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It is today that the Tenderloin YMCA has closed. It’s a pretty sad occasion really as it had been in that location for 99 years and now, it’s going to be well, somewhere else in the neighborhood. No one really knows at this point as negotiations for another space are up in the air.
Moving in to the lovely 1910 building will be a project by the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation. They’re going to be bringing yet more affordable housing to low income people in to the area. I have to say that while I completely believe these projects to be necessary, at the same time this approach is all wrong. These groups are under the assumption that you need to plop down these units right where people already are, but all this does is perpetuate the issue of the Loin being primarily low income peoples as opposed to a more mixed neighborhood.
I don’t feel that the Y should have left that building at all and it worked as a good corner piece to the neighborhood. I can’t see the new living units going in place being an improvement to that. Residence without retail or commerce is the Burbs. And undoubtedly, they’ll probably gut a great deal of the building in the process. Unfortunate really, but not nearly as unfortunate as the opening line from this Chronicle article about the closing from May: “…a woman is jogging on the treadmill with tears in her eyes…” Does anyone still wonder why the Chron is dying?
So after asking our readers to let us know of books about or inspired by the Tenderloin in our post about Taste of Tenderloin, we received a few tips (keep sending them in!).
The first one is a poetry book titled Tenderloin Voices. The book is written by Oakland poet Ralph Dranow, a longtime volunteer with the Faithful Fools, a charitable organization on Hyde street at Turk. Here’s one of the poems collected in Tenderloin Voices, that a review calls an “excellent chronicle of the faces, voices, thoughts, feelings, and conditions of San Francisco’s Tenderloin homeless”:
St. Anthony’s Dining Room,
Yellow walls adorned with
Potted plants,
Murals of beaches, lakes, meadows.
A short, scrawny black man
With a twisted face
Sits down opposite me.
He peels open his shirt,
Gingerly fingering a bloody wound
On his right bicep,
Then stares at a long white scar
Across his stomach.
My breath is ragged.
“What happened?”
“Bullet wounds,” he mumbles.
After a pause,
“Who shot you?”
“I was in the way.”
Like he’s telling me the time,
Face blank.
“When I was in the hospital,
The guy sent me a card
Thanking me for not telling.”
I shake my head.
“That’s pretty cold.”
“Yeah, it is. The doctor
said, ‘One inch deeper,’ “
He points to his stomach,
“And I’d be dead.”
He sighs, eyes fluttering shut,
Head drooping.
After a minute, I wake him up,
Tell him his food is getting cold.
He nods,
Takes a bite of mashed potato
and meat loaf casserole,
Then his head sinks again,
A flag at half mast.
Note: if you’re interested in purchasing Tenderloin Voices, for merely $5, contact Ralph Dranow at ralphdranow@yahoo.com
Since most of you are probably locals and not tourists, you might not know about Muni’s 74x bus, also known as CultureBus. It is yellow bus that for $7 a day (from 10am to 5pm) will take you around San Francisco’s major museums and main points of touristic interest. Also, passengers will receive discounted admission to certain cultural destinations such as the California Academy of Sciences or the De Young Museum.
What we like the most about this bus, though, is watching it take the camera-wielding tourists in shorts through the streets of the Tenderloin on its way to or from the Asian Art Museum (see full route here) and the Civic Center. It’s good the bus doesn’t have any stops by the strip-clubs…
…of course enterprising bars/clubs near the stops might get wise to all of this and start advertising some kind of a pub crawl that overlaps with the route for those looking to be less cultured and more anyone-in-Ibiza-ed. Naturally, we feel this would really take off if there was a secondary route that ran up to Fisherman’s Wharf, over to the bridge and then back. These types of buses work well in many cities and it almost seems like they want it to fail by running such a limited course.
We just got word that the Apex Book Company is releasing a collection of science fiction stories titled Taste of Tenderloin. We don’t know of many books set in the Tenderloin, so we were naturally very excited with the news (if you know of some others, drop us a line: thetenderblog@gmail.com). Even though the violinist on the cover image doesn’t suggest exciting sci-fi adventures in the Loin…
The book, which will come out on August 1st but is already available for pre-order, is written by Eugene O’Neill who has published over 100 stories in magazines like Twilight Zone or Cemetery Dance. The Apex Book Company is, in their own words, “a small press dedicated to publishing exemplary works of dark science fiction and horror” based in Kentucky, that publishes approximately ten books each year along with a monthly online magazine.
This is what how they describe Taste of Tenderloin:
Eight stories of dark science fiction and fantasy weave a path through the underbelly of San Francisco’s most notorious district in TASTE OF TENDERLOIN by Gene O’Neill. Best known for his strong sense of place and uniquely vibrant characters, O’Neill brings the gritty underside of the city to life with eight interwoven stories of broken lives, missed dreams, and all that can go wrong with both reality and fantasy among the down and out. The city itself opens wide to swallow all comers with the temptation of its secrets and sins, while O’Neill brings dignity and humanity to a set of characters often overlooked in both society and fiction.
Update: According to this comment, both the author of the book, Eugene O’Neill, and the author of the introduction, Gavin O’Neill (his brother?), will be in San Francisco on September 12th at 3:00 pm at Borderlands Books to read and sign copies of Taste of Tenderloin!
From what we hear Lafayette Coffee Shop at 250 Hyde Street (this establishment came about when address numbers meant something), the food is tasty and well-priced because naturally, coffee and prime rib go together like fried chicken and waffles. Read some heartfelt hipster feelings if you like.
Here are a few shots we took of the Pride Parade at around 12 positioned at the corner of MacAllistair and Market. Enjoy!
Flickr user dgollub, who often posts pictures of the Tenderloin in his photostream, posted this one yesterday:
And it made us wonder if these shoes that we saw on Leavenworth more or less at the same address had anything to do with the advisory or if they were simply the result of a lovers dispute …
Apparently a strip club customer was shot and killed and two others were injured in a fight that turned to guns last night at “Pink Diamonds” on 220 Jones Street. I can’t really recall this place, but looking at the marquee in the photo above, it’s all coming back as to where that mystery $10 came from last Tuesday.
Naturally, this is a ridiculous waste of a life, but at the same time, it just gives people more fodder to point at the Loin and say, “See! See! It is dangerous!” Of course I would bet my hard earned $10 (hey, ZZ Top is not easy to stay on the pole with) that the guys involved in this incident weren’t from the Loin. So, how does that make the Loin dangerous if it’s idiots from out of the area causing the problems? I mean, it’s not actually the Loin, it’s the morons.
This club obviously needs to be shut down and the landlord of the building, Terrance Alan, be removed from the San Francisco Entertainment Commission. In fact, why don’t we just get rid of this self-serving group altogether and put some power back in to our regular authorities to shut down repeat offenders like “Pink Diamonds”. I know the name reeks of class and sounds a lot better than the original name of “Pussy to Stare at”, but do we really need places like this in operation when there are classier acts like O’Farrell where the girls came back just days after a massive street explosion? Now that’s a real work ethic without the gun fire and the death and the getting shot in a foot and all.
Our favorite neighborhood florist is without a doubt Ann’s Flowers & Balloons, a little shop on Geary at Larkin. No only because of their reasonable prices, but mostly because of the sweet lady running the shop (probably Ann, although I never asked). She can put together beautiful bouquets within your budget and choices of flowers, and always seems to be in a good mood. Also, she can advise you on the best flowers for each occasion, depending on their meaning, and every time I’ve been there in the late afternoon she’s given me an end of the day discount. Even guys in suits stop by to buy flowers for their loved ones. I’ve never seen anyone buying balloons, though.
Via peacemaker design’s Flickr photostream.
