The gorgeous Rotunda with its landmark stained glass dome announced its tentative closure in late September, four months after the famed Neiman Marcus department store was forced to file for bankruptcy for Chapter 11 protection, another victim of the economic crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gone are the popular afternoon tea with floor-to-ceiling windows.  Well-known for its extravagant 80-foot-tall Christmas tree -- and all the hoopla that sight brings --
the restaurant had hoped to reopen at some indefinite future time, according to a a few restaurant employees furloughed in March.

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• The visual elements of the Rounda Cafe were maintained from the original City of Paris building, a department store that at one time was San Francisco's oldest, first making its appearance in 1851 at the Sutter and Kearny intersection, and eventually settling at the Geary and Stockton location in Union Square in 1896.

 

• The City of Paris building was remodeled by architects Arthur Brown, John Bakewell, and Louis Bourgeois who also designed San Francisco City Hall, the War Memorial House, and the Veterans Building. Amazingly, the City of Paris department store survived the 1906 Earthquake, though the resulting fire badly damaged the store interior.

 

• The City of Paris building was demolished by Neiman Marcus, which bought the building in 1974 with plans to build a brand new Neiman Marcus department store, with the promise to preserve the iconic stained-glass rotunda. The upheaval to one of San Francisco's treasured downtown buildings was all the more met with scorn when the new Neiman Marcus building opened as a glitzy, modern, out-of-place structure when it opened in 1983.
  

Read the history of the famed City of Paris building, here.

Read more on this story at SF Gate

• This year’s theme THE POWER OF EMPATHY continues the celebration more than two decades long of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, emphasizing our readiness to care about other people’s emotional experiences and exploring possible paths emanating from it into the future.

 

• UNAFF 2020 will present 60 documentaries spotlighting current events from across the globe, including through its very popular programs UNAFF AND KIDS and UNAFF IN SCHOOLS. UNAFF is committed not only to presenting films, but also creating spaces where audience members can engage in ongoing dialogue about the subjects at hand. FREE online daily discussions “Meet the Filmmakers, Subjects of the Films and Experts” will take place during the eleven days of the Festival covering broad, timely, and thought-provoking topics.

 

• Learn more: read the UNAFF Mission here.​​

UNAFF 2020 Schedule

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