Tenderloin: The Heart of San Francisco

The Brightline Podcast: Season 2, Episode 5

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the Tenderloin, a working-class neighborhood in the heart of San Francisco. Hear from multiple community leaders on the history of the neighborhood and the ongoing fight for open spaces and resources for the disadvantaged communities that live in such tight spaces. 

Transcript:

Cyntia: I want kids to be able to like be proud that they’re from the Tenderloin. And I want kids, to be able to say, you know, like I grew up in the Tenderloin. I have open spaces. Like it was a beautiful experience

Aubrey: This is the Brightline Podcast from Brightline Defense. We explore environmental justice issues, or EJ issues, in the Bay Area and California, highlighting the work of community-based organizations, including our own. My name’s Aubrey, and today we’re heading to a neighborhood in the heart of San Francisco, where space is a little tight.

Katie: The Tenderloin is a really special kind of singular neighborhood.

Aubrey: That’s Katie Conry, the director of the Tenderloin Museum.

Katie: The Tenderloin is a working class neighborhood that’s right in the center of San Francisco, so that’s quite unusual. It’s probably the only working class neighborhood that’s right in the center of any major US city.

Aubrey: If you live in San Francisco, you probably know where the Tenderloin is. Maybe you’ve walked or driven through it on your way to Union Square. It’s a dense, bustling neighborhood, with layers of history beneath its streets.

Katie:It was almost entirely destroyed, burned to the ground in the 1906 earthquake, so it was all built right around the same time. It was primarily a lot of Single Room Occupancies were built. So just a living area, bathroom down the hall, no kitchen, to house men and women working to like rebuild the city.

Aubrey: Without kitchens to cook in or common spaces for socializing, bars and restaurants started popping up to serve all these single men and women.

Katie: The phrase Tenderloin refers to a vice area. There was areas known as Tenderloins in every major US city. Ours is the last to maintain its name. So it was like a glitzy, seedy, kind of nightlife capital of the Bay Area with the underground economy supporting the aboveground economy, primarily gambling and some sex work as well. And then moral reformers in the 1950s really cracked down on gambling and it basically destroyed the economy of the neighborhood. And that’s the first time in the early sixties you started seeing it become like an economically depressed neighborhood.

Aubrey: At the same time, the neighborhood had become a safe haven for low-income queer and trans people in San Francisco, with some of the country’s first gay liberation organizing happening there. Other groups found refuge as well.

Katie: Due to that like high density of affordable housing in the seventies and eighties, you see a lot of refugees from the Vietnam War, Southeast Asian refugees move to the Tenderloin because it’s the only place like the community could really afford to go to . That’s the first time we saw like large numbers of families moving into the Tenderloin.

Aubrey: Today, the Tenderloin is home to immigrants from Yemen, Vietnam, Turkey, El Salvador, and more. Included in those families are 3,500 children . Back in 2001, one family from Mexico found their way to the neighborhood with two kids in tow.

Cyntia: My name is Cyntia Salazar. I’ve been a Tenderloin resident for the past 21 years now. I am currently with TLCBD as the inviting space assistant director.

Aubrey: But long before she started working at the Tenderloin Community Benefits District, or TLCBD, Cyntia was just a 10 year old kid living in a new, unfamiliar place.

Cyntia: And it was definitely a little bit of a culture shock just because, you know, one, I didn’t speak the language, and two, you know, like I’ve never seen a lot of diversity within one place

We used to live in a really small studio and basically I would just like confine to those four walls and there wasn’t really much to do.

Aubrey: Slowly but surely, Cyntia started learning English and getting to know her neighbors. She was feeling more and more at home in the Tenderloin. But she was still missing one thing: open space.

Cyntia: I come from a community where like, kids were out in the streets playing at all times of the day. It was safe, you know you could go to the parks, you can just like play around, and like actually feel safe.

Aubrey: But things in the Tenderloin were different from Mexico City. Back in 2010, the neighborhood had a real open space problem. First off, the parks that did exist weren’t safe for kids and families like Cyntia’s.

Cyntia:. You know, it was back then like a haven for, you know, unhoused folks. Macaulay Park back then was like the place where all the teenagers would go and do a lot of like, you know, things that they were not allowed to do yet. We had almost like a curfew of like the hours that it was okay for us to go there. And it was mostly like right after school. and then anything after that, it was kind of like off limits.

Aubrey: And second, there just wasn’t a lot of open space to begin with. Here’s Hunter Franks, the director of Inviting Spaces at the Tenderloin Community Benefits District.

Hunter Franks: so the Tenderloin is extremely dense. There are a lot of rooms that are extremely small and cramped. And so a lot of folks turn to outside, and outdoor space to have the ability to be in a space of wellbeing and just get some fresh air. The Tenderloin neighborhood has 0.2 acres of open green space per 1000 residents. And the rest of the city has, I think it’s about five acres per 1000 residents of open green space.

Aubrey: In other words, the Tenderloin has under 9 square feet of open space for each of its residents, compared to 220 square feet for the average San Franciscan. That’s the difference between the size of a small bath towel and a one car garage.

Hunter: You know, a lot of the streets in the Tenderloin when they were designed originally were laid out as one-way, three-lane-wide streets that took people from the financial districts out to, you know, their houses or the suburbs. And so they’re very much freeway-like at times. And then in terms of the air quality, I think also is impacted

Aubrey: So, what’s a neighborhood with cramped housing conditions, unsafe parks and streets, and a lot of kids and families, to do? Well first, organizations like TLCBD got to work on the spaces they already had, like Sergeant MaCauley Park, the same park Cyntia remembers illicit activity at when she was a kid. And now, as an adult, she wanted to help make that change happen.

Cyntia: I actually started with TLCBD as a park captain coordinator. I was stationed at Macauley Park. So basically I would get there like super early in the morning, you know, to when like the park opened. First things were like to sort of like, set up a resource table for people as well as I started doing like some cleaning of the park.

Aubrey: As the park captain, it was Cyntia’s job to make sure the space was safe, clean, and accessible. Over the course of a day, she might set up arts activities for kids and pass out water to unhoused folks.

Cyntia: Like it definitely gave me a different view of what it’s like to be in the parks all day. You see the same people like coming by to say hi to you, like the kids walking to school, running because like the bus is leaving and they’re running late and you know, like you get to learn their names. And more than anything, like making those organic relationships with everyone and elevating their voices because we wanted to provide a platform for people to actually be able to say like, this is working, this is not working. Like, this is what we want to see and this is how we can make it happen.

Aubrey: Community groups took that input and started making physical changes to spaces like Boeddeker Park, too.

Hunter: Yeah, so Boeddeker Park is a beautiful park. It was renovated back in 2015. Prior to that it was kind of a space that was pretty unsafe. You know, parents would tell their kids not to go there. There’s a lot of open air drug dealing that would happen there, a lot of crime. And [Then] Rec and Park and Trust for Public Land and others came together and renovated the space.

Aubrey: They painted a mural and installed a new jungle gym. And as they made these changes to parks like Boeddeker, community groups had to keep in mind the Tenderloin isn’t just home to young families with kids. The parks should also serve the many senior citizens who have lived in the neighborhood for decades.

Hunter: You know, any time of the day you can go there. You’ll see Asian American seniors kind of walking around, a walking track that lines the outside of the park doing Tai Chi or Qigong. There’s a ping pong table there that’s very popular. So it’s really vibrant and active space. That is, you know, I think known around the city as a really beautiful park.

Aubrey: So, from 2015 to 2020, the Tenderloin’s parks were really changing, becoming safer and more accessible. But that didn’t change the fact that there just wasn’t much open space to begin with. Between the COVID-19 lockdowns and the 2020 California wildfires, open space was becoming more important than ever. So, the community started to get a little creative.

Hunter: We hosted an event called Play Streets. We partnered with Livable City to close down a street to cars for a day. And, you know, it was just one city block, but it made a pretty big impact in allowing space to be created. You know, there was no space there. And all of a sudden, you know, we have a whole block where it was safely stewarded and, and monitored and kids could, you know, ride their bike up and down the entire block instead of just up and down their hallway in their apartment building.

Aubrey: Groups have also been reimagining other kinds of spaces, including alleyways like Dodge Alley. It’s now home to bingo, gardening activities, and community workshops like the one Brightline organized about air quality this past October. It may be a small change, but it’s part of a growing tapestry of new and repurposed spaces in the neighborhood.

Hunter: Seems like a small thing to put in a block-long parklette. It doesn’t add, you know, a ton of space. It’s 1800 square feet. But I do think that it really creates a very important case for how crucial it is to have open space for folks in the neighborhood. And to show that it is possible to reimagine a parking lane as public space.

Aubrey: The Tenderloin is just one example of why open space isn’t just a nice amenity, but actually a critical community resource. The Trust for Public Land, a California organization, works to advocate for more access across the state. And they have good data to back that goal up. Here’s Terence Wu, a project associate with the Trust for Public Land.

Terence Wu: There’s studies that have shown that having green spaces or a view of green spaces actually increases quality of life and psychological health. And that’s really important, especially for seniors because they typically don’t have really high mobility. So having a neighborhood park is very, very important for them. It gives them a place to go outside, get some fresh air and just get some sunlight and be around other people as well as more natural aspects of any environment.

Aubrey: And parks are only going to become more important.

Terence: In the context of climate change, for example, a lot of these populations are pretty vulnerable without natural spaces, because natural spaces help mitigate the effects of climate change. So extreme heat, the presence of trees, plants, and green spaces can help reduce temperatures. Parks also help directly allow water to infiltrate into the ground so they reduce the intensity of flooding events.

Aubrey: They also have major benefits for local air quality.

Terence: And it’s an environmental justice issue because where neighborhoods tend to have lower income, where people are a little less wealthy, there’s also a correlation of less investment from cities or government agencies to improve those spaces.

Aubrey: So there’s no doubt that open spaces are important. But the neighborhood and partner stakeholders are still figuring out how to go about developing them in an equitable and just way.

Hunter: Gentrification is a real concern in the Tenderloin and rightfully so. You know, there are a lot of residents who’ve been here a really long time who can’t really afford to live anywhere else. And so I think TLCBD’s perspective is to always center resident voices and to center children, families, seniors, and small businesses first and foremost. And I feel confident that as long as we continue to do that, you know, residents will sort of lead us in a direction that doesn’t result in them being gentrified out of their own neighborhood.

Cyntia: People ask about gentrification in the Tenderloin, right? And about, you know, like, oh, well you’re making something beautiful, like that’s gentrification. And to me it’s like, I don’t think it is. People want and deserve open spaces and beautiful spaces. and I think we need to like change the narrative. I don’t see it as gentrification. I see it as, you know, something that needed to be done like 20 years ago.

Aubrey: Questions remain about what open spaces will look like in the Tenderloin, and how they’ll impact the community going forward. But Cyntia is hopeful about the future of her neighborhood.

Cyntia: I do not want kids to go through the same thing that I went through when I was a kid. I want kids to be able to like experience nature.

I want kids to be able to experience the outdoors. I want kids to be able to like be proud that they’re from the Tenderloin. And I want kids, to be able to say, you know, like I grew up in the Tenderloin. I have open spaces. Like it was a beautiful experience.

That’s what I’m going to keep pushing for.

Aubrey: This episode was written and produced by me, Aubrey Calaway. Original music by Maya Glicksman . Thank you to Eddie Ahn, Cecilia Mejia, Sarah Xu Maya Glicksman, Will Entwisle, Prathiba Tekkey, and Guillermo Rodriguez for support on research and writing, and to Katie Conry, Hunter Franks, Cyntia Salazar, and Terence WU. This podcast is funded by the Environmental Justice Small Grants from the California EPA.

For more information about Brightline, you can visit our website at BrightlineDefense.org or on social media @brightlinedefense. You can also find a transcript of this episode on our Medium Blog.

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