San Francisco Heritage

08/20/2026

For two nights only on August 28 and 29 (next week!), world-class magician and storyteller Steve Marshall, along with San Francisco Heritage and the Gregangelo Museum, invite you inside the Haas-Lilienthal House for Echoes from the Past—an intimate journey through a magnificent Victorian home where "history, mystery, and magic begin to blur."

Guests will move through the house in intimate groups, hearing stories and encountering strange objects, forgotten photographs, Victorian mysteries, and impossible moments that can’t quite be explained.

Tickets: https://bit.ly/4g9fMWH

08/19/2026

Thank you Paula and Chile Lindo 🇨🇱! San Francisco's legacy businesses are a vital part of our living cultural landscape and what make our city special.

🇨🇱 Thank you Paula and the staff of legacy business Chile Lindo for hosting a great Heritage Happy Hour yesterday! They showed us how our local businesses can also be cultural ambassadors, in this case helping San Franciscans learn more about Chilean culture through delicious food like this Chilean Pavlova.

🍷🥂🍻 Our Heritage Happy Hours happen on every second Thursday of the month from 5-7 pm at a registered Legacy Business bar or restaurant in San Francisco. Save the date for our next gathering on September 10! More details soon. In the meantime, look up the myriad of fantastic legacy businesses like Chile Lindo at legacybusiness.org and plan a visit✨️

08/14/2026

🇨🇱 Thank you Paula and the staff of legacy business Chile Lindo for hosting a great Heritage Happy Hour yesterday! They showed us how our local businesses can also be cultural ambassadors, in this case helping San Franciscans learn more about Chilean culture through delicious food like this Chilean Pavlova.

🍷🥂🍻 Our Heritage Happy Hours happen on every second Thursday of the month from 5-7 pm at a registered Legacy Business bar or restaurant in San Francisco. Save the date for our next gathering on September 10! More details soon. In the meantime, look up the myriad of fantastic legacy businesses like Chile Lindo at legacybusiness.org and plan a visit✨️

08/12/2026

Join us for Heritage Happy Hour at Chile Lindo tomorrow, August 13 from 5-7 pm! Located in the Mission District, Chile Lindo is a traditional Chilean bakery famous for its empanadas, cakes, and “dulce chilenos” (pastries). We'll be meeting in their event space on 2943 16th Street (across the street from their original location). More:

Join us at Chile Lindo on Thursday, August 13 for our monthly Heritage Happy Hour! 2943 16th Street, San Francisco. Chile Lindo’s event space at 2943 16th Street in the…

08/11/2026

~The truth about landmarks~

1. Historic designation is not anti-housing. And it does not mean housing cannot be added to a site. Some of the big housing projects that are under construction in the city have only “penciled out” because they incorporated properties with historic designation. Projects such as 1101-1123 Sutter Street (300 new homes, 103 affordable units), the Power Station (2,600 units, 30% below market rate), and the historic 1930 tower at 100 McAllister Street (addition of 80 housing units) have benefited from these tax credits.

➡️ Read (and share!) about who chooses landmarks, how long it will it take, and more FAQs in our new website post:

In 2025, Rafael Mandelman, president of the board of supervisors, worked closely with the Planning Department and San Francisco Heritage to find ways to speed up and improve the city’s landmark designation process. Those recommendations were presented…

08/07/2026

🗓 From our friends at the Presidio Historical Association and the San Francisco Historical Society: 250 years ago, explorer Juan Bautista de Anza arrived with an expeditionary party on the peninsula that was to become San Francisco, and claimed it for New Spain. Their families followed soon after and settled in. The Ramaytush Ohlone, the original inhabitants of the land, did not know that the start of a new way of life for the settlers would spell the end of their own.

To mark this significant societal change, on the exact date of the Presidio's own 250th anniversary on September 17, both organizations will present the world premiere of Anza 250: A Documentary Film. The feature chronicles Professor Luis Valle as he retraces Anza’s journey, traveling 1,200 miles—by bike—along the expedition's original route from present-day Sonora, Mexico, to San Francisco. Learn more about his revealing experience along the way, bringing cultural and historical context to the Anza Expedition's arrival and what it wrought, a true life-changing moment in time.

Doors open at 5:30 with a raffle; reception to follow the screening. For tickets, please visit:
presidiotheatre.org/show-details/anza-250

08/06/2026

Following their webinar last week on the threat to Section 106 regulations, the National Trust for Historic Preservation is hosting a follow-up webinar to dig deeper into these proposed changes.

SF Heritage opposes this threat to the National Historic Preservation Act, which would allow the federal government to decide whether—if ever—to inform a community about projects that could harm or destroy a historic resource.

The proposed changes to Section 106 will have far-reaching implications for defining what it means to be a historic resource, and disempower state and tribal preservation officers.

Last week, thousands of preservation supporters attended our webinar on the current threats to Section 106 regulations.

Now we invite you to dig deeper and join us for a virtual conversation with Betsy Merritt, Deputy General Counsel at the National Trust, and other issue experts to better understand the implications and technical complexities of the proposed changes to Section 106.

The panel will share specific tactics and strategies that you can use to make your voice heard in outreach to your elected representatives and to enable effective action.

Wednesday, August 12 at 2p.m. ET

Register for this FREE informational webinar: https://ow.ly/VAoh50Zwkzm

07/29/2026

San Francisco needs to add more housing and good cities change and adapt as they grow. Good cities like San Francisco also identify the buildings and other places that maintain their unique character and cultural heritage, that draw people from all over the world to visit.

This story however disingenuously conflates the positive push from the city's administration to double the number of landmarked properties with "threatening" to slowing down housing construction. San Francisco has around 228,000 parcels, so even if landmarked properties doubled in the next few years those new landmarks would represent less than half of one percent of city lots, about 400 properties. Meanwhile, 70,000 already-approved housing units are stuck in a development pipeline due to lack of financing and construction costs, not because of bureaucracy or landmark status.

Giving special places their long-overdue recognition and a minimum of protection from indiscriminate demolition is not in any way a hinderance to San Francisco meeting its housing goals.

We in preservation strive to work in good faith with housing advocates, city officials, and the media to find productive ways for San Francisco to grow and preserve what's special about the city. Do not be fooled by these inaccurate narratives.

As San Francisco races to build more homes to meet a state-imposed deadline, the city also plans to double the number of historic landmarks that could cause the city to futher delay its push for more housing. Kevin Ko reports.

07/28/2026

Any American who has a connection to a historic or culturally significant place in this country should be concerned about this federal attempt to gut historic preservation protections.

Learn more from the National Trust about the proposed changes to Section 106 of the Historic Preservation Act at theie webinar this Thursday, July 30, and what you can do to push back against this threat to historic preservation work. https://bit.ly/4frSfju

Last week, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation voted to advance devastating changes to the Section 106 process of the National Historic Preservation Act, the law that's protected historic and cultural places for 60 years.

If adopted, these rules would eliminate public participation in federal preservation decisions and even strip protection from significant landscapes like the Grand Canyon.

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝘂𝘀𝗵 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸:

1. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱. National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers created a clear timeline of how we got here and what comes next: https://ow.ly/aOUM50ZtOmw

2. 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿. “Section 106 Regulations Under Threat” this Thursday, July 30 at 1p ET. We’ll break down the more serious aspects and potential impacts of the proposed changes and provide action steps going forward: https://ow.ly/NEVI50ZtOmx

3. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝘁. When the public comment period opens, submit your opposition. We will share more information when this comment period opens. In the meantime, educate yourself about Section 106: https://ow.ly/E3Y750ZtOmv