It has been a little over 25 years since Vera Cort bought the building at 2551 Mission St. where Cine Latino showed films until 1988. In the last year, workers have been finishing up construction to turn it into a space for retail and offices, but on Tuesday, a long-time worker at the site was mourning Cort’s death.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed this week that Cort, a longtime Mission landlord with several properties across the neighborhood, died Monday. She was 82. The office did not confirm the cause of death.
“She always encouraged me to be better. She told me that if I took classes and learned English, she would give me a raise,” said Gabriel Alvarez, a construction worker from Mexico who worked with Cort for 23 years and is working at the Cine Latino building. “She invited us to her home, and we would sit right next to her at her table.”
Alvarez said that Cort was even supportive of him when he had to return to Mexico for a couple of years, promising him he would have his job back wherever he returned.
“She was a great boss. I feel very thankful,” said Alvarez.
Cort owned a number of buildings across San Francisco, including many in the Mission District: The artist studios at 1890 Bryant St., the U.S. Bank building at 22nd and Mission streets, as well as the Tower Theater at 2465 Mission St. and the building where Southern Exposure now resides at 20th and Alabama streets.
The latter arts nonprofit had ended up getting a very good lease from Cort.
Courtney Fink, then executive director of Southern Exposure, spoke to Mission Local in 2009 and described the lease negotiations. “It was a very old-school situation,” said Fink. “The owner of the building is really hands-on so it was just her and I at every meeting. No lawyers or agents.”
Cort’s renovation of Cine Latino did not go as smoothly. The 111-year-old theater is just finalizing its facade after years of being vacant and a troubled history of renovation, in which the city said in 2011 that Cort had overstepped what permits allowed in demolishing the front of the building.
But in 2020, Cort won a $200,000 settlement against the city after successfully arguing that city departments had been mistaken in labeling her demolition illegal. Cort argued the building did not have a historical distinction when the work was done, and her permits were reinstated in 2020. Cine Latino now has new windows and work still continues today.
Cort was also entangled in the recent fallout from the implosion of the policing nonprofit SF SAFE, which has since shuttered after being mired in a series of mismanagement and financial scandals. The landlord taped a notice to their offices at 2601 Mission St., the U.S. Bank building, informing the nonprofit that they were “in default for delinquent rent payments” equaling some $445,000.
Cort’s involvement, however, sometimes portended displacement, going back to the late 1990s.
In 1999, Cort purchased the U.S. Bank building and reportedly declined to renew the leases of some two dozen tenants, including “newspapers, radio stations, small business associations, childcare referral agencies, and family and immigration lawyers,” to make way for a tech tenant. The move reportedly outraged community groups, which staged protests at the building, but the tenants were displaced.
Cort declined to renew the lease of Circulo de Vida, a cancer-support nonprofit, at the same bank building, to make room for Double Dutch, a tech company, according to 48Hills. She said, as a cancer survivor herself, she sympathized with the nonprofit’s plight — to an extent. “If I had to make a personal decision, I would fill the building with nonprofits, but I’m a business person.”
Still, for architect Charles Hemminger, who worked with Cort for 25 years, the landlord was a unique businesswoman, unlike any developer he had ever met. Hemminger even remembers one of Cort’s employees living at her home for a couple of months because the employee couldn’t find housing.
“She was not a country club developer. She was mindful of how much people could afford,” said Hemminger. “She really took care of her employees, and didn’t see herself as above them. She was dedicated to her work and keeping hers and her husband’s legacy alive.”
Hemminger said that Cort always wanted to support local artists and their work. He said 1890 Bryant and the efforts to convert the second and third floor of 2551 Mission into a co-working space for artists are proof of the opportunities Cort created in the neighborhood.
One of those artists at 1890 Bryan is Jeremy Sutton, who met Vera in 2005, when the building had not yet been converted to an artist space. He remembered Vera being open to whatever he needed to turn the space into the art studio he envisioned.
“She was an incredibly loyal person. She stood by her people, workers and family,” said Sutton. “She was a wonderful, understated force of nature.”
Cort’s loyalty and support is a quality some of her current workers say they have experienced firsthand.
Alvarez, the construction worker at Cine Latino, was hesitant to talk about Cort the day after her death: He felt he would cry remembering what the landlord had done for him and his family.
“Every year, she’d make us a Christmas dinner,” said Alvarez, looking up at the sky with teary eyes. “We sat where her children sat.”
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Interesting history for the former owner. She wholesale evicted Latino tenants/organizations from 2601 Mission Street back in 1999, when she bought the building. Later in 1999, the San Francisco Board of Appeals voted to deny her the right to build a gym at 2551 Mission Street (the former Cine Latino), whose historic facade she had illegally demolished. She turned around and sued the City for $200K out of spite, and lost: that might explain the eyesore we see today.
I always enjoyed working with Vera – a straight shooter. When Monkeybrains first started providing service in the Mission, Vera helped us get set up at 1890 Bryant and 2601 Mission, and introduced us to her tenants. At our first meeting, Vera started with, “Ok, let’s trade some horses…” In the end, several of her staff got free internet!