San Francisco is investing in the survival of sushi and jazz, again. The City's Fillmore district is getting another bailout to bring jazz alive in the struggling neighborhood. This time City officials are pouring money into a new public relations campaign and hoping the new cash infusion finally works.
Four high-end jazz restaurants in the mostly low-income Fillmore neighborhood of San Francisco will be the recipients of $50,000 in public fund and another $35,000 for a marketing campaign that includes the development of a logo and banners, the San Francisco Examiner reported. The City is hoping to draw more people to the neighborhood.
The neighborhood was home to a historic jazz scene in the 1950s and 1960s, with the likes of Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald playing in the mostly African American neighborhood. The Fillmore was called the Harlem of the West. Since 1995 the City has been trying to capitalize off of that history.
San Francisco has poured more than $15 million to redevelop the neighborhood to entice the likes of Yoshi's Jazz Club and the Sheba Piano Lounge into town.
“These restaurants are important for the economic vitality of the corridor,” Redevelopment Agency Executive Director
Fred Blackwell told the paper. “What we’re doing is supporting those restaurants, supporting the corridor and fortifying our original investments [in the restaurants].”
Earlier this year, the Redevelopment Agency spent $49,999 to bring on a Traina Public Relations agent to buy print advertising and dine journalists to promote the restaurants, the paper reported.
