Compton’s Cafeteria Riot 50th Commemoration Celebration Series:
Three years before the more famous 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York, San Francisco’s Tenderloin district erupted with one of the first-known moments of collective queer confrontation of police harassment. On a hot August night in 1966, drag queens, trans sex workers, hair fairies and street hustlers rose up against police harassment in what has become known at the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot. In July through September of 2016, the GLBT History Museum and the Tenderloin Museum are teaming up to host a series of programming to commemorate the 50th anniversary of those riots. 

Tenderloin Queer History Walking Tour and Kickoff Reception
At 6 PM, starting at Museum, neighborhood historians will give an hour-long walking tour of the LGBT history of the Tenderloin, centering on the Compton’s Cafeteria Riots and their now-famous intersection of Turk and Taylor Streets, before returning to the Tenderloin Museum at 7 PM for a kickoff reception. At the reception, trans historian and award-winning documentarian Susan Stryker and original “screaming queen” Felicia Elizondo will say a few words to mark the occasion.

On July 16th, 2016 the Tenderloin Museum will have been open for one year. Please join us in celebrating this important milestone at our free community day celebration from 10am-9pm, with free hourly programming from 1pm-8pm. The mission of the Tenderloin Museum is to inspire and serve the neighborhood. The museum’s permanent collection and Neighborhood Walking Tours offer locals and tourists alike an opportunity to learn the history of the Tenderloin and experience San Francisco’s most unique neighborhood, a history that has been routinely overlooked in historical accounts of San Francisco. Our evening programming celebrates the Tenderloin’s rich artistic community and features live music, theatre performances, film screenings, lectures, local artist exhibitions, poetry nights, and much more.

Our first year has been exceptional because of all the incredible partnerships we’ve forged with other museums, non-profit organizations, artists, local businesses, and our neighbors. Our first anniversary will be spent celebrating those partnerships.

The Tenderloin Museum will be at Sunday Streets with artist Raphael Villet. A San Francisco raised artist, Raphael has exhibited his work throughout the Bay Area including the Oakland Museum of California, Adobe Books of San Francisco and the San Francisco Arts Commission City Hall Gallery. He really likes creating a space for a diversity of voices to come together through art and will launch his Street Zines exhibit at the Tenderloin Museum in October. Come share your story, art, ideas and make a zine, for free. Don't know what a zine is? Come find out.

Join us for a Museum Store opening reception of Colors of the Tenderloin: Photography by Darwin Bell. As Darwin Bell sees it, San Francisco has always been well known for being a haven for artists, weirdoes and the alternative fringe. Because of this, it has always been a place of immense and constant metamorphosis. As soon as he picked his first camera, Darwin’s mission has been to document his city in all it’s glory and neglect; to record its changes, as to be a reminder of not only where it has been but where it is heading.  Since moving to The Tenderloin, he has thrilled at recording the beauty and history of this iconic neighborhood. Even in the most sordid of areas there is beauty to be found and that has always been one of the greatest joys of living in San Francisco.

Join us for a lively evening with music and refreshments, Thursday June 30th from 6:30-9pm and see the Tenderloin through the lens of photographer Darwin Bell.

Join us for a brief history of Civic Center with local expert Jim Haas. A panel discussion will follow led by Project for Public Spaces’ Senior Vice President Ethan Kent and featuring Mary McCue of MJM Management and Tyrone Mullins of Green Streets. This dialogue will showcase best practices for improving and managing public spaces by examining case studies from around the country. Examples from Detroit, New York, Seattle, and Los Angeles as well as San Francisco will be presented in order to discuss topics including best practices for activation, stewardship, and stakeholder engagement in public spaces that serve many different populations.

Please join us for a celebration of life and culture in the Tenderloin!

On June 11th the Tenderloin Museum will participate in an outdoor block party will take over Turk Street (between Mason St & Taylor St), and will feature live music and dance performances from local artists, Turk Street fashionistas, daredevil urban sports, underground galleries, and food from around the world.

Join the Tenderloin Museum at the Little Saigon Larkin Street Festival Saturday June 4th from 12-4pm. The Larkin Street Merchants Association is hosting a block party to honor the Little Saigon/Larkin Corridor. We will have activities for kids and adults like Bánh mì eating contest, arts and crafts, street games, zucchini racers, live art, a bounce house and gigantic bubbles!

Skywatchers, a program of ABD Productions, brings together a richly diverse community in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood to collaboratively create celebratory site-specific performance. This community performance ensemble is rooted in the lives, talents, and stories of Tenderloin residents, who are performers and co-creators of the work. Together we celebrate the voices, the collective brilliance and power of Tenderloin residents, rising up, resisting, and daring to live as we imagine.

Jessica Silverman Gallery and the Tenderloin Museum are pleased to present “Vintage,” films by Isaac Julien featuring Looking for Langston (1989), Trussed (1996) and The Long Road to Mazátlan (1999-2000).

This event is an extension of the exhibition “Vintage” at Jessica Silverman Gallery (488 Ellis St), which presents the same three bodies of work. Located just 300ft from the Tenderloin Museum, be sure to check out the photography exhibition before heading to the museum for the screening.
 

Join us for our encore event- Murals of the Tenderloin, 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 an *optional* Neighborhood Walking Tour, a short film screening, a brief slideshow, and Q&A.

Join us for the opening of unSHELTERED, our latest show in the Tenderloin Museum Store. This exhibit critiques new prototypes for the homeless shelter in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco as a vital, connected part of the evolving San Francisco, and all its inhabitants. Students at the Academy of Art University school of Architecture, through site investigation and a scrutiny of typology, have formulated a critical design stance toward the architectural problem of how integrate the homeless shelter into the fabric of the new incarnation of SF, making it stigma free and relevant.  The exhibition showcases multiple scales, guerilla methods, and collective space,  revealing alternate models for a public infrastructure in San Francisco.

Ghost Signs are old and fading advertisements painted on the walls of buildings. They are urban archeology, and they inform us about our past.

From May 6th-May 11th we're hosting a special exhibit in our Museum Store featuring the photography of Nan M. Castle. Join us for the opening of "Ghost Signs of the Tenderloin" on May 6th from 6-8pm. Light refreshments will be served.

Bring your lunch and join us Monday May 2nd for our second Lunch Time Speaker Series event, with District Three Supervisor and former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin. 

Peskin forged deep bonds with the Tenderloin during his first two terms on the Board. He was a strong advocate for SRO tenants, as D3 is second to D6 in the number of SRO hotels. Peskin’s top ally on the Board during his first two terms was D6 Supervisor Chris Daly, and since returning to the Board he has built a strong alliance with Jane Kim.
 

The Tenderloin Museum is hosting our second ever Volunteer Fair on Thursday April 21st. This is a chance to hear first hand from a select group of amazing service nonprofits in the neighborhood. A 6:30pm reception will be followed by a 7pm presentation by local service organizations. Come learn about the fantastic work being done by these organization to help our community, and find out ways you can get involved. Refreshments generously provided by our sponsors Zendesk and Zoosk. We’re thrilled to be creating a space where potential volunteers can connect with these amazing neighborhood organizations.

Participating Organizations:
Larkin Street Youth Services
Glide
Shanti Project
Skywatchers
Code Tenderloin

As part of Obscura Day, the Tenderloin Museum will be hosting the legendary magician Christian Cagigal for a one night performance of his award winning, critically acclaimed show OBSCURA. The museum will also host an optional Tenderloin Neighborhood Walking Tour at 5pm so attendees can get a special insider’s view of the Tenderloin’s past and present from our resident historians. Atlas Obscura lists the Tenderloin Museum as part of its collection of unique spaces

Don't miss a historic occasion at a historic cinema - this is a one time only chance to see drag performances at the oldest continuously operating movie theater in San Francisco.

The Tenderloin Museum brings James Hosking's "Beautiful By Night" to the Roxie Theater on April 7th for a one night only special engagement. "Beautiful by Night" follows three older drag entertainers at the legendary Aunt Charlie's over the course of one evening. The film, along with show-stopping drag performances from the three ladies, played to a sold out show at the Tenderloin Museum.

Bring your lunch and join us Monday April 4th for our second Lunch Time Speaker Series event, with Supervisor Jane Kim. 

This is a great opportunity to hear Kim’s thoughts on the Tenderloin, whether it be housing, pedestrian safety, crime or her favorite restaurants and bars. Jane Kim has represented the Tenderloin as District 6 Supervisor since 2011, and we’re thrilled to welcome her to the Tenderloin Museum as part of the monthly Lunch Time Speaker Series. Kim will be interviewed by our founder Randy Shaw. 

"You Don’t Know Jack" tells the fascinating story of a pioneering American entertainer Jack Soo, an Oakland native who became the first Asian American to be cast in the lead role in a regular television series Valentine’s Day (1963), and later starred in the popular comedy show Barney Miller (1975-1978).

Featuring rare footage and interviews with Soo’s co-stars and friends, including actors George Takei, Nancy Kwan and Max Gail, comedians Steve Landesberg and Gary Austin, and producer Hal Kanter, the film traces Jack’s early beginnings as a nightclub singer and comedian, to his breakthrough role as Sammy Fong in Rogers and Hammerstein’s Broadway play and film version of The Flower Drum Song.

Opening the show is a youth jazz band from the Community Music Center under the mentorship of Marcus Shelby from Jazz in the Neighborhood. They’ll be followed by a trio performance by world-class jazz musicians, Marcus Shelby on bass, Dillon Vado on vibes, and Ila Cantor on guitar.

Jazz in the Neighborhood brings Bay Area jazz innovators and developing players together to share the joy of improvised music and build community around live performances.

“For the dark and avant-garde side, check out ‘25-Cent Preview,’ a Tenderloin-set story about the reality and rawness of power, sex and survival on the street.” - SF Chronicle

The film premiered in 2007 and did the film festival circuit, winning: the Grand Jury Award, Best U.S. Feature, and Best Male Actors awards at the 2007 Outfest Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival; a Grand Jury Award and Best U.S. Feature at the Tampa International Gay Lesbian Film Festival, and was an Official Selection at Frameline 31. 

"Kelly Nicolaisen breathes life into still images by exploring everyday scenes through her unique perspective. The vibrant color palette of her portfolio reveals her fun loving personality and humorous outlook on life."
 

Exclusive photographic works for sale including:
*Flat prints
*Photoblocks (prints mounted on wood)
*Greeting Cards
*Stickers (and the return of the vintage StickerBar!)
 

“San Francisco has become a city that’s known for its crazily high housing prices… Donna, Collette and Olivia are reminders of what the city used to be like before well-moneyed interlopers began to insist San Francisco get its act together and settle into respectability.” The Washington Post

Aunt Charlie’s Lounge opened twenty nine years ago when the Tenderloin was full of gay bars. Now it’s one of the last neighborhood gay dive bars in the city. Throughout the years, Aunt Charlie’s has hosted many of SF’s finest drag queens.

In addition to the Skywatcher ensemble of singers, dancers, musicians, spoken word artists, and ABD dancers, we'll be featuring NAKA Dance Theater with guest artists Debby Kajiyama and Jose Navarrete. All are welcome to bring your voice, words, music, dance, and other offerings. Or, just come witness the sharing and be part of a growing community-based action in the Tenderloin.
 

The Gangway is a relic of a bygone era when the Tenderloin was the center of queer life in San Francisco. The Gangway has operated as a bar since 1910 and a gay bar since 1961. Predating the LGBT movement in the United States, it truly is an artifact from a different time in history. Now it's one of two gay bars left in the neighborhood and may soon close.

Drugs in the Tenderloin played to two sold out shows at the museum, and will now play on the big screen for the first time ever. This film is not available to see any other way, so don’t miss out on your last chance to see it in the foreseeable future. Drugs in the Tenderloin is a documentary shot guerilla style, directed by Robert Zagone in 1966; it captures the Tenderloin as it transformed into a center for young queers and drug users.The film is a chance to catch a rare glimpse of the Tenderloin’s past, and to hear first hand from the people who lived there. 

"Curt McDowell was a San Francisco treasure. The openly gay filmmaker spent much of his short life making bizarre underground films which pushed the boundaries of cinema and of onscreen sexuality." - David-Elijah Nahmod, SF Weekly

Join us January 21st as we celebrate one of the Tenderloin’s most interesting residents, director Curt McDowell. Curt McDowell was a filmmaker, actor, visual artist, and writer who resided in the Tenderloin and shot many of his films here. He arrived in San Francisco in the mid-1960s, studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute then quickly changed course to become a filmmaker to work with George Kuchar. His era of San Francisco witnessed the Summer of Love, gay liberation, and the onset of AIDS, to which he succumbed at the age of forty-two.
 

Come learn about the fantastic work being done by these organizations to help our community, and find out ways you can get involved. Refreshments generously provided by sponsors Zendesk and Zoosk.

Participating Organizations:
826 Valencia
Glide
Project Open Hand
HandUp
The Cooking Project
De Marillac Academy
Larkin Street Youth Services

Showcasing the San Francisco in Ruins Collection (SFRC): paintings by Jacinto Castillo celebrate San Francisco history and local art in the Museum Store.

With limited edition prints, stickers, pendants, and other original work for sale exclusively in the museum store. 

Castillo is an Illustrator and native San Franciscan who is inspired by the city's rich history and beautiful architecture. His whimsical style is a combination of fantasy and reality.