Tenderloin, San Francisco, California

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This article is about the San Francisco neighborhood. For other uses, see Tenderloin.

The Tenderloin is a neighborhood in San Francisco. It is known for its immigrant populations, ethnic restaurants, bar scene, and close proximity to the Financial District, Downtown and Civic Center.

Located close to San Francisco's major hotels, the Tenderloin is a historic place full of preserved hotels from early 20th century. The squalid conditions, homelessness, crime, drug sales, prostitution, liquor stores (over 60), and strip clubs give the area a seedy reputation. However, these conditions have also served to make rents in this area more affordable to low income and working-class families in a city known as among the priciest in the country, and the Tenderloin has one of the city's highest concentrations of children.

With some of San Francisco's most prestigious real estate only a few blocks to the north, and the Financial District's high towers and hotels just to the east (along Geary Street), the Tenderloin is often striking to tourists as a definitive example of microculture within the city. As with other lower-income neighborhoods like the Mission and SOMA districts, many artists and writers make the Tenderloin their home.

While the streets close to Market Street are among San Francisco's most undesirable neighborhoods, a gradual but distinct rise in income levels occurs as one travels north, ascending to the Nob Hill sector. Relative to other areas, the Tenderloin is the only largely working-class neighborhood within the downtown area.

The Dot Com boom in the late 1990s brought a great deal of redevelopment and resident inhabitation to the SOMA district in particular, but some revitalization funds put into the Tenderloin made a prominent impact — evident today by a much broader section of new ethnic restaurants and bars, as well as a more long-term young working class.

1 Area
2 History
3 Community
4 Parks
5 Restaurants and night life
6 Crime
7 External links

[edit] Area

The Tenderloin is not quite as easy to define as other San Francisco neighborhoods. A conservative description is for it to be bounded on the North by Post Street, on the East by Taylor and 6th Streets, on the South by Mission Street and on the West by Van Ness and 9th Streets. The northern boundary with Nob Hill is especially hard to define and can range as far north as Pine Street in western sections of the Tenderloin, such as the Polk Gulch neighborhood.

The Tenderloin roughly lies west of Union Square, south of Nob Hill, east of the Western Addition and Van Ness corridor, and north of SOMA ("South of Market").

It includes neighborhoods referred to as Mid-Market, Civic Center, Theater District, Lower Nob Hill, Polk Gulch, and Little Saigon. 'The Tenderloin' is almost never used in any real-estate listing; instead it is usually one of the above neighborhood names.

The extension of the Tenderloin south of Market Street in the vicinity of Sixth, Seventh, and Mission Streets is known locally as Mid-Market and is "Skid Row", or sarcastically, as "the Wine Country", an allusion to "winos" (street- dwelling alcoholics). The northern part of it beginning at Post Street is called a variety of nicknames including the Upper Tenderloin, "Lower Nob Hill" (widely used in real estate listings), or facetiously "The Tendernob", "Tenderloin Heights", or the "Trenderloin" (a reference to the area's increasing gentrification.) The eastern extent where it meets Union Square is known as the Theater District. Part of the western extent of the Tenderloin, Larkin and Hyde Streets between Turk and O'Farrell, was officially named "Little Saigon" by Mayor Gavin Newsom shortly after his election in 2004.

Nestled between successful commercial areas and high priced residential areas, parts of the Tenderloin have historically resisted gentrification, maintaining a seedy character and reputation for crime. The region includes City Hall, San Francisco Public Library, and the Asian Art Museum. Abandoned architectual landmarks are also located here, such as the old Hibernia Bank located on the dilapidated corner of Jones and McAllister Street, near a methadone clinic and Saint Anthony's soup kitchen.

[edit] History

The Tenderloin was born in the aftermath of the devastating 1906 Earthquake, when a large number of hotels were erected to accommodate the displaced victims of the disaster. By the 1920s, the city's wealthier refugees had moved on, and the abandoned hotels were converted into low-income housing. The Tenderloin became notorious for its concentration of illegal bars, or "speakeasies" during Prohibition, and has since remained the core of San Francisco's underworld.

There are a number of stories about how the Tenderloin got its name. One is that it is a reference to an older neighborhood in New York with the same name and similar characteristics. Another is a reference to the neighborhood as the "soft underbelly" (analogous to the cut of meat) of the city, with allusions to vice, graft, and corruption.

There are also some legends about the name, probably folklore, including that the neighborhood earned its name from the words of a local police captain, who was overheard saying that when he was assigned to another part of town, he could only afford to eat chuck steak on the salary he was earning, but after he was transferred to this neighborhood he was making so much money on the side soliciting bribes that now he could eat tenderloin instead. Another version of that story says that the officers that worked in the Tenderloin received a "hazard pay" bonus for working in such a violent area, and that is how they were able to afford the good cut of meat. Yet another story, also likely apocryphal, is that the name is a reference to the sexual parts of prostitutes (i.e., "loins").

Prior to the emergence of the Castro as a major gay village, the Polk Gulch at the western side of the Tenderloin was one of the city's first gay neighborhoods. Few of the gay bars and clubs still exist on Polk Street. Parts of Polk Street now cater to the recent gentrification of the neighborhood - such bars as Vertigo, Hemlock, and Lush Lounge.

Both the movie and book The Maltese Falcon were based in San Francisco's Tenderloin. There is also an alley, in what is now Nob Hill, named for the book's author (Dashiell Hammett). It lies outside the Tenderloin because the boundary was defined differently than it is today. Some locations, such as Sam Spade's apartment and John's Grill, also no longer lie in the Tenderloin because local economics and real estate have changed the character and labeling of areas over time.

[edit] Community

The Tenderloin is an ethnically diverse community, consisting of middle class families, young people living in cheap apartments, and recent immigrants from Southeast Asia and Latin America. It is also home to a large population of homeless and those living in extreme poverty. The neighborhood is home to numerous non-profit social service agencies and to numerous Single Room Occupancy hotels. All of this comes together to make this one of the most interesting and diverse neighborhoods in San Francisco.

With few exceptions, housing is rented in dense 4-6 story Edwardian apartment buildings. The Hamilton, on O'Farrell Street, is a 20 story former hotel which has condominiumized and is owner occupied.

White middle-upper income inhabitation ("gentrification") accelerated somewhat during and after the Dot-com boom of 1999-2001 in the northern blocks ranging from O'Farrell Street to Sutter Street.

One of the centers of community in the Tenderloin is Glide Memorial Church on Ellis & Taylor Streets. Glide provides social service programs to the area's residents and homeless and has been doing so for over 40 years. They serve over 1,000,000 meals a year to homeless and poor residents of San Francisco – most of whom reside in the Tenderloin. Cecil Williams has been leading Glide since 1963 and the Sunday Morning "Celebrations" are noteworthy for their gospel-jazz choir and band. The church and the surrounding neighborhood is the primary location of a movie filmed in the Tenderloin and starring Will Smith called The Pursuit of Happyness.

[edit] Parks

Bodecker Park, located at the corner of Ellis and Jones Streets, was unused by children and was commonly occupied by drug addicts or intoxicated people during the daytime. However, recent efforts to reclaim the park, such as erecting a gate and holding free concerts at the park, have resulted an increase in the use of the park by families and children.

Sgt. John Macaulay Park, a gated playground at the corner of O'Farrell and Larkin Streets, is commonly occupied by parents and their young children. The playground is well-maintained and lies next to a public restroom. It is across the street from a strip club.

[edit] Restaurants and night life

The Tenderloin has a number of restaurants of various types of cuisine, especially Vietnamese, Indian, and Pakistani. There are also some Italian and Mexican restaurants.

Many Tenderloin bars have withstood the test of time with their 1920s character and there is a mix of new bars and lounges. There are also numerous musical venues and theaters, especially in the northern and western parts of the Tenderloin. There are similarly many strip clubs. The Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater is the most famous, or infamous. Other strip clubs are clustered either nearby, on Market Street, or in the Theater District.

[edit] Crime

Prostitution is commonly seen on the streets in the area. Transgendered streetwalkers center on the area around Post and Polk Streets near one of the most famous transgender bars of the Tenderloin, Divas.^{[citation needed]}

Dealing and use of illicit drugs occurs on the streets. Property crimes are common, especially theft from parked vehicles. Violent acts occur more often here and are generally related to drugs. Separate statistics on gun violence are not reported but it is known to occur.^{[citation needed]}