption deserts,” Collins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the ’90s, San Francisco once had about 35 redemption centers scattered throughout the city. Today, there are only two and both are located in the Bayview District. CalRecycle \u003ca href=\"https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/BevContainer/RecyclingCenters/\">lists about 1,200 redemption centers\u003c/a> left in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Abandoned deposits\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When bottles and cans end up in landfills and not redeemed, those deposits are considered “unclaimed” by the state. This unclaimed money sits in the Beverage Container Fund, which is managed by CalRecycle. About 400 people in the state agency who work in the beverage container program are paid out of unclaimed deposits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The money is supposed to be used to subsidize the state’s recycling infrastructure to help people get their money back. But for the most part, it stays untouched in the beverage container fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘California has the least convenient system in the world right now because of these redemption deserts.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Some of the unclaimed deposits are paid out to redemption centers, but not a whole lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, where many rely on blue recycling bins, waste hauling companies get to cash in on the CRV money attached to those bottles and cans thrown out. Collins said only a small percentage of those recyclables are redeemed because waste haulers don’t always do a perfect job of sorting through the recycling. Inevitably, a lot of it ends up in landfill. Last year, only 13% were redeemed for CRV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Collins said, as of last summer, the beverage container fund accumulated $672 million. She indicated that the high balance was a partial failure on behalf of the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consumer advocates argue that redemption center closures and allowing waste haulers to take residents’ CRV is hurting consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s turned into a tax because we don’t have any place to take those bottles and cans to get those dimes and nickels back. That’s the fundamental problem,” said Liza Tucker, consumer advocate for Consumer Watchdog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that working-class communities who \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11714223/when-recycling-pays-and-when-it-doesnt\">depend on recycling to pay bills\u003c/a> are hurting the most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They actually need cash. They need to fill their tanks with gas. They need to buy food,” Tucker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The in-lieu-fee loophole\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Under the Bottle Bill, retailers that sell beverages are required to recycle those beverages if there’s no recycling center nearby. The law was designed for the sake of convenience. But California’s Bottle Bill gives stores the option of paying out of their responsibility to recycle and redeem drink containers. This is known as the “in-lieu fee,” a penalty in lieu of redeeming empty containers — a $100 fee for each day the store is not taking back recyclables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some cases, stores \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/10/business/cvs-3-6-million-fine-california-recycling-trnd/index.html#:~:text=California%20is%20slapping%20CVS%20with,its%20residents%2C%20the%20state%20said\">try to get away with not paying the in-lieu fees at all\u003c/a>. In response, CalRecycle Director Rachel Machi Wagoner said, “It’s incredibly hard to ensure that retailers who say they are taking back in store or are paying the in-lieu fee, are doing exactly what they’re saying.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11962006\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2023/09/21/cashing-in-on-californias-broken-bottle-deposit-system/customers-line-up-to-have-bottles-and-cans-weighed-before-they-receive-a-cash-payment-at-the-our-planet-recycling-collection-center-on-bayshore-boulevard-in-san-francisco-calif-on-thursday-aug-3-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11962006\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11962006\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"people lined up outside a recycling center with trash bags full of recyclable bottles and cans\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1722\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-1020x686.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-1536x1033.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-2048x1377.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/09/GettyImages-1408767999-1-1920x1291.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Customers line up to have bottles and cans weighed before they receive a cash payment at the Our Planet Recycling collection center on Bayshore Boulevard in San Francisco in 2017. Independent recycling centers are struggling to stay open saying the state subsidies aren’t enough to keep them in business. \u003ccite>(Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Lawmakers know the system isn’t working\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2019, the state put aside $5 million to pilot new ways to recycle and redeem our bottles and cans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those pilot programs is called \u003ca href=\"https://sfbottlebank.org/\">BottleBank\u003c/a> in San Francisco. After downloading the app, consumers drop off their containers to any BottleBank mobile drop-off location and then their recyclables get taken to an offsite recycling center for sorting. The CRV is tallied up and the money is electronically delivered to the person’s bank account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our ultimate goal for CRV is to rapidly increase how many people are redeeming. … getting more money back into people’s pockets,” said Charles Sheehan, chief policy and public affairs officer with San Francisco’s Department of the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the program kicked off last year, Sheehan said the department recycled more than 3 million bottles and cans and paid out about $190,000 in CRV as of this summer. There are currently \u003ca href=\"https://sfbottlebank.org/locations/\">20 BottleBank sites\u003c/a> set up around the city with many found parked outside Safeway, Whole Foods and Grocery Outlet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>Consumer advocates, however, aren’t happy with the program, saying the pilot is benefiting supermarkets more than consumers. CalRecycle lists the BottleBank sites on its website as certified recycling centers. Under the Bottle Bill, grocery stores within a certain mile radius of a recycling center don’t have to pay in-lieu fees or take back in store.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So the minute that they approved this particular pilot, 400 stores got off the hook,” Tucker of Consumer Watchdog said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consumer Watchdog added that BottleBank is not recycling enough, because the sites are only open one day out of the week for several hours a day and the program is costing taxpayers too much to operate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After analyzing BottleBank’s expenses, Consumer Watchdog asked the state’s Department of Finance to no longer fund the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is costing 79 cents to return a nickel to consumers. And it will never be sustainable,” it said in \u003ca href=\"https://consumerwatchdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/LtrBottleBankStephenshaw6-19-23.pdf\">a statement (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In defense of the program, Sheehan stressed that it’s still in the pilot phase, which means making improvements while incurring costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re growing, and as we grow we will continue to kind of bring in more revenues and bring our revenues in line with our costs,” Sheehan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BottleBank’s costs include renting the grocery store parking lot space for its operations, plus labor, marketing materials and transportation for the bottles and cans to the recycling facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to CalRecycle, the state awarded the program $500,000 to expand their services to last until the end of the year. Sheehan said the goal is to get a total of 30 locations running with longer operating hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A new law could change it all\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Other Bottle Bill states like Oregon have a higher redemption rate of 85%. The state has multiple ways to redeem items using reverse vending machines, bag drop programs and in-store take back. The state also utilizes the same app-based technology as BottleBank for consumers to receive their CRV electronically. They can also get a voucher to use at their local grocery store.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting in 2025, it’s possible that California can start looking more like Oregon. SB 1013 passed last year and it will require grocery stores with no nearby recycling centers to be responsible for taking back empty beverage containers starting in January 2025. It also removes the optional $100-a-day in-lieu fee and adds wine and spirits to the list of redemption items.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s considered one of the biggest improvements to the Bottle Bill ever. CalRecycle’s Director, Rachel Wagoner, added that the machinery to build this infrastructure will not be cheap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So if the state’s gonna purchase it, we wanna make sure that that is a long-term investment that we’re making in the recycling system,” Wagoner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalRecycle is giving out more than $70 million in grant money to large grocery store chains to create this infrastructure. The agency is currently having public workshops with retailers to answer questions about the grant process. The idea is to create large-scale redemption centers with multiple ways to recycle items, while increasing the state’s redemption rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Wagoner is optimistic that the new law will make a real difference in the number of redeemed containers. And she’s hopeful for 100% redemption.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And even if I don’t hit 100%, let’s see how close we can get,” Wagoner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Collins said her organization, the Container Recycling Institute, first advocated for these changes in 2009. She added that if everything goes according to plan California could have a good system in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet Collins is skeptical about how fast those changes will come. She pointed out that multiple spending programs, and an additional budget bill, passed along with the new law may exceed the resources in the Beverage Container Fund to create the redemption infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.container-recycling.org/images/2023/CRI_CalRecycle_budget_questions_Sen_06132023.pdf\">In a letter (PDF)\u003c/a> asking the state’s Senate Budget Committee to reconsider how they spend the money, Collins wrote, “The complete implementation of AB 179 and SB 1013 over 6 years will cost the beverage container fund and other accounts roughly $1.3 billion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t have money going outta the fund to pay for things that are not bottles and cans when that money is needed to give people their nickels and dimes back,” said Collins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When Paul Beach was a kid growing up in Maine, he would go to this recycling center that was part of a grocery store. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Beach:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was a pretty big space in the grocery store. And you just bring your bottles and cans in. and they sorted them, like green bottles went here, white bottles went there, brown bottles went here.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Paul noticed that people would walk into the recycling center with a bag of … well, garbage, essentially. And they would walk out with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">cash\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. He wanted in on the hustle.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I would have, like $50 in cans. It took me a while to get that much, but it was pretty good income for like a 10 year old.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That experience taught Paul the literal value of recycling. Every bottle or can was worth up to fifteen cents in Maine because of the state’s\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> bottle bill\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. That’s a law designed to encourage recycling. When Paul moved to California, where we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">also\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have a bottle bill, he thought things would work about the same…but his nearest redemption center was far, so he never went … Now, he puts his items on the curb where they’re whisked away by a waste hauling company.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am pretty sure that the company that I pay to take the recycling fishes through and gets all the cans and they get the money for the cans and bottles. // like, you’re getting paid on both sides. It’s like, this just doesn’t seem fair.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This has all left him wondering about a few things…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Where does the money go for bottle and can redemption if we don’t bring the bottles and cans back?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And why is it so hard to find a place to recycle them in the first place?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music change\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In today’s episode of Bay Curious we dig into how this recycling system works and why some argue it’s seriously broken. Plus: Who’s pocketing the CRV money from California’s unclaimed bottles and cans? I’m Olivia Allen-Price. This is Bay Curious. We’ll be right back.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To answer Paul’s questions about bottle and can redemption in California … KQED’s Steven Rascón has been following the money. Hey Steven!\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven Rascón:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hey Olivia.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Paul’s question is all about CRV. Can you explain what exactly that is?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sure. CRV stands for California Redemption Value. And it applies to certain bottled and canned drinks you buy from the store. Anytime you buy one of these beverages with the letters CRV engraved on the lid or printed on the label, you’re paying 5-10 cents extra at the checkout line. Paying this extra charge is supposed to work like a deposit. Because once we’re done with that drink, we’re supposed to recycle it and get back those 10 cents.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And this applies specifically to store-bought beverages… so containers of juice, coffee, water, soda …?\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. This recycling system is part of a law that’s colloquially known as the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bottle Bill\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. We are one of ten states in the country with a Bottle Bill. Beverage containers specifically, continue to make up roughly half of roadside litter across the country. And so in the 80’s, environmentalists and lawmakers decided to do something about it in California… and pass the Bottle Bill. And recycling experts say this system works.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan Collins:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We know that bottle bills on average, reduce beverage container litter by 50%. So we can keep some of those plastics outta the ocean if we have bottle bills in place. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s Susan Collins, she’s the head of the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Container Recycling Institute\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in Culver City California. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The whole reason bottle bills work like magic, why I call them the rock stars of recycling, is because of the incentive that’s attached to it. because people either hold onto their bottle and turn it in for the 5 cents, or if they do litter it, someone else picks it up and takes it in for recycling.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Since California passed its Bottle Bill, the number of recycled containers has shot up. The Container Recycling Institute says one out of five beverage containers recycled in the US are being recycled in California. But…not all of those bottles and cans are getting redeemed for cash. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when that happens…that money just stays in what’s called the beverage container fund. A fund that’s owned by the state.\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is the unclaimed money in that fund used for? \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So the unclaimed deposits from those containers, the money \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that no one’s getting\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> belongs to the state. CalRecycle is the state agency that manages the fund and the program. Susan says there’s a lot of work that goes into it that we don’t see. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cal Recycle has about 400 people who work on this program, and those people are paid out of the unclaimed deposits. That money is also supposed to be used to create more ways for recycling our items. CalRecycle gives some of that money to recycling centers who redeem our bottles and cans. Some of it goes to waste hauling companies who pick up our blue bins of recyclables.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I know a lot of people, like our question asker Paul and myself, put our bottles and cans in the blue bin on the curb. But who gets the money for those items? Because I know it’s not me! \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to CalRecycle, the waste hauling companies that pick up our recycling like Recology get to cash in on the bottles and cans we put in them. We’re actually the only state with a Bottle Bill where this is the case. So Paul’s right when he says waste haulers are getting paid twice. Consumer advocates, by the way, are not happy with this arrangement…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another issue with the blue bin….is waste haulers don’t do a perfect job of sorting all the recycling. Oftentimes, food and trash will mix with the bottles and cans…and those containers that don’t get redeemed inevitably end up in the landfill.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Container Recycling Institute says only 13 percent of those bottles and cans being recycled are being redeemed for cash.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So to recap, we’re not getting the money we throw out in blue bins and not all of it is even being recycled. It sounds like everything would be better if took things to the redemption center?\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right but \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If only\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> it were that easy! Yes, redemption centers are the ideal way to recycle our bottles and cans and get our money back. But good luck finding one…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Bay Area is like the epicenter of redemption center closures, and it’s the area of the state that has the least availability of centers and the more people dependent on each and every center.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the 90’s, San Francisco once had about 35 of these centers scattered throughout the city, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">today there are only two\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…both located in the Bayview District. Since 2013 more than forty percent of these centers have closed across the state. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California has the least convenient system in the world right now because of these redemption deserts. Why they’ve had to close is a whole other story, but in short – prices for recycled materials dropped so much…these businesses couldn’t survive.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music out\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is all pretty frustrating, and it’s about to get downright infuriating because Californians should, in theory, be able to take our recyclable beverage containers to the grocery store, just like our question asker Paul did when he was growing up in Maine.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right\u003c/span>\u003cb>. \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And technically it’s the law. Under the Bottle Bill supermarkets and retailers that sell beverages \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">are required\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to recycle them and give us back our money. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It should be just as easy to return your bottle or can for redemption as it was to purchase the bottle in the first place. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: But the problem is most supermarkets don’t take our bottles and cans. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only a small handful actually do. And so if a supermarket refuses to take your empty cans…then they have to pay what’s called…an “in lieu fee.” A penalty in lieu of redeeming empty containers. It’s a hundred dollar fine per day. But this \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">penalty\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> has become a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">loophole. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For a lot of these stores, $100 a day is a bargain to not have to deal with CRV redemption.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Some stores try \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">to get away\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> without paying the in lieu fees at all. I brought this up to CalRecycle and they said “it’s incredibly hard to ensure that retailers who says they are taking back in store or are paying the in lieu fee, are doing exactly what they’re saying.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It sounds like this system is very broken… \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s what a lot of people I spoke to have said…And as a result, with fewer ways to redeem our bottles and cans, the pot of nickels and dimes in the state’s fund just keeps growing. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As of the end of June last year, the beverage container fund had accumulated 672 million dollars. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Susan says you need some of that money to keep the program going but… \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You certainly do not wanna have a fund balance that’s close to 700 million that indicates a program partial failure. \u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that …five or ten cents… extra you pay. Consumer advocates say this might not seem like a big deal for some people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sort of middle class, upper middle class. You know, a lot of them aren’t even aware they’re paying bottle deposits when they go through the line. Um, you know, they’re not even aware.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s Liza Tucker, an advocate \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">with Consumer Watchdog\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> who’s written several reports on the state’s recycling and redemption system. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nLiza: \u003c/b>There are a lot of people in the state of California who actually depend on that money. They actually need cash. They need to fill their tanks with gas. They need to buy food. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But if we can’t redeem, we lose money.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s called a refundable deposit because that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be a tax, but it’s turned into a tax because we don’t have any place to take those bottles and cans to get those dimes and nickels back. That’s the fundamental problem. And so we’re looking at a situation where the system. Is imploding.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This sounds like a huge mess. Has anyone tried to fix this?\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lawmakers know the system isn’t working like it’s supposed to…So in 2019, the state put aside 5 million dollars to pilot new ways to recycle and redeem our bottles and cans. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of those pilots is now operating in San Francisco. It’s called Bottle Bank. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It works through an app on your phone. And you have to have an account in order to recycle with them. The app lists their locations and hours. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I grabbed whatever bottles and cans I could find in my apartment…\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of collecting of bottles and cans\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steven in scene: There’s probably like 35 cents in here. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I went to one of their busiest locations outside a Safeway by the beach…to see how their operation works and if I could get some CRV.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steven: “Hello? Hi. How’s it going? Good. Good…Look at all these bags.”\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jon Jon: Yeah. Bottles and cans.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steven: Are these all, all, all from today?\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>Jon Jon: Yes. the morning shift already got about 50, 30, 50 bags.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a Bottle Bank attendant, his name is Jon Jon, he’s collecting bags…. But these aren’t just your typical trash bags… these blue colored garbage bags have a QR code on them that connect to your Bottle Bank account on your phone. Jon Jon takes my bottles and cans and throws them into one of these bags. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Jon Jon\u003ci>:\u003c/i>\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then scan every bag\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> He scans the QR code on the bag…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of machine beeping\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then he scans the app on my phone. The bag of cans is now linked to my Bottle Bank account. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jon Jon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After this day we bring it to the facility and they will process it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My bag along with the other bags of the day will be taken to an offsite recycling center for sorting. This is Jim, he’s another Bottle Bank attendant.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jim:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It distinguishes the material type as well as the size of the container and its value. When we process the bottles and cans. The money goes electronically into the Bottle Bank account. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And after three days, I had about a dollar in my account…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> San Francisco officials who run the program are proud of it. Here is Charles Sheehan, He’s with San Francisco’s Department of the Environment and head of the program.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Charles:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think it’s kind of brought bottle and canned recycling into the modern age, if you will.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As of this past summer, the department said it recycled more than three million bottles and cans and given out about $190,000 in CRV.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Charles: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we think about what our ultimate goal is for CRV, is like, to rapidly increase how many people are redeeming, you know, who is redeeming, getting more money back into people’s pockets.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But Liza from Consumer Watchdog says the pilot is not recycling enough because the Bottle Bank sites are only open-one-day-a-week…only several hours a day in select locations. And it’s …costing taxpayers too much to operate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are advocating strongly not to finance the mobile experiments because they aren’t penciling out.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After analyzing Bottle Bank’s expenses, Consumer Watchdog asked the state’s Department of Finance to no longer fund the program. Saying, quote: “It is costing 79 cents to return a nickel to consumers. And it will never be sustainable.”\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> These costs include renting out the grocery store parking lots where they’re taking bags. Labor, materials, and transporting the bottes to the facility. But Liza says the biggest problem with Bottle Bank is it’s allowing grocery stores in the city \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">to refuse\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> people’s empty bottles and cans… benefiting supermarkets more than consumers.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the minute that they approved this particular pilot, 400 stores got off the hook.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That’s cause under the Bottle Bill…if a grocery store is within a certain mile radius of \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a recycling center then, the store doesn’t have to recycle or redeem any of our bottles and cans…and they don’t have to pay the in lieu fee. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because a stipulation behind all of these pilot programs is that when they say yes to a pilot is in an underserved location it automatically absolves all the supermarkets in the area from either having to take back in store because there’s no redemption center or pay that a hundred dollars a day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In defense of the program, Charles Sheehan stresses they’re still in the pilot phase, which means making revisions while incurring costs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Charles: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re growing. Um, and as we grow, you know, we will continue to kind of bring in more revenues and bring our revenues in line with our costs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> According to CalRecycle, the state just awarded 500 thousand dollars to expand the program. Sheehan says the goal is to get up to 30 locations running with longer operating hours. Meanwhile, Liza says, the tech Bottle Bank is using isn’t new.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Liza: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s already proven technology. This is not innovation, quote unquote. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of this is about access to redemption. The more convenient it is, the bigger the volume is of what you take in, and then you’re covering costs and making some money.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>We’re one of ten states with bottle bills. Are other states having more success with their programs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>Absolutely. According to the Container Recycling Institute…we have a redemption rate of 60 percent. In comparison, Maine and Oregon have redemption rates of 80 to 90 percent. In Oregon there are supermarket sized redemption centers near grocery stores with multiple ways to recycle…seven days a week sometimes 24 hours a day. Here’s Susan Collins again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can take your containers inside and they have banks of RVMs. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">RVMs or reverse vending machines…are kiosks with slots in them for you to drop your items. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or if you have a small number of containers, I think if it’s under 50, you just go straight to the front counter and say, count my containers and give me my money. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can also drop your items off in a bag where they’re counted later…and Oregon uses the same technology as Bottle Bank…so if you want the money delivered electronically on your phone you can do that too or get a voucher and use it towards your groceries.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that’s why there’s a contrast between what’s going on in San Francisco. San Francisco does not have all of those locations, does not have all of those layers. And does not have locations that are open for a huge number of hours every week.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it’s possible…that we could start looking a little like Oregon. A law passed last year says that starting in 2025…large grocery stores will no longer have $100 a day\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in lieu fee option. So they will \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">truly\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> be responsible for redeeming our bottles and cans. The idea is to create large scale redemption centers with multiple ways to recycle and redeem items.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The retailers have to establish a convenience infrastructure that is equivalent to what it would be if they had, you know, in-store takeback.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CalRecycle is giving out more than 70 million dollars in grant money to large grocery store chains \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">to create\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> this infrastructure.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s considered one of the biggest improvements to the Bottle Bill ever, and CalRecycle’s director Rachel Wagoner says this is a serious investment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wagoner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This machinery isn’t inexpensive to buy upfront. Right. So if the state’s gonna purchase it, we wanna make sure that that is a long-term investment that we’re making in the recycling system. In addition to the new infrastructure, the new law will be adding wine and spirits to the list of redemption options for 25 cents a bottle.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Wagoner is optimistic that the new law will make a real difference in the number of redeemed containers, taking our current redemption rate from 60 percent to a hundred.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wagoner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, uh, even if I don’t hit a hundred percent, let’s see how close we can get.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Susan is also optimistic…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> If everything goes according to plan. We could have a really good system in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But she is skeptical about how fast the changes will come. She says her organization first advocated for these changes back in 2009.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it happened in 2022. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I also know that if we advocate for something strongly enough and long enough that eventually it will come to pass. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I reached out to Paul, our question asker, and told him how most of the money from unredeemed deposits just sits in the beverage container fund…because most of the redemption centers have closed. We pulled up a map of Oakland and found that the nearest redemption center to his home was more than five miles away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steven: I’m curious, I wanna get your thoughts on that. Is that feasible? What do you think?\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul: I live in a small condo and for me there’s a headache associated with storing a whole separate bag full of cans, like, I’m not gonna go for like two or three cans.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Paul likes the idea of redeeming bottles and cans at supermarkets… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would go to the grocery store to go shopping where I could return my can. So for me it’s an incentive to go shop at their store. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maybe someday soon Paul will once again be able to head to the grocery store with a bag of cans, and come home with a little cash in his pocket.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>OUTRO\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was producer and reporter Steven Rascon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Longtime listeners will know this isn’t our first rodeo talking about how recycling works and sometimes doesn’t. Find links to more episodes in our show notes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you probably know by now, we are in a fundraising period, but I wanted to point something out… \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People ask me all the time how they can get their hands on some Bay Curious swag. And usually the answer is: You have to get on the show and we send you a thank you item for participating. But right now, you can get your hands on one of our thick, luxurious, Bay Curious beanies — which I’ll add are legendary among the question askers who’ve received them. All it takes is becoming a KQED member. Visit \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to learn how and stay toasty with us all winter long. Or, if you don’t need a new hat, you can choose from lots of other great gifts at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">/podcasts. Thank you. Seriously! Thank you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the entire KQED family. Have a wonderful week.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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},
"science-friday": {
"id": "science-friday",
"title": "Science Friday",
"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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"snap-judgment": {
"id": "snap-judgment",
"title": "Snap Judgment",
"tagline": "Real stories with killer beats",
"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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},
"soldout": {
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