Reverend Cecil Williams, the legendary leader of Glide Church, recently celebrated his 86th birthday. Now, thanks to the heroic efforts of film director Robert Zagone, a 1975 television program on Reverend Williams is now available for showing for the first time in four decades. Zagone, whose 1966 film Drugs in the Tenderloin has played to two sold-out showings at the Tenderloin Museum, directed the television program for the national PBS series, Interface, which presented an innovative perspective on African-American and Latino culture.
 

Artist Ryan De La Hoz brings his singular local brand CoolTry to the Tenderloin Museum Store this winter- our first residency with a fantastic artist. Join us for some festive holiday fun, and a unique CoolTry holiday shopping opportunity. Exclusive merchandise will be on sale including apparel, prints, accessories, and more items currently unavailable online. The opening event was a huge success, we can't wait to have you back.

Union halls, the labor press, titanic battles with the city’s employers, and collaboration among unions and community organizations all inform this rich and colorful historical record. The neighborhood is home today to the city’s largest private sector union, UNITE HERE Local 2, as well as the country’s first union to receive government funds to counsel immigrant workers, SEIU Janitors’ Local 87.

Catherine Powell, Director of the Labor Archives at San Francisco State, will talk with us about the district’s deep vein of labor history. Olga Miranda, President of Local 87, will discuss her union’s current campaign for a fair contract. Work Tales (a worker oral histories project) will present an excerpt from their new theatrical production, Local 87 in the Spotlight, under the direction of Bill Shields of the City College Labor and Community Studies Department. 
 

“It’s the most sexually, intellectually, and culturally stimulating hotel in San Francisco.” -Anthony Kiedis (lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers)

Join us for a special guest lecture on December 2nd, celebrating our much loved neighbor, the Phoenix Hotel. Chip Conley opened the Phoenix Hotel in 1987, buying the decrepit building for $1 million. Chip targeted traveling rock bands, musicians, and filmmakers, even offering tour managers free massages to lure them to the fledgling Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel. While at the time it was essentially a low-budget 50s motel- it soon gained international attention and was frequented by the likes of David Bowie, Faye Dunaway, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Depp, and Kurt Cobain.

Intersection for the Arts continues its 50th Anniversary celebration with 50/50 Poetry Nights, four evenings of readings by poets from its past and the emerging voices of today who are carrying the art form forward in dynamic new ways.

From its inception in 1965, Intersection provided a home for many of the Bay Area’s poets. No matter where Intersection was located -- from the Tenderloin to North Beach to the Mission -- for decades the poets would gather on Tuesday nights and read their newest works in an informal, welcoming, and at times, raucous setting. The list is a Who’s Who of the greats: Alan Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Dianne di Prima, Ntozake Shange, Jessica Hagedorn, Jose Montoya, Audre Lorde, Bill Berkson, Gary Snyder, Jack Hirschman -- hundreds of poets, on and on and on for decades.

The Tenderloin Museum will host Temporal Cities, a public art project, in October, November, and December. During our regularly scheduled evening events, Temporal Cities will project an image in our window to attract passersby and event attendees to the installation, where they are encouraged to share a personal story that took place nearby. In collecting and archiving these stories, artists Lizzy Brooks and Radka Pulliam are building a nuanced map that explores the changing nature of the city and our collective ideas of permanence. Using analog slide projection and interactive storytelling, Temporal Cities examines the experience of living in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, through the stories of its residents. 
 

Artist Ryan De La Hoz brings his unique local brand CoolTry to the Tenderloin Museum Store during November and December. Join us opening night for the Museum Store's first featured local artist - with music! 

Starting with the free event opening night and continuing through the start of the new year, exclusive merchandise will be on sale including apparel, prints, accessories, and more items currently unavailable online.

“The Tenderloin would probably be considered the hardest of all the hard-boiled eggs in San Francisco.” - Bar owner Brian Sheehy via The New York Times

Through many different incarnations, the Tenderloin has been a vice area for decades. In the 1920’s the neighborhood was notorious for its gambling, billiard halls, boxing gyms, speakeasies, theaters, and other nightlife. This Tenderloin era is captured brilliantly in the hard boiled detective fiction of Dashiell Hammett. Hammett lived and wrote many of his now famous books at 891 Post Street, and even gave his character Sam Spade a similar address in The Maltese Falcon. Join us for as we delve into one of the most important and interesting works of fiction to depict the Tenderloin.

“’Birthplace of porn’ doesn’t have the same appeal as sourdough and cable cars do” says Stabile, “but it was one of San Francisco’s contributions to the world just the same.”

US pornography was born in San Francisco, and more specifically, in the Tenderloin District. Join us October 15th as we delve into the Tenderloin's seedy past with special guest, Mike Stabile. 
 

On October 1st, legendary rock critic Joel Selvin will join us and discuss the renowned Wally Heider Studios. Wally Heider opened his recording studio in the Tenderloin in 1969 and attracted big local SF bands such as the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence, Santana, and many others. After Heider left, the recording studio was renamed Hyde Street Studios; Prince, the Pointer Sisters, and Billy Joel have all recorded albums there, and new generations of artists record there today.

On September 29th, join us and three amazing local women artists for an exploration of some of the greatest murals of the Tenderloin neighborhood, with a special focus on the unusually detailed and story-packed mural “Windows into the Tenderloin” by Mona Caron, at Jones and Golden Gate. 

The evening will comprise of a walking tour, a short film screening, a brief slideshow, and Q&A. 
 

On Sept 24, the Tenderloin Museum will host the SF Recovery Theater’s original jazz musical, Night at the Blackhawk. Part of an ongoing series reflecting on the lives and stories of the artists, musicians, and residents that lived in the shadow of the Blackhawk Jazz Club, this Thursday evening event with feature special guest jazz guitarist Spencer Barefield. 

They came for the hormones, they stayed for the healthcare. 

Tuesday September 15th join us for a screening of Transgender Tuesdays, a documentary about the first public health clinic in the country to provide healthcare to transgender patients. Transgender folks have been historically underserved, and usually mistrusted the health care system, often facing life- and-death situations without any help. But 20 years ago a team of HIV healthcare providers and trans activists at a clinic in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood opened the country’s first Primary Care clinic specifically for transgendered people.

A documentary theater piece commissioned in 2012 by The Cutting Ball Theater, Tenderloin brings the people and places of the neighborhood into the theater, and brings the theater into the neighborhood.

The script, created by director Annie Elias, was composed from transcripts of over forty interviews, conducted by the actors, of people who lived and worked in the Tenderloin. From these living sketches, a portrait of the Tenderloin itself emerges, honoring the diversity of the people who live and work in this gritty and fascinating downtown San Francisco district. 

If you missed our sold out screening of Robert Zagone’s 1966 KQED documentary Drugs in the Tenderloin, rest easy. We’re bringing it back for one night only. This film is not available to see any other way. Don’t miss out on your second chance to see it in nearly 50 years.
Drugs in the Tenderloin captures the Tenderloin as it transformed into a center for young queers and drug users. Join us for some incredible footage of the Tenderloin's past. 
 

“Down here in the Tenderloin, no matter how poor we are, no matter how difficult the struggles are, this is one of the best, friendliest communities I’ve ever lived in.” (Love me Tenderloin)

Join us for a screening of Henri Quenette's documentary film about the most vibrant neighborhood in the San Francisco. Quenette is a French filmmaker who got to know the Tenderloin through the help of our own Del Seymour. Del will be on hand to introduce the film and answer questions. 
 

On August 6, Martin Meeker, author of Contacts Desired: Gay and Lesbian Communications and Community, 1940s-1970s will speak on the rise of the gay Tenderloin. Meeker will discuss the role of gay bars in the movement’s early days and the historic drive led by Glide ministers in 1965 to secure federal War on Poverty dollars for the Tenderloin’s queer youth.
 

Join us for the first public showing in nearly 50 years of the 1966 KQED documentary, Drugs in the Tenderloin. Director Robert Zagone will be on hand to answer questions. Drugs in the Tenderloin captures the Tenderloin as it transformed into a center for young queers and drug users. 

The Tenderloin Museum kicks off its evening programming on Opening Night, July 16th at 6:30pm with transgender activists Tamara Ching, Veronika Fimbres, and filmmakers Susan Stryker & Victor Silverman. Moderated by Randy Shaw, the panel takes us back to the days of the Tenderloin’s 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria riot when transgender women and queers were harassed by police and businesses alike.