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Crackheads/Bums shouting nonsense at all hours of the night.
And yet, I still love you Tenderloin.
<3
Is it getting colder and colder every day?
So long indian summer, it was fun while it lasted..
Saw this out the window of the AMC theater on Van Ness today.
Cafe Royale has been one of my more favorite spots to go to. The best days were when Kate Dumbleton owned and ran it because she was a super awesome lady that pimped the local scene really well, loved good music, good drinks, and was one of those people who work to make a community kick ass. Don’t tell tenderblogette, but I also thought she was pretty hot too. Maybe some of the other gents will back me up on this or just tell me it was the drinks and my lusty 20’s talking. The new owners are generally all right, but is it my imagination, or have the drink prices been raising steadily?
Anyways, one of the cool things about the place is the rotating art exhibits each month. This one was particularly poignant as it features the work of the loin, a print shop here in–The Loin. I’ve been seeing a number of people wearing their very cools designs around the hood as of late and it’s great that they’ve now got a show. For those not able to stop by Royale, check out their store for tha funky threads.
For those who are able to stop by in this suddenly chill month of October, you’ll be greeted by a display of their goods as seen below:
It’s about time we got some local businesses like these!
Have we mentioned before that we love the literary marquee at the Kahn & Keville tire shop at the corner of Larkin and Turk? So here’s what’s written on it this week:
If you have photos of previous marquee wisdom, send them to thetenderblog@gmail.com!
For those constantly whining about how unsafe and dangerous the Tenderloin is…. surprise, surprise… it didn’t make it into this list of the Top 25 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods in the US, based on FBI’s crime statistics. Shocked? Yeah, so are we. It must be the vast selection of pho that placates the masses and keeps crime lower than actually dangerous places. Surely Newsom will try and use this to show that he’s done something other than get regular haircuts during his turn at the reins.
Yeah, so I’m not a terribly huge fan of 7×7 as whenever I feel like looking at SF’s society scenes in photo montages… I… uh… okay, I never want to see these people. But, I would never stoop to the bitch-about-in-the-blog level as the magazine is mostly just there, killing trees and losing readers along with San Francisco magazine, both waiting until they inevitably die in the near future.
They have struck a dissonant chord with me over their Neighborhoods section on their website. For some reason, they blended Hayes Valley, Civic Center, the Tenderloin, and the TenderNob in to one mega section. And the best part is that all this goes to their Tendernob page. Hey Hayes Valley, how do you feel about that? While we’ve been okay with being lumped in with Civic Center for some time, attaching Hayes, the Loin, CC, and TenderNob together is about as smart as wearing stripes and plaid at the Pride Parade in that you just shouldn’t go there.
The point is, San Franciscan’s love their neighborhoods. If you’re going to have some kind of neighborhood feature, do it right. Or at the very least, break apart the neighborhoods in to some system that actually makes sense because as you may note, they lumped Hayes in to this medley, but kept Union Square as separate despite the fact that I feel Union Square is not really a neighborhood (it’s a… hmmm… square) and that it has a great deal more in common with the Loin than Hayes. If you want to do things this way then a “Downtown” area comprised of Civic Center, Union Square, Tenderloin, and TenderNob might work a good deal better.
What’s that? 7×7’s address is 59 Grant Street? Well, I’ll be! What are the odds of that?
Remember the literary marquee at the Kahn & Keville tire shop at the corner of Larkin and Turk? Well, Tenderblog reader Dave who has a blog called Squalor and Despair, has just sent us a picture of an Ozzy Osbourne quote that was there a while back and that he found on the back cover of The Loin’s Mouth #6 (more on the Loin’s Mouth later).
I guess it’s just after being on trips to European cities where the old towns twist around each other that I feel such a longing for alleys and hidden spots in the middle of a city. Take for example Barcelona. The Gothic Quarter of that town is amazing with new little discoveries around every wacky corner.
Here in San Francisco, we really love our 90 degree angles when it comes to streets. While you can see it just about everywhere (including the hills), it becomes more pronounced in the Loin where we have all these high density residential buildings. Take for example the photo above which is on Hyde near Ellis. It may seem like a boring shot at first, but just imagine some small cafe at the end of the street with tables lining the alley. Nothing crazy, just 4-5 tables with opening hours that won’t drive the people crazy who live there. I’d damn well go if it existed.
Yeah, I know, we’ve locked up all of our alleys through gates and doors, walls and barricades because of the fact people think they’d be a haven for seedy activities. I admit that this could easily be the case, but when you happen to stroll down Hemlock Alley and see a DPW employee in one of their trucks getting orally serviced by a prostitute in the middle of a Sunday, you realize that blocking off our alleys doesn’t really stop any of this. It may concentrate it in certain spots instead of spreading it around, but the problem doesn’t go away.
It is possible to have our alleys open again. Yes, it requires a bit of work, but look at the Tenderloin “National Forest” on Cohen Alley or how about one of my favorite spots, Meacham Place which is a nice little oasis off Post Street. It houses a number of nice TIC units as well as Voicebox Creative. You see what nice surprises there are to find down alleys. They’re still there, we just need to think about the spaces and use them better.
For some time now, there has been the term, “TrendyLoin” tossed around to encompass the feeling that the Loin is being gentrified. Obviously it’s a legitimate fear/desire as this has happened to many an old San Francisco neighborhood. While it’s true that the Loin is changing a great deal these days, the one thing that sets it apart from all other areas be-Starbucked are the Single Room Occupancy hotels or just SROs for short. These hotels use to be the basis for San Francisco’s working class and presently are a great deal of the safety net that stops a lot of people from being on the street as they can be rented short term in an affordable manner.
It’s the case that the debate as to whether these are good or bad looms large over any discussion of all things Loin, but whatever the case, they are in the here and now, creating a good chunk of the atmosphere surrounding the Loin.
So we come to Up from the Deep. This is the work of a Mark Ellinger who found himself addicted, on the streets, and nearly dead before he turned his life around, partly through the therapy of documenting the SROs that surrounded him. So, no, this isn’t some art student attempting to touch the ucky mucky realness of life with a telephoto lens. This is a guy who has been there and has created a work that is extremely honest and learned over time.
He focuses on several places in the downtown area where SROs are quite common, but naturally given this blog, we admire the shots in the Tenderloin the most as we’re unabashedly biased. It also helps that we can see a good number of these buildings from our windows. Take a look at what he’s doing. Loin in art form, is always a good thing.
Like we state on our about page, we really want to give more love to the Loin and the Tendernob; our hoods. And normally, posts about, “Oh wow, here’s a list of what people searched for to get to my site” are pretty lame. Despite that fact, I just wanted to share this one as it is telling of the reason we’re writing this blog:
yelp sutter and joes is it safe?
There really is a lot of prejudice against all things near the Loin. I have no idea what Yelp has to do with safety, but I imagine that the person who typed this meant, “jones” and not “joes”. Sutter and Jones happens to be a very nice corner and very safe. I even envy it whenever I’m there as Candy Darling is on one corner for all your sweet tooth needs and Cafe Bean on the other with their tasty dutch pancakes and minimal outdoor seating. Then there’s this swanky building called the Belgravia.
I also need to mention that at that corner, the 2, 3, 4, and 27 lines all have a stop. That my friends is effin’ convenient transportation connections.
But if all that isn’t enough to convince you about the safety of this intersection, then rest assured that there are cadres of kids with funky hair cuts from the AoA smoking in front of the two dorms on Sutter St. throughout the night. And if gentle-hearted art students can smoke outside whenever they want, then that is a mighty safe area you’re looking at.
