Volume XLI, No. 9
November 2017
THE NOE VALLEY VOICE Harvey Milk in the Pages of the Noe Valley Voice
Renovation Sparks Tenants Group’s Concern
Early Champion of the Politics Of Hope Was Voice Columnist
Older Renters Unlikely to Afford Newer Apartments
By Matthew S. Bajko
By Matthew S. Bajko
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n their 2013 book An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk’s Speeches and Writings (University of California Press), editors Edward Black and Charles E. Morris III combed through various publications and local archives to collect into one anthology the writings of Milk, who 40 years ago this November made history by becoming the first gay person elected to the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. The 256-page volume included Milk’s campaign speeches, newspaper editorials, public letters, and various political columns he penned for the Bay Area Reporter, the city’s LGBT newspaper, prior to his glass-ceiling-breaking electoral victory on Nov. 8, 1977. Writing in their introduction to the book, Morris and Black noted that the materials they selected constituted “but a fraction of Milk’s public discourse. Many of Milk’s speeches and writings have been lost because they were originally performed extemporaneously or published in outlets now remote…” One publication the men overlooked in their research was the Noe Valley Voice,
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“He has been visible and given us hope. The least we can do is give him a job,” wrote the paper’s staff. Milk returned the favor by agreeing to pen a monthly column, starting in the March 1978 issue of the Voice, called “Milk Harvey,” in which the newly sworn-in supervisor would answer questions from readers. (When first announced
alking into the apartment Dana Mullaney has lived in for 41 years at 505 Grand View Avenue is like stepping into a cabin in the forest. The living room is furnished with wood chairs and side tables, plus a coffee table cut from a tree trunk. Mounted above the mantel of her river-rock-framed fireplace is the head of a deer sporting impressive antlers. Mullaney, 62, calls her two-bedroom apartment—which she shares with one of her two sons, who is in training to be an EMT—Big Sky Lodge. It is her mountain retreat in the heart of San Francisco. “Other than a short stint in Tahoe, I have always been in the city,” said Mullaney, a fourth-generation San Franciscan who grew up in the Golden Gate Heights neighborhood. “I am a native of San Francisco. This is my home.” But due to her landlord’s plans to seismically upgrade and add additional dwelling units to the six-unit apartment building, constructed in 1961, and reconfigure her unit as part of the larger project,
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Trailblazing Politician: The ever ebullient Harvey Milk flashed his familiar smile outside his Photo by Daniel Nicoletta camera store on Castro Street in 1977.
which, in its inaugural year, endorsed Milk for supervisor under the headline “Everybody Needs Milk.” The editorial in the November 1977 issue noted how Milk had fought to see the supervisors be elected by district and had been a “tireless and clear-minded spokesperson for the undefended, unrepresented, and politically invisible,” specifically gays, people of color, women, youth, and the elderly.
Striking Poses: Artist, teacher, and fashion illustrator Lynn Rosenzweig has created unique images of Noe Valley people. Photo by Beverly Tharp
Another View of You by Your Neighbor Portraits by the Artist Illuminate Locals By Olivia Boler ver since I was a little girl, I’ve “ Ebeen a drawer,” says Noe Valley
fashion designer Lynn Rosenzweig. “But just recently, I’ve rediscovered it through fashion illustration. It’s my passion.” From the mid-1990s to 2007, Rosenzweig, 47, owned and designed men’s and women’s ready-to-wear clothing with her business partner, Ivana Ristic, in their
shop, Ristarose. The two met at Parsons School of Design in New York City. In their North Beach boutique, they also created women’s evening gowns, developing a following in the neighborhood— and throughout the city. “We had clients who were welders, tattoo artists, sculptors,” Rosenzweig says. “They started to ask us to design wedding gowns for them, using our ball gown designs but done in white.” She describes the dress styles as “sleek,” which was a CONTINUED ON PAGE 13
View in Jeopardy: Fourth-generation San Franciscan Dana Mullaney worries she may have to vacate her hilltop home if the building owner’s plans are approved. Photo by Beverly Tharp