‘Tis the season for the Tenderloin Museum’s annual holiday bazaar! Come enjoy festive holiday libations, snacks, and tunes (by DJ Tylawave) while you shop a pop-up marketplace flush with neighborhood wares from local artist-vendors. Some treasures awaiting you include ceramics, leather goods, tote bags, jewelry, candles, plants, and vintage pieces. Curate unique gift boxes this year while supporting the arts!

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You are cordially invited to the Tenderloin Museum's Winter Gala benefiting the Tenderloin Museum and its many endeavours. We are overjoyed to share with you the unveiling of The Match Book: Tenderloin Historical Ephemera Project. Enjoy a charming evening with enchanting cocktails and alluring edibles; and be one of the very first to take home the hot-off-the-press publication of The Match Book: Vintage Matchbooks from San Francisco’s Tenderloin! The exquisite illustrations and enchanting tales will make The Match Book a splendid holiday gift! (Preorders available now.)

We appreciate all the love and support we receive from our community. Your support makes all that we do possible.

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The Tenderloin Museum is pleased to present Urban Abstracts, a collection of paintings by the renowned artist Patricia Araujo. For over a decade, Araujo has painted the facades of both iconic city landmarks and downtown buildings. A lauded San Francisco artist whose paintings celebrate San Francisco cityscapes, Araujo exults the beauty of what can appear commonplace. “In my cityscapes, I sense the presence of the silent stage uninterrupted by inhabitants. My works speaks about the possibility of growth and renewal, exploring architectural practice as both imagination and reality. A marvelous city, that is in constant flux.” 

Araujo continues to deepen her conceptual themes of architecture, place, and change in the urban landscape, addressing evolution, decay, and renewal. She has always been particularly fascinated with domes, towers, sacred, and municipal structures. “While living in SOMA, I witnessed the changes taking place in this redeveloping neighborhood, and found myself enchanted by the rich architectural history of that area and the decayed beauty that remains,” said Araujo. On display at the Tenderloin Museum from December 6th 2018 - February 3rd 2019, Araujo presents a collection of paintings featuring architecture from the Tenderloin, SOMA, and Mid-Market. Don’t miss this mesmerizing tribute to the art of architecture in our own backyard.

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Imagine a Bay Area supergroup that combined the firepower of the Jefferson Airplane, the improvisational brio of the Grateful Dead, and the harmonic prowess of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young – with Joni Mitchell sitting in. Now imagine that this group really existed and made some of the best recordings of their era. That’s the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra (a.k.a. PERRO) -- the unofficial name for the loose confederation of psychedelicized folk-rockers behind a series of boundary-stretching albums that included Volunteers (credited to the Airplane), Blows Against the Empire, Baron Von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun, and Sunfighter(credited to Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, and Jefferson Starship), and David Crosby’s masterpiece If I Could Only Remember My Name. On November 27, 2018 at the Tenderloin Museum, New York Times bestselling author and lifelong music fan Steve Silberman will bring to light the secret history behind these legendary sessions, which were recorded at Wally Heider’s famed studio in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
 
Probing the evolution of PERRO from the early days of beatnik-influenced communal living in Venice Beach, through the peak of the Summer of Love in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, to the post-“Death of Hippie” diaspora in the Watergate era, Silberman will chronicle the rise and fall of this unusually inspired and inspiring body of work, which stands out as some of the most creative and innovative music produced by these gifted musicians, and still sounds fresh today. Silberman’s appearance at the Tenderloin Museum will include the playing of some rare unreleased recordings and a booksigning. By appraising the PERRO legacy, he will also weigh the larger contributions of the ‘60s-era “counterculture” to music today.

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The Tenderloin Museum, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, and Cleve Jones present Thanks to Hank: Kickoff for the Kickstarter, an evening celebrating the life of storied Tenderloin hero, Hank Wilson. We invite our community to help support the upcoming documentary film on one of the city’s most preeminent LGBTQ activist entitled “Thanks to Hank.” This event marks the kickoff of the film’s Kickstarter campaign, join us in paying tribute to his incredible legacy.

Hank Wilson’s work in San Francisco’s Tenderloin spanned 30 years, and included co-founding and spearheading organizations such as the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center, the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial, and the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club (home of San Francisco's queer, progressive left). While leading these groups, Wilson also ran the Ambassador Hotel SRO in an effort to bring harm reduction housing to low-income residents living with HIV and AIDS. “Thanks to Hank” is a feature film observing the selfless spirit and assiduous work of this beloved Tenderloin character.

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The Tenderloin Museum welcomes the return of resident magician and mesmerizing storyteller Christian Cagigal for Strange San Francisco, an evening of surprising and unsettling tales that explore the uncanny underbelly of San Francisco’s history of record. For this chilling story hour’s fourth edition, Cagigal has summoned the city’s most tortured souls to provide the night’s entertainment--legends so outlandish and unexpected they can barely be believed. Steel your soul for this gripping set of haunted histories from San Francisco’s dead and buried past!

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Drag Queen Bingo is back!

Come down to the Tenderloin Museum Friday, October 19th for our third installment of the wildly successful Drag Queen Bingo! This fabulous fundraiser is inspired by the neighborhood’s long and storied history of gambling, and supports our ongoing diverse and dynamic programming. Come for the drag, stay for the party, and hopefully leave lucky! If luck be your lady, you will be going home with some fabulous prizes ranging from the experiential to the material!

We are honored to have the one and only, dear friend of the museum, Per Sia as our mistress of ceremonies! You have seen at a few of our events already -- in the Tenderloin Museum’s production of “The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot,” Drag Queen Story Hour, on the main stage at this year’s SF Pride, and our recent fundraiser for the San Francisco Rock Project. Persia is an undeniable drag gem and scene stealer!

Come by the museum and try your luck, for what is life without risk? And what is risk without cause? That cause is the creation of a special match book exhibition! The Tenderloin Match Book: Historical Ephemera Project will make its debut in January of 2019. The two-part exhibition and series of 10 public programs aims to uncover and preserve the neighborhood’s retail and business history of the 1920’s-1950’s as told through these tiny works of art which may serve as the only remaining link.