Added by popular demand, TLM and SF Neon are hosting an April edition of their consecutively sold-out Matchbook Walking Tour.

Join us for an evening tour through San Francisco’s historic corridors between the Tenderloin and Union Square.

Back by popular demand, this tour is a follow-up to our consecutively sold-out Matchbook-Neon tour. Randall Homan and Al Barna from San Francisco Neon, Stephen Coles from the Letterform Archive, and Katie Conry from the Tenderloin Museum will lead a walking exploration of Tenderloin matchbooks associated with legacy businesses and neon signs. Just like matchbooks, historic neon signs are a fascinating synecdoche of the small businesses they represent, and a window to the past explored through material culture.

The tour features forgotten storefronts that are remembered vividly through vintage matchbooks. As twilight falls, the tour flows past a vivid collection of neon signs that serve as advertising and illuminated local landmarks.

Tour starts with a brief orientation about the Match Book project at the Tenderloin Museum and ends at Union Square. Book early, space is limited.

Proudly in partnership with San Francisco Neon. Photo by sfneon.org.

Doors: 6 p.m.

Tour: 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

HANDCRAFT YOUR OWN OFRENDAS FOR DAY OF THE DEAD!

Jeff Marshall and the Tenderloin Museum invite you celebrate the lives of  the dearly departed by creating an ofrenda at home, which will be on display at the Tenderloin Museum Saturday, October 31 – Tuesday, November 4.

Here’s how it works:

1. Make your display-ready ofrenda no larger than 8 x 11 x 3 inches. If you have questions, call CounterPulse: (415) 626-2060 or email rick@counterpulse.org.

2. Drop off your ofrenda at the Tenderloin Museum anytime between Wednesday, Oct 28-Sat, Oct 31 between 12-4pm.
Please place your ofrenda in a clean plastic bag for safe delivery.

4. Pick up your ofrenda from the Tenderloin Museum on Wednesday, Nov 4, 12-2pm.

ALTAR DEDICATION AT THE TENDERLOIN MUSEUM

Everyone is welcome. Masks and physical distancing are required

DEDICATION DATE: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 3-3:30 PM AT THE TENDERLOIN MUSEUM 

With over 400 buildings in the National Register of Historic places—the government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance—our Tenderloin walking tour led by resident jazz singer Pam Coates offers a unique opportunity to discover the unseen history of San Francisco.

Visit residential hotels where legendary boxers Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Sugar Ray Robinson sparred; cross-streets where trans-led uprisings took place in resistance to police brutality; and the recording studios where The Grateful Dead and Miles Davis produced iconic albums.

Led by “the Bass of the Bay,” this site-specific, one-hour tour will take place on Saturday at 1 p.m. With every ticket purchase, patrons are welcome to view our permanent collection and current art exhibition either before or after the tour.

Tickets are limited and offered at a first-come, first-serve basis. We look forward to seeing you!

Tickets are priced in tiers:

$5 - tour admission for patrons who recently visited TLM or have purchased a ticket for a future tour

$10 - tour only

$15 - museum admission and tour

**Covid-19 safety information**

All public health guidelines must be adhered to while we continue to navigate Covid-19. During the tour, everyone is required to wear a covering (either a bandana, mask, or scarf) over the nose and mouth. We will ask each of you to maintain physical distance of six feet from those you do not live with, and suggest you have hand sanitizer on-hand. Public restrooms are also likely not going to be an option.

We look forward to safely seeing you for this outdoor tour!

With over 400 buildings in the National Register of Historic places—the government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance—our Tenderloin walking tour led by resident jazz singer Pam Coates offers a unique opportunity to discover the unseen history of San Francisco.

Visit residential hotels where legendary boxers Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Sugar Ray Robinson sparred; cross-streets where trans-led uprisings took place in resistance to police brutality; and the recording studios where The Grateful Dead and Miles Davis produced iconic albums.

Led by “the Bass of the Bay,” this site-specific, one-hour tour will take place on Saturday at 1 p.m. With every ticket purchase, patrons are welcome to view our permanent collection and current art exhibition either before or after the tour.

Tickets are limited and offered at a first-come, first-serve basis. We look forward to seeing you!

Tickets are priced in tiers:

$5 - tour admission for patrons who recently visited TLM or have purchased a ticket for a future tour

$10 - tour only

$15 - museum admission and tour

**Covid-19 safety information**

All public health guidelines must be adhered to while we continue to navigate Covid-19. During the tour, everyone is required to wear a covering (either a bandana, mask, or scarf) over the nose and mouth. We will ask each of you to maintain physical distance of six feet from those you do not live with, and suggest you have hand sanitizer on-hand. Public restrooms are also likely not going to be an option.

We look forward to safely seeing you for this outdoor tour!

With over 400 buildings in the National Register of Historic places—the government's official list of districts, sit”

With over 400 buildings in the National Register of Historic places—the government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance—our Tenderloin walking tour led by resident jazz singer Pam Coates offers a unique opportunity to discover the unseen history of San Francisco.

Visit residential hotels where legendary boxers Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Sugar Ray Robinson sparred; cross-streets where trans-led uprisings took place in resistance to police brutality; and the recording studios where The Grateful Dead and Miles Davis produced iconic albums.

Led by “the Bass of the Bay,” this site-specific, one-hour tour will take place on Saturday at 1 p.m. With every ticket purchase, patrons are welcome to view our permanent collection and current art exhibition either before or after the tour.

Tickets are limited and offered at a first-come, first-serve basis. We look forward to seeing you!

Tickets are priced in tiers:

$5 - tour admission for patrons who recently visited TLM or have purchased a ticket for a future tour

$10 - tour only

$15 - museum admission and tour

**Covid-19 safety information**

All public health guidelines must be adhered to while we continue to navigate Covid-19. During the tour, everyone is required to wear a covering (either a bandana, mask, or scarf) over the nose and mouth. We will ask each of you to maintain physical distance of six feet from those you do not live with, and suggest you have hand sanitizer on-hand. Public restrooms are also likely not going to be an option.

We look forward to safely seeing you for this outdoor tour!

There are so many vintage signs in the Tenderloin we can't fit them all into one tour. This tour follows a route to discover ghost signs and vintage neon signs along the corridors of the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco.

Suggested donation of $10 | Zoom link will be sent on the day of the event to those who register.

This virtual tour features vintage neon signs and ghost signs (those faded historic hand painted signs on the sides of buildings or on store fronts that advertise a product or business that is long gone). You will see a rich collection of photographs, video clips, maps, and historic research compiled by hosts Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan, SF Neon, and Kasey Smith, SF Ghost Sign Mapping Project creator and artist. Tour includes histories of unique small businesses that once thrived in the Tenderloin plus the legacy businesses that have survived against considerable odds.

This event is part of Neon Speaks Festival & Symposium. Neon Speaks brings together neon advocates, artists, and preservationists to celebrate and share information. Our mission is to educate and advocate for the artistic legacy of neon: a brilliant archive of design, craft, and community history.

If you plan to attend more than one event in the Neon Speaks 2020 schedule, consider registering for the All-Event Virtual Passport (sliding scale $10-$50 suggested) You'll get a daily schedule for each day of events with a Zoom link to join. If you want to watch an event at a later date, passport holders get special access to all recorded events for 3 months.

Follow a historic trail via neon and matchbooks on an online journey to discover San Francisco's mid-century night-life culture. You’ll see stunning visuals of vintage match books and neon signs from the nightclubs, hotels, and late-night greasy spoons that formed the Tenderloin’s mid-century nightscape.

Suggested donation of $10 or Free | Zoom link will be sent on the day of the event to those who register.

This one-hour virtual tour features imagery and stories researched by hosts Katie Conry from the Tenderloin Museum with Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan of SF Neon, a neon preservation organization. Tenderloin matchbooks associated with legacy businesses and neon signs. Just like matchbooks, historic neon signs are a fascinating synecdoche of the small businesses they represent, and a window to the past explored through material culture. Tour includes iconic businesses remembered vividly through vintage ephemera, video clips, and historic photographs.

This event is part of Neon Speaks 2020 Festival & Symposium. Neon Speaks brings together neon advocates, artists, and preservationists to celebrate and share information. Our mission is to educate and advocate for the artistic legacy of neon: a brilliant archive of design, craft, and community history.

If you plan to attend to attend several events, consider registering for the All-Event Passport to get access to event recordings and daily schedules with Zoom links to join the day's events, plus access to recorded events.

In proud partnership with San Francisco History Days and SF Neon.

Photos by Al Barna. 

From the gritty to the sublime, you’ll see glowing vintage neon signs and learn about the history of this iconic San Francisco neighborhood. Part of the 2020 Neon Speaks Festival & Symposium, This one-hour virtual tour features photography, video clips, and historic research by hosts Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan, authors and photographers of the book San Francisco Neon: Survivors and Lost Icons. Tour includes architectural and graphic design insights to San Francisco's unique legacy of surviving neon signs.

Suggested donation of $10 or Free | Zoom link will be sent on the day of the event to those who register.

If you plan to attend several events for Neon Speaks 2020, consider registering for the Early Bird All-Event Pass to get emails with daily schedules and Zoom links for events during both weekends of Neon Speaks.

This program is part of the 2020 Neon Speaks Festival & Symposium, morning and evening sessions with online talks, tours, book fairs, and neon demonstrations which celebrate the connective power of neon signs and art. View the complete program schedule at neonspeaks.org.

Banner photo by Randall Ann Homan.

In proud partnership with SF History Days and SF Neon.

We’re proud to be co-presenting Enby Love, Frameline’s first non-binary shorts program as part of the 44th Frameline Film Festival!

Welcome the genderqueers, genderfluids, and the inbetweens to Frameline’s first non-binary shorts program! Featuring claymation, an office lottery pool gone wrong, a trans national fencing team, an androgynous queer utopia, an impromptu lesson in gender neutral pronouns at the gynecologist, a trans/NB backpacking trip, and growing mermaid scales, these films are a reminder that we all define our non-binary genders—and therefore our lives—for ourselves.

Join us in the Frameline digital screening room, Wed 9/23 at 8:30pm for the suggested digital viewing! Get your tickets at

https://www.frameline.org/festival/tickets-x7570.

About Frameline:

Frameline's mission is to change the world through the power of queer cinema. As a media arts nonprofit, Frameline's programs connect filmmakers and audiences in the Bay Area and around the world.

Founded in 1977, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival is the longest-running, largest and most widely recognized LGBTQ+ film exhibition event in the world. As a community event with an annual attendance of 60,000+, the Festival is the most prominent and well-attended LGBTQ+ arts program in the Bay Area. Frameline also presents year-round exhibitions, including Frameline Encore, a free film series highlighting diverse, socially relevant works. Year-round programs also include members-only sneak previews and special events, as well as special screenings and events featuring directors, actors and other queer media icons.

TLM is proud to be co-presenting Equal: Episode 2 as part of the 44th Frameline Film Festival!

Episode 2 centers on the 1966 riot at San Francisco's Compton's Cafeteria by a community of trans women, drag queens, and other gender nonconforming folk frames the incredible stories of three trans people from the across the ages.

Join us in the Frameline digital screening room, Wed 9/23 at 6:30pm for the suggested digital viewing! Get your tickets at

https://www.frameline.org/festival/tickets-x7570.

About Frameline:

Frameline's mission is to change the world through the power of queer cinema. As a media arts nonprofit, Frameline's programs connect filmmakers and audiences in the Bay Area and around the world.

Founded in 1977, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival is the longest-running, largest and most widely recognized LGBTQ+ film exhibition event in the world. As a community event with an annual attendance of 60,000+, the Festival is the most prominent and well-attended LGBTQ+ arts program in the Bay Area. Frameline also presents year-round exhibitions, including Frameline Encore, a free film series highlighting diverse, socially relevant works. Year-round programs also include members-only sneak previews and special events, as well as special screenings and events featuring directors, actors and other queer media icons.

TLM is proud to be co-presenting Pier Kids as part of the 44th Frameline Film Festival!

This vérité style documentary lets its subjects tell their own stories of struggle and survival, revealing a “world within a world” impossible to ignore.

Join us in the Frameline digital screening room, Mon 9/21 at 7:30pm for the suggested digital viewing! Get your tickets at

https://www.frameline.org/festival/tickets-x7570.

About Frameline:

Frameline's mission is to change the world through the power of queer cinema. As a media arts nonprofit, Frameline's programs connect filmmakers and audiences in the Bay Area and around the world.

Founded in 1977, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival is the longest-running, largest and most widely recognized LGBTQ+ film exhibition event in the world. As a community event with an annual attendance of 60,000+, the Festival is the most prominent and well-attended LGBTQ+ arts program in the Bay Area. Frameline also presents year-round exhibitions, including Frameline Encore, a free film series highlighting diverse, socially relevant works. Year-round programs also include members-only sneak previews and special events, as well as special screenings and events featuring directors, actors and other queer media icons.

TLM is proud to be co-presenting Gossamer Folds as part of the 44th Frameline Film Festival!

Newly relocated to the suburbs, 9-year-old Tate sparks a strong bond with two of his neighbors—a Black transwoman and her retired English professor father—as he tries to adjust to his new surroundings and his parents’ crumbling marriage.

Join us in the Frameline digital screening room, Sun 9/20 at 1:30pm for the suggested digital viewing! Get your tickets at

https://www.frameline.org/festival/tickets-x7570.

About Frameline:

Frameline's mission is to change the world through the power of queer cinema. As a media arts nonprofit, Frameline's programs connect filmmakers and audiences in the Bay Area and around the world.

Founded in 1977, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival is the longest-running, largest and most widely recognized LGBTQ+ film exhibition event in the world. As a community event with an annual attendance of 60,000+, the Festival is the most prominent and well-attended LGBTQ+ arts program in the Bay Area. Frameline also presents year-round exhibitions, including Frameline Encore, a free film series highlighting diverse, socially relevant works. Year-round programs also include members-only sneak previews and special events, as well as special screenings and events featuring directors, actors and other queer media icons.

In the streets of the Tenderloin, you might notice something peculiar about its potholes, which contain anything from broken disco balls and rainbow Skittles to neon blue bubbles and bits of scrabble. 

That’s because local artist Rik Lee Leipold has been filling in these urban “blights” with resin, among vibrant personal objects associated with the neighborhood’s beloved—and defunct—LGBTQ dive bars. Now, Leipold is collaborating with Bay Area artists Diego Gomez and Donna Personna for his new series of potholes, “Resin in Pavement,” which has taken on poignant new meaning. 

On September 5, join Leipold and the Tenderloin Museum for a "Resin in Pavement" Walking Tour which visits each pothole and celebrates the neighborhood’s beloved, LGBTQ spaces—and the enduring legacies they leave behind. Stay tuned for more updates on upcoming artist collaborations. 

**Covid-19 safety information**

All public health guidelines must be adhered to while we continue to navigate Covid-19. During the tour, everyone is required to wear a covering (either a bandana, mask, or scarf) over the nose and mouth. We will ask each of you to maintain physical distance of six feet from those you do not live with, and suggest you have hand sanitizer on-hand. Public restrooms are also likely not going to be an option. We look forward to safely seeing you for this outdoor tour!

This tour is part of Tenderloin Play Streets, an outdoor program spearheaded by the TLCBD and Livable City in collaboration with the Tenderloin Museum, the Boys and Girls Club, CounterPulse, and numerous other neighborhood institutions. On Saturday, 9/12, participate in the first Play Streets program and celebrate TLM's fifth anniversary from 10am-4pm on the 200 Block of Turk. Learn more at tenderloinmuseum.org!

San Francisco-based designer, illustrator, and GLBT Historical Society volunteer Win Mixter is tired of “rainbow capitalism:” glitzy, elaborate, and empty marketing campaigns produced by major corporations during Pride Month. That’s why he made his Pride is a Protest Market Street Poster Series, which highlights 18 unique, lesser-known LGBTQ people, places, and protests that gave meaning to Pride. 

Funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission, Pride is a Protest aims to reorient the narrative of our annual June Pride celebrations back to its original principles of resistance, rebellion, and radical self-expression. By joining us for our upcoming Artist Walking Tour with Mixter, anyone can learn about the trailblazing yet unsung pioneers and places that shaped LGBTQ history. 

On August 22, This limited tour will stop by eight posters on Market Street between Embarcadero and Civic Center. The tour will begin in front of the Marshalls on Market & Grant near the Lani Ka’ahumanu poster and leave at 1 pm.

About Win:

Win Mixter is a queer San Francisco-based designer & illustrator, streetcar enthusiast, amateur birder, and longtime GLBT History Museum volunteer.

**Covid-19 safety information**
All public health guidelines must be adhered to while we continue to navigate Covid-19. During the tour, everyone is required to wear a covering (either a bandana, mask, or scarf) over the nose and mouth. We will ask each of you to maintain physical distance of six feet from others, and suggest you have hand sanitizer on-hand. Public restrooms are also likely not going to be an option.

We look forward to safely seeing you for this outdoor tour!

Discover Grant Avenue's wealth of vintage neon signs and history in this second Chinatown neon tour.

About this Event

There is a wealth of vintage neon signs and history in the streets and alleys of Chinatown—particularly on Grant Avenue. This tour features some of the oldest signs in the city, highlighting the history of neon signs and stories of Chinatown businesses whose signs have became neighborhood landmarks.

This one-hour virtual tour features vintage neon signs and a rich collection of photographs, video clips, maps, and historic research compiled by hosts Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan, authors of Saving Neon and San Francisco Neon: Survivors and Lost Icons.

This is the second tour of a two-part series.

Free | Suggested donation of $10.

Zoom link will be sent on the day of the event to those who register.

In proud partnership with the Chinese Historical Society of America and SF Neon.

Photo by sfneon.org

Discover vintage neon signs and history in the streets and alleys of San Francisco's Chinatown.

About this Event

There is a wealth of vintage neon signs and history in the streets and alleys of Chinatown. This tour features some of the oldest signs in the city, highlighting the history of neon signs and stories of Chinatown businesses whose signs have became neighborhood landmarks.

This one-hour virtual tour features vintage neon signs and a rich collection of photographs, video clips, maps, and historic research compiled by hosts Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan, authors of Saving Neon and San Francisco Neon: Survivors and Lost Icons.

The first tour of a two-part series, Chinatown Neon Tour Part Two is on August 20.

Free | Suggested donation of $10.

Zoom link will be sent on the day of the event to those who register.

In proud partnership with the Chinese Historical Society and SF Neon.

Photo by sfneon.org