Opened: 1888. The year is over the door. It was built by a local Masonic lodge adjacent to a now-vanished Masonic Hall. Originally called the South San Francisco Opera House, it
probably never saw an opera but was a widely used theatre for other
shows. The building is San Francisco Landmark #8. The photo is from the BVOH website.
The building faces Newcomb Ave. near the corner of Mendell St. in the
Bayview district, once referred to as South San Francisco. 3rd St. was
formerly Railroad Ave. Newcomb was once 14th St.
Website: www.bvoh.org On Facebook: www.facebook.com/BVOperaHouse
The surviving Opera House structure is on the left, the vanished Masonic Lodge that was to the west is seen on the right.
The Railroad Ave. elevation of the Masonic Hall. Thanks to Jim Ansbro for locating the drawings, added as comments to a thread about the building on the San Francisco History to the 1920s Facebook page.
The Opera House is seen in the lower center of this detail from page 603 of Volume 5 of the 1905 fire insurance map by Sanborn-Perris Map Co. The diagonal street is Railroad, now called 3rd St. 15th St. is on the left of the image, 14th St. is in front of the building. Thanks to Garold Haynes for locating this on the David Rumsey Map Collection website.
Seating: The original capacity is unknown. The Opera House is now a flat-floored 300 capacity multi-purpose hall and community arts center.
The Masons stopped using the buildings in 1965. Bayview activist Ruth Williams then began doing productions in the building and agitating for its preservation. At some point the ownership ended up with the City of San Francisco.
It became a movie house, the Opera House Cinema, in 1968, opening with "Cool Hand Luke" on August 23. The theatre's entrance was in the adjoining Masonic Hall building facing 3rd St. Once inside, you went up a flight of stairs to enter the Opera House. This August 24, 1968 article in the Examiner discussed the revival of the building:
Thanks to Jack Tillmany for locating the article. The new venture didn't last long. Jack notes that the last movies listed were during the first weekend of June 1969. The following weekend the Opera House was presenting "Upon This Rock," a "new play" produced by the San Francisco Youth Organization and the B&B Theatre Group. That production didn't get a long run. The last ad for it in the Examiner was June 15.
Status: Since 1989 the non-profit group Bayview Opera House, Inc. has operated the building. Danny Glover headed a fundraiser in 1991. In 1995 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to rename the facility the Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre.
In 2016 it got a refurbishment of not only the building itself but a re-imagining of what is now a park area around it. Walter Hood was the designer for the upgrades. Among other amenities there's now a new performance area out back.
A look toward the stage from a SF Public Works page about the building.
More exterior views:
A 1940s view from the Jack Tillmany collection that appears on the Open SF History Project website.
A door detail from 1941. Thanks to Robert Muller for spotting it on a Found SF page.
A 1963 photo taken by Joe Rosenthal for the Chronicle. It appeared with the March 2016 article by Bob Bragman on SF Gate "A 100 year look at San Francisco marquees and theaters."
A 1968 photo taken by Tom Gray during the building's brief career as the Opera House Cinema. It's from the Jack Tillmany collection. 3rd St. is off to the right.
The Masonic Hall end of the building in 1968. It's a Tom Gray photo from the Jack Tillmany collection.
A September 1974 photo by Judith Lynch that's on the Open SF History Project website.
A 1974 door detail by Judith Lynch on the Open SF History Project site. Also see a closer look at the name above the door by Ms. Lynch.
A 1991 Steve Ringman/Chronicle photo taken when Danny Glover was acting as MC for a benefit to restore it. It appears with the 2016 Bob Bragman SF Gate article "A 100 Year Look at San Francisco Marquees and Theaters."
A photo from the SF Heritage Archives that appeared with a 2014 SF Heritage Facebook post that also included they a history of the building.
This Chronicle photo by Michael Macor is one of 8 with Sam Whiting's July 2016 Chronicle article "Historic Bayview Opera House to reopen minus tree line, brick wall."
A 2016 post-renovation view from a SF Public Works page about the building.
The new performance area behind the building. The photo appeared with Sam Whiting's July 2016 Chronicle article "Historic Bayview Opera House to reopen...."
More information: Jack Tillmany's Arcadia Publishing book "Theatres of San Francisco" can be previewed on Google Books. It's available from Amazon or your local bookseller.
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