Past Articles

Housing, Pedestrian Safety Top To-do List for Jane Kim

Joshua Sabatini‚ SF Examiner, Dec. 29‚ 2010

From the world of nonprofits to City Hall, the new representative of the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods wants to stamp out bedbugs and improve pedestrian safety for her constituents.

Supervisor-elect Jane Kim’s impressive November victory in the crowded District 6 race is the latest step in the seemingly promising political career of this former tenant-rights organizer.

Observers are watching to see how the 33-year-old starts voting when she is sworn in to office Jan. 8. Some of the attention is simply because she is filling the seat long occupied by progressive Supervisor Chris Daly, who has become the symbol of far-left politics often maligned by moderates.

At this point, Kim can still choose her political destiny to determine if she will be a true progressive “lefty,” in the Daly style, or more to the center. For instance, Supervisor David Chiu, Kim’s friend of many years, is a progressive whom many moderates say they can live with.

Touring the Tenderloin

Steven Short‚ KALW News, Nov. 16‚ 2010

San Francisco has many neighborhoods with unusual names. We cover them in our feature, The Source. Comedian Dave Chappelle also talked about one of them when he came to the city to film a comedy special in 2004. DAVID CHAPPELLE: Went to that Tenderloin. Nothing tender about that motherf#@# at all! That sh#$ was rough! The opposite of tender. I had never seen crack smoked so casually before! The Tenderloin District certainly wears the mark of homelessness, drug abuse and poverty that comedian Chappelle mentions. But the Tenderloin also has a rich history and notoriety beyond its current, gritty street scene. And that’s what inspired community organizer Randy Shaw to say that what the Tenderloin currently needs is not another clinic or shelter what it needs is a museum. So what would visitors to a proposed Tenderloin Museum see, or do? KALW’s Steven Short talks with Shaw about some of the possibilities.

New Grant for Uptown Tenderloin Approved!

Randy Shaw‚ BeyondChron, Oct. 19‚ 2010

Taylor Street Arts District in San Francisco’s Uptown Tenderloin will soon shine with restored historic murals. Local mural art company, Precita Eyes, will carry out this exciting artistic restoration project -- which promises to restore historic advertising murals on Taylor and Mason Streets to their original splendor. Uptown Tenderloin community non-profit organizations have received a $35,000 award from the San Francisco Community Challenge Grant Program to restore these historic murals. Community partners Tenderloin Housing Clinic, Uptown Tenderloin Inc., Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation and North of Market Neighborhood Improvement Corporation aligned to submit this project proposal with additional financial support from Original Joe’s building owner, John Duggan Jr. and TNDC.

The Test of the Tenderloin

By Caitlin Donohue‚ San Francisco Bay Guardian, Sep. 28‚ 2010

This is a story about love and money. Or a story about love, money, and location. — Rebecca Solnit, Hollow City (Verso 2000)

It's a sunny day in the most maligned neighborhood in San Francisco. I'm walking down a busy sidewalk with an excited Randy Shaw, long-time housing advocate. He's giving me a tour of his Tenderloin. "There's history everywhere you look here," he notes as we rush about the dingy blocks of one of the city's most densely populated, economically bereft communities. In a half-untucked navy button-down and square-frame glasses, Shaw reels off evidence of this legacy faster than I can write it down and still maintain our walking pace. To our left, Hyde Street Studios, where the Grateful Dead recorded its 1970 album American Beauty. Across the street, a ramshackle building that once housed Guido Caccienti's Black Hawk nightclub, where the sounds of jam-fests by the likes of Billie Holiday and John Coltrane would echo out onto the streets during its heyday in the 1950s. Throughout its history, the Tenderloin has been renowned for its nightlife: music, theater, sex work — and the social space that occurs between them.

Activist Envisions Museum in S.F. Tenderloin

By Charlie Wells‚ San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 7‚ 2010

Spilling out of studios or wafting through nightclubs, the now instantly recognizable refrains of jazz greats, folk revivalists and rock legends enchanted generations of visitors to the notorious San Francisco district. But we're not talking about the Haight. Or the Fillmore. Or even North Beach. It was in the city's still gritty Tenderloin, where Miles Davis played when he came to town, where the Grateful Dead, Santana and Jefferson Airplane recorded what would become the San Francisco Sound. And now, Randy Shaw, a fast-talking lawyer and longtime Tenderloin housing activist, wants to build a museum in the neighborhood to share these untold stories.

Uptown Tenderloin Momentum Continues

By Randy Shaw‚ BeyondChron, Jun. 17‚ 2010
Uptown Tenderloin Historic District poster c) Academy of Art University

The revival of San Francisco's historic Uptown Tenderloin neighborhood continued this week with four developments designed to boost the area's positive identity. First, banners are now flying highlighting the neighborhood's over 400 historic buildings and the Uptown Tenderloin's longtime status as the "heart of the city." Second, a large poster is being distributed to businesses across the city identifying the area as a place where people should come to "Walk, Dine, Enjoy." Third, a graphic presentation has been installed at the Cadillac Hotel announcing the "Future Site of the Uptown Tenderloin Museum." And last but not least, the Uptown Tenderloin has a new website that will keep people updated on activities of interest in the neighborhood.

San Francisco Detours Into Reality Tourism

By Jesse McKinley, New York Times, April 11, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Visitors know all too well this pretty city's sights, what with the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf and the clang-clang-clangy cable cars.

But now San Francisco's civic boosters have decided they want to add a highly unlikely stop to the tourist itinerary: the Uptown Tenderloin, the ragged, druggy and determinedly dingy domain of the city's most down and out.

And what is the appeal?

"We offer a kind of grittiness you can’t find much anymore," said Randy Shaw, a longtime San Francisco housing advocate and a driving force behind the idea of Tenderloin tourism. "And what is grittier than the Tenderloin?"

Tenderloin Allure on the Rise: Newsom Announces Historic Preservation Initiative

Gavin Newsom holding Tenderloin Historic District Plaque

By Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal, March 12, 2010

The lure and allure of San Francisco's oft-neglected Tenderloin District got another boost Wednesday when Mayor Gavin Newsom announced funding for an historic preservation initiative.

The initiative, which includes $15 thousand to fund the design, purchase and installation of historic building plaques, is aimed at revitalizing and restoring the Tenderloin's historic identity.

Mona Caron's New Mural, Windows Into the Tenderloin

By Hugh D'Andrade, Laughing Squid, March 2, 2010

I once rode the J-Church in San Francisco with my friend, the muralist Mona Caron. When you ride that train, there's a brief moment where you can see the tail end of Mona's first public artwork, the Duboce Bikeway Mural, and as she and I passed we chatted about that project - how she did it, where the funding came from, etc. When the other passengers overheard our conversation, realizing she was the artist behind this epic work, the entire car spontaneously burst into applause.