As part SFAC’s “Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials” project, the TL-based community arts collaboration Skywatchers shares a screening of their film, Reimagining the City as Our Own: Towards an Architecture of Inclusion, followed by a panel discussion and community dialogue / response facilitated by Preethi Ramaprasad.
Thursday April 17, 2025 | 6-7:30pm
At the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Who has the right to the city? Who is allowed to linger on its streets, to see oneself in its landscapes, included and represented in its conceptions of ‘the public’? Who gets to participate in the conversation about what our cities should be? These are some of the questions explored in Reimagining The City As Our Own: Towards an Architecture of Inclusion, a film by Irene Gustafson in collaboration with the Skywatchers Ensemble, a cross-cultural, intergenerational, mixed-ability community arts collaboration that was founded in the tenant lounge of a Tenderloin SRO and believes that relationships are the first site of social change.
The community-centered creativity depicted in this film also provides an inspiring framework with which to critically consider a very particular aspect of the public realm: monuments and memorials. As such, a screening ofReimagining … will serve as a springboard for community gathering and panel discussion at a Tenderloin Museum public program organized for Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission.
In 2024, Tenderloin Museum was selected as a Community Collaborator in the Shaping Legacy project, a multi-year equity-focused initiative by SFAC to critically examine the monuments and memorials in San Francisco’s Civic Art collection. TLM’s role included assembling and facilitating an “Artist Circle”--a cohort of artists from our community with deep experience and diverse perspectives–to participate in the Shaping Legacy discourse, produce public programs, and ultimately inform future requests for proposals from the Arts Commission. TLM’s Artist Circle includes Skywatchers, Bharatanatyam dancer and researcher Preethi Ramaprasad, interdisciplinary artist/curator and community advocate Mattie Loyce, and the sculptor, fiber artist, and progenitor of “Crochet Jam” Ramekon O’Arwisters. All have deep and active relationships in the Tenderloin and to San Francisco’s broader arts scene, as well as thoughtful practices that explore “community” in the arts.
Monumentalizing Community is the first of the TLM Artist Circle’s programmatic offerings for Shaping Legacy, which seek not only to share the work and practice of TLM’s Shaping Legacy “Artist Circle” but to invite the public to participate in their practice and to join the discourse of how art can shape the civic realm, public memory, and community. The event will also feature a panel of community members from the film; fellow Artist Circle collaborator and fellow movement-based artist Preethi Ramaprasad will facilitate the conversation.
This program is part of a broader city-wide series of public programs organized by Community Collaborators for the Shaping Legacy project; for more information, visit sfartscommission.org!
Free to attend | Register via Humanitix
Led by celebrated storyteller and historian Linda Day, Hot Pads, Cool Town offers an engaging exploration of the rich architectural and cultural history of San Francisco’s apartment and hotel district.
Saturday, April 19, 2025 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
The Tenderloin, which rose from the ashes after the devastating 1906 earthquake and fires, showcases a dynamic transformation in the city’s landscape. As the ruins gave way to a vibrant new neighborhood, the district became a symbol of resilience and renewal.
This tour will explore the architectural styles that emerged during the reconstruction, from elegant Edwardian apartments to stylish hotels that catered to a growing urban population. Alongside the evolving cityscape, a lively nightlife scene flourished, with bars, cafés, dance halls, and even boxing rings, creating a sense of community and entertainment in a bustling urban setting. Despite living in smaller spaces, residents embraced this social and cultural vibrancy, finding ways to “live large” in the heart of the city.
Hot Pads, Cool Town paints a vivid picture of how the Tenderloin not only rebuilt itself physically but also established itself as a cornerstone of San Francisco’s unique character, where architectural gems met the pulse of city life.
Register to attend via Humanitix | $20 Tour + Museum admission / $15 Tour only / $10 TLM Members
The story of a quintessential TL nightclub comes to life with a one-off spectacle at the Great American Music Hall. Michael Flanagan surveys Club 181’s epic history live-on-stage via special guest interviews, performances, & rare archival material. SF jazz star Veronica Klaus headlines with a set in homage to her time under the 181’s lights.
Wednesday April 23, 2025 | Doors at 6pm Show at 7pm
at Great American Music Hall | 859 O'Farrell St, San Francisco, CA 94109
Of the myriad bars and clubs that lined the Tenderloin’s streets in its heyday, the Club 181 and its decades-long legacy of queer entertainment epitomized both the glamor and grit of the neighborhood’s post-War nightlife. Dudded out with red and black velvet, white tablecloths, dark corners, bright lights, and a cabaret stage, the 181 conjured a timeless grandeur that inspired several generations of maverick LGBTQ performers:
In 1954, famed “female impersonator” Lynne Carter not only performed at the bar but owned it, at a time when the queer community’s right to assemble in bars was being negotiated in the courts. In the early 1970s, legendary Tenderloin transgender performer Vicki Marlane did shows with Empress Pat Montclair, and by the 1980s, the Club 181 played host to Arturo Galster (as Patsy Cline) and Doris Fish with the madcap drag troupe Sluts-a-Go-Go.
Drag queens, go-go boys, hustlers, jazzers, and new-wavers mingled with TL denizens and outsiders alike. Across its multitudinous scenes, the nightclub’s edge was real: after-hours operation that skirted the law, criminal activity, and even murder! Nevertheless, those who patronized or performed at the 181 recall the place as having an allure of mythic proportions. Although Club 181’s sensational story tells us a great deal about the Tenderloin (and more broadly the city) and queer performance, its history has never been collected in full… until now.
On April 23, 2025, the Tenderloin Museum presents a special “Sounds of the TL” program at the Great American Music Hall that will bring the story of the Club 181 to life on stage, in the spirit of the club’s many eras of supper-club variety shows. Our Virgil for the evening will be Michael Flanagan, a historian and regular contributor at SF LGBTQ newspaper The Bay Area Reporter who penned a feature on the 181 that inspired this event! He’ll take us on a deep dive of the club’s chronology incorporating rare photos & videos, archival material, and a series of interviews and performances that pay tribute to various 181 highlights. Special guests include:
Ms. Bob Davis on Lynne Carter
Collette LeGrande on Vicki Marlane
Leigh Crow & Kitten on the Keys pay tribute to Arturo Galster
Phillip R. Ford on Doris Fish & the Sluts-a-Go-Go
Sun Ra's Space Is the Place (filmed at the club!)
Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer
Lambert Moss
Connie Champagne
DJ Myles Cooper!
The historical variety show will be followed by a headlining performance from one of the Bay Area’s finest jazz vocalists, Veronica Klaus, who has her own history performing at the storied Club 181! For this set, Klaus will be accompanied by another top talent in jazz with similarly deep experience performing in the TL: pianist Tammy L. Hall.
Don’t miss this one-off program (and unique gathering of folks that lived the history) animating one of the TL’s most colorful locales! Club 181 Live! (and TLM’s entire Sounds of the Tenderloin series) is made possible by support from the Specified General Fund for the Museum Grant Program under the California Cultural and Historical Endowment.
Tickets $20/30/50 | Purchase via See Tickets (on sale 3/18/25 at 12pm!)
Tenderloin Museum is thrilled to partner with Unspeakable Vice, “a volunteer history initiative making queer belonging accessible to everyone,” to offer a new walking tour focused on the LGBTQIA+ history in the Tenderloin and Polk Street neighborhoods.
Saturday, April 26, 2025 | 2-4 PM
Meet at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
Register to attend via Humanitix | Admission to the Tenderloin Museum included with ticket
Created by downtown San Francisco resident and professor at California College of the Arts Shawn Sprockett, Unspeakable Vice began as a close look at the queer origins of San Francisco, traversing the city’s North Beach and Barbary Coast areas to trace the history through from 1770-1960. This new tour extends Sprockett’s richly detailed and craftily delivered approach to the TL and Polk Street to offer a deep dive into the emergence of LGBTQIA+ icons and movements that shaped the area from the 1960s to the 1990s.
TLM celebrates the latest issue of McSweeney's with a block party in the heart of Little Saigon. On the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, the SF literary quarterly features writers of the Vietnamese diaspora reflecting on what it means to be “Vietnamese.” Readings by Vu Tran & Doan Bui + a DJ set by Topazu.
Thursday May 1, 2025 | 6-8pm
at Myrtle Alley (at 835 Larkin St. b/w O’Farrell & Geary)
From April-September, Tenderloin Museum teams up with SF Planning to produce a series of block parties in Myrtle Alley during the SF First Thursday Art Walks in the Tenderloin & Lower Polk. The inaugural event celebrates the release of a special issue of the iconic SF fiction quarterly McSweeney’s that publishes on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War (April 30). Contributors Vu Tran & Doan Bui will give readings, and San Francisco based DJ Topazu will perform in Myrtle Alley, an outdoor space adjacent to TLM’s venue for its immersive play The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot at 835 Larkin St.
That momentous occasion has special significance in the Tenderloin–after the Fall of Saigon, many of the Vietnamese refugees who came to San Francisco landed in Tenderloin SROs, and the sudden influx of families indelibly transformed a neighborhood that had long been a residential enclave for single people who were “working class” and/or working in various underground economies. The diaspora that made a home in the TL 50 years ago remains a vital presence in the community today–this is visibly evident along the commercial corridor of Larkin St. populated by Southeast Asian restaurants and small businesses and celebrated as “Little Saigon.”
A San Francisco institution, McSweeney’s is an independent non-profit publishing house founded by author Dave Eggers; its sister organization, 826 Valencia, supports under-resourced youth develop writing skills and has demonstrated a special commitment to the TL (and the 3500 children who live here) with its 826 Tenderloin Center, in operation since 2016. Here’s what McSweeney’s has to say about the 78th issue of its quarterly:
In McSweeney’s 78: The Make Believers (guest edited by Thi Bui and Vu Tran), ten writers of the Vietnamese diaspora write from the eclectic hodgepodge that is their shared imagination of what it means to be “Vietnamese.” Packaged in a beautiful foil-stamped cigar box (with art by Bui on each and every surface), and including two booklets, one menu, and a glossary of broken Vietnamese, the work in this issue spans from highbrow to lowbrow, proper to naughty, logical to absurd, and painful to funny. Published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, its contributors work across perspectives and multiple languages. In this completely singular, nothing-else-of-its-kind anthology, these artists write (and illustrate!) from a place of collective loss and joy.
For this program, TLM is honored to partner with our neighbors in Civic Center, the Asian Art Museum, to offer an expanded experience for our members. Prior to the block party, the Asian Art Museum will host a “Curator’s Choice Lecture” featuring writers Doan Bui and Vu Tran in conversation with Natasha Reichle, Associate Curator of Southeast Asian Art, followed by a walk through Little Saigon to Myrtle Alley. This Curator’s Choice Lecture is open to members of the Tenderloin Museum and Asian Art Museum, and will begin at 4pm in AAM’s Samsung Hall (200 Larkin St.). Click here for more information and to register for the member event.
Copies of McSweeney’s 78 available for purchase at the event, or you can pre-order a copy (or subscribe) over at McSweeney’s.net.
Thanks to the generosity of local brewer Fort Point Beer Co., we’re excited to offer complimentary Fort Point products at this event!
Free! All welcome! No registration required!
The Bay Area’s “Queen of the Blues and Gospel” Lady Bianca cut most of her deep discography in the TL at the historic Hyde St. Studios; on May 2, the Grammy-nominated vocalist/pianist, songwriter and producer brings her live set to the people of the TL with a Concert at the Cadillac!
Friday May 2, 2025 | 1-2pm
At the Cadillac Hotel | 380 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102 (next door to TLM!)
TLM is thrilled to host Lady Bianca and her “Handsome Man Trio” for a special free Concerts at the Cadillac presented as part of the museum’s ongoing Sounds of the Tenderloin live music series. She is a Grammy-nominated vocalist/pianist and songwriter, a life-long working musician who has made an indelible mark on the Bay Area’s Blues and Gospel scenes. A torchbearer for the “Mighty Oakland Sound,” Lady Bianca, has amassed a catalog of over 300 songs, and has produced, arranged and recorded 9 albums, many of which were cut in the Tenderloin at the historic Hyde St. Studios.
Bianca Thornton’s roots are in the great music town of Kansas City, and her father taught her Texas Blues as a child; her prodigious talent as a youth earned her a full scholarship to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music at age nine. Bianca's first paying gig was at the age of seventeen with Quinn Harris & The Masterminds and it was Harris who bestowed the title of Lady on Bianca as she was “so pure and conservative”. Since then, Lady Bianca has evolved into an icon in the Bay Area and is widely known as the “Queen of the Blues and Gospel.”
She has performed, recorded and toured internationally as a solo artist and with Frank Zappa, Sly Stone, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, Sylvester, and Hall of Fame legends Bobby Bland, Willie Dixon, Etta James, Curtis Mayfield, Koko Taylor, Joe Louis Walker and dozens more as a featured opening act, vocal arranger and record producer. In 2017, Lady Bianca sang “Oh, Freedom” in the Roots Award-winning documentary Gina’s Journey: The Search for William Grimes and was the featured narrative voice in the Oakland-based documentary Evolution of the Blues. These days, she performs original songs from the catalog of her own “Magic-O Records” and “StayFree Publishing/BMI,” the record label and publishing company she founded with her partner Stanley Lippit.
Funding for TLM’s Sounds of the Tenderloin series is provided by Specified General Fund for the Museum Grant Program under the California Cultural and Historical Endowment.
Free! All Welcome! No registration required!
The Alaya Project explores the sonic connections amongst Carnatic Indian classical music, jazz, and funk. On May 8, the Oakland based trio performs their original compositions at TLM and traces the musical lineage that informs their groovy, cross-cultural sound from Chennai to the TL! Ft. special guest vocalist Diana Gameros!
Thursday May 8, 2025 | 6-7:30pm
At the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
The Tenderloin neighborhood is often celebrated as a key node for San Francisco’s jazz scene both past and present, thanks in large part to the legacy of the bygone Blackhawk club where a pantheon of jazz greats cut live records. The TL is also known for its significant Indian diaspora, primarily from the state of Gujarat, who lived and worked in the residential hotels that define the neighborhood’s character. Across the Bay in the bastion of multiculturalism that is Oakland, a musical ensemble called The Alaya Project formed in 2019 to bridge the intricate Carnatic classical music from the South of India with contemporary jazz and funk sounds. This homegrown group has an innovative sound that reflects their well-studied roots; as such, the band is an excellent vessel through which to explore the connections between jazz and the musical traditions of the Indian subcontinent, as well as to reflect on the stakes of cross-cultural fusion in music.
Built over two decades of friendship, dialogue, and musical immersion across genres and continents, The Alaya Project features the driving “hybrid kit” grooves of Indian percussionist and drummer, Rohan Krishnamurthy, the soulful Ragas and melodies of Prasant Radhakrishnan on saxophone, and the harmonic bedrock of Colin Hoganembodies the permanence of a changing soundscape. Krishnamurthy’s guru’s guru was Palani Subramaniam Pillai, a master of the Carnatic percussion instrument the mridangam. In 1958, Pillai met Dave Brubeck Quartet–then a mainstay of the TL’s Blackhawk Jazz Club–in Chennai (fka Madras) while the group was on a state-sponsored “jazz ambassador” tour. Their musical encounter indelibly influenced the Americans’ style and inspired their experiments with meter, such as the Paul Desmond-penned “Take Five,” which would become the highest selling jazz single of all time. Two generations down the line, Krishnamurthy and the Alaya Project reference this exchange with their tune “Changing 5s.”
For their May 8 appearance at TLM, the Alaya Project will be joined by a special guest vocalist, Diana Gameros. A singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico who writes and performs original music in both Spanish and English, Gameros first collaborated with Krishnamurthy in Meklit’s Movement Immigrant Orchestra at last year’s Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.
Tickets $20 GA / $10 TLM Members | Register via Humanitix
Join us for a special performance with The Alaya Project, presented as part of the Tenderloin Museum’s ongoingSounds of the Tenderloin series, which is supported by a grant from the Specified General Fund for the Museum Grant Program under the California Cultural and Historical Endowment.
Tenderloin Museum is thrilled to partner with Unspeakable Vice, “a volunteer history initiative making queer belonging accessible to everyone,” to offer a new walking tour focused on the LGBTQIA+ history in the Tenderloin and Polk Street neighborhoods.
Saturday, May 24, 2025 | 2-4 PM
Meet at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
Register to attend via Humanitix | Admission to the Tenderloin Museum included with ticket
Created by downtown San Francisco resident and professor at California College of the Arts Shawn Sprockett, Unspeakable Vice began as a close look at the queer origins of San Francisco, traversing the city’s North Beach and Barbary Coast areas to trace the history through from 1770-1960. This new tour extends Sprockett’s richly detailed and craftily delivered approach to the TL and Polk Street to offer a deep dive into the emergence of LGBTQIA+ icons and movements that shaped the area from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Tenderloin Museum is thrilled to partner with Unspeakable Vice, “a volunteer history initiative making queer belonging accessible to everyone,” to offer a new walking tour focused on the LGBTQIA+ history in the Tenderloin and Polk Street neighborhoods.
Saturday, June 28, 2025 | 2-4 PM
Meet at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
Register to attend via Humanitix | Admission to the Tenderloin Museum included with ticket
Created by downtown San Francisco resident and professor at California College of the Arts Shawn Sprockett, Unspeakable Vice began as a close look at the queer origins of San Francisco, traversing the city’s North Beach and Barbary Coast areas to trace the history through from 1770-1960. This new tour extends Sprockett’s richly detailed and craftily delivered approach to the TL and Polk Street to offer a deep dive into the emergence of LGBTQIA+ icons and movements that shaped the area from the 1960s to the 1990s.