The Tenderloin – Humming With Life

 Posted by on August 4, 2011
Aug 042011
 
The Tenderloin – San Francisco
Hyde and Golden Gate
This is panel one of a new mural on the U.S. Postal Service office building  at the corner of Hyde and Golden Gate.  It was done by Johanna Poethig, whose work we saw in The Tenderloin National Forest and Tutubi Plaza.  This mural is titled humming with life.  If you hop over to her blog. where she has posted lots of pictures of the activities that took place around her while she was installing this blog you get a sense of how apt the title its.

This is directly from her blog – “Humming With Life”, the title of this mural is an understatement.  The Post Office building at the corner of Hyde and Golden Gate is a magnet for drug dealers, crack addicts and homeless folks looking for a spot to lie down.  The Tenderloin has long been the neighborhood that offers services to the down and out so this is where they live  with the vibrant mix of cultures and community in the North of Market of downtown San Francisco. The Civic Center Post Office does not sell stamps or send mail.  It has endless rows of post office boxes for people without permanent addresses.”

She has truly added a bright spot in a rather sorry part of town.

Update: The Post Office is slated for demolition.  

The Tenderloin – 20,000 Missing Seats

 Posted by on July 31, 2011
Jul 312011
 
The Tenderloin – Market Street Junction – San Francisco
6th -Taylor – Market Street

This fascinating piece is on the back side of Show Dogs Hot Dog Stand at the corners of 6th Street, Taylor and Market.

The mural is an homage to those movie and performance art theaters (Strand, Unique, Embassy, Rialto, Granada, Regal, Imperia, Pantages, Tivoli, Hub, State, Egyptian, etc) that once graced this area of Market Street prior to the 1906 earthquake and up into the 1950’s.  It is part of the S.F. Arts Commission 2011 Art in Store Fronts Project.

The artist is Rafael Landea an Argentinean artist who moved to San Francisco in 2002. He earned his MFA in Painting and Set Design from the University of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Obviously his passion for set design and theater was the impetus for this mural.

SOMA, Tenderloin, Market Street, July 30, 2011

 Posted by on July 30, 2011
Jul 302011
 
Bears Around San Francisco

A while back I was walking in my own neighborhood, SOMA,  (this is Berwick and Heron off of Harrison or 8th Streets) and in this little alley I came across this great big bear.

Well as I was wandering The Tenderloin Forest, I came across this guy

I knew I had seen this work before and was happy to see another wonderful character.  Then last week I was driving through the intersection of Market and 6th Street and what do I see?

The artist is Chad Hasegawa.  He was born in Hawaii and has quite a repertoire.  This excerpt is from an interview he did with Blackbook Art Magazine.

“Grizzly bears are just something I enjoy painting and I really enjoy painting them big. They represent an outsider coming into a tamed city of walls all the way from nature. They represent the West and a lot of other things, especially in San Francisco. The way I see it, they came here first. And they probably came here for the same reasons we came here. San Francisco is an amazing place and in this 7×7 mile radius there is a lot going on here with the weather, the hills, the water, and the fog. I mean, there were 10,000 grizzly bears that used to live here and were forced to get along and agree with one another and stand together, and they were so stoked to be here that they had to be sucka free and didn’t mind living so close together. Or there were some bears that just didn’t get it and were forced to leave or left here on their own, just like us. ”

 

 

Tenderloin – Alcazar Theater

 Posted by on July 16, 2011
Jul 162011
 
Alcazar Theater – Tenderloin – San Francisco

This is the center section of the Alcazar, it is flanked by two matching wings.

In 1976, the Alcazar was awarded the highest rating for architectural significance in a survey of city buildings.   Located at 650 Geary Street, between Jones and Leavenworth in the Tenderloin, it was built in 1917 at a cost of $150,000 as the Islam Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. The Shriners, a men’s social and charitable organization of the Freemasons, used the building until 1970. The building was designed by Scottish-born architect Thomas Patterson Ross. The Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board referred to its style as Moorish Byzantine Eclectic, a style inspired by Oriental and Persian architecture.  Some sources indicated that Ross, also a Shriner, was inspired by the Moorish palace of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain.

The Shriners’ continued to use the building for meetings and other lodge functions until 1970, when it became the 511-seat Alcazar Theater. The name recalls an historic theater on O’Farrell Street that burned in 1906. A new Alcazar had been built on that site, but was demolished in 1963 to create a parking lot. The Alcazar Theater closed in 1984 but reopened in 1992 after undergoing a controversial rehabilitation.  The garage was not a later addition but part of the original design. The Shriners often included commercial space in their buildings to help pay for the building and their other charitable projects.


Windows into the Tenderloin

 Posted by on July 14, 2011
Jul 142011
 
Windows into The Tenderloin – San Francisco
Mona Caron
Wandering the Tenderloin area of San Francisco you will come upon this mural on the corner of Jones and Golden Gate by Swiss born, San Francisco based, artist Mona Caron.
The project was spearheaded by the North of Market/Tenderloin Community Benefit District. The design was inspired by research and meetings with neighborhood residents, communities and organizations over the summer and fall of ’08. The mural was painted in ’09, and dedicated in March 2010.
Standing on Golden Gate Avenue, this part of the mural shows a view looking North from Market and Jones Streets. This is one of the entry points to San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, and it is the location of the mural itself.  It is sort of a documentary, showing how the artist found the area while she was working on the project. The ghost-like buildings that rise up into the sky represent the “ghosts of the past”, and each shows a building or a thing that actually used to exist in the location it is drifting from. Starting with the first one on the left, that was the Panorama, a 19th century place of Entertainment.  Apparently, there were several in the neighborhood, they consisted of round or dodecagonal buildings that housed 360 degree murals that people paid to view.  The large ghost in the right hand panel is the Paramount theater, an art deco building that was torn down in 1965.
This is a nod to the southeast Asian community of the Tenderloin.
On the Jones side of the building, the mural was painted right to left, so I will show the panels in that order.
This is another “ghost”.  The reference is to the Black Hawk Jazz Club that was at the corner of Turk and Hyde Streets from 1946 to 1963, it has its own absolutely amazing history, with all the greats having played there at one time or another.
The wisp of smoke is coming from a saxaphonist,  it ends up becoming the “ghost” hawk.
This parking lot still exists, and the painted sign on the brick wall is one of my favorites.  It belonged to the Hollywood Billiards parlor.  The tag in the far right hand corner is also, still on that building.
The front of that brick building now is covered with the Fear Head Mural.
The actual Hollywood Billiards Mural
This is the fantasy panel.  It is an exact copy of the one next to it, only this time, what the artists and locals would like it to look like.  Apparently, the artist was often asked why she was painting the same thing twice, and she told them the idea behind it and asked them what they would like it to be, she incorporated these ideas into this panel.
This is a garden.  The “seeds” are small tiles, painted by children at the Boys and Girls Club across the street.
It is difficult to photograph in places like this, the amount of people walking by coupled with the enormous amount of cars that go through that intersection all make it hard to do this piece of work justice. The details are just unbelievable, and the work is truly some of the very best.  I encourage you to visit Mona Caron’s website.  There you will find very, very close up photos, as well as some much better overall shots.  Also, take the time to go through the panels, she gives such a wonderful history of the Tenderloin.

The Tenderloin National Forest

 Posted by on July 13, 2011
Jul 132011
 
Still in the “Tenderloin National Forest”.  The Alley is so narrow that getting the larger murals is pretty difficult, so I apologize for the quality of many of these, they just had to be taken on an angle to get them all into the frame.
There is so little information available about the artists that did the murals, many of them are attributed to the “Trust your Struggle” collective.  I wish I could bring you more information, but enjoy the murals.
This one is titled “Bounce”
This reads “Our Lady of the Alley” Why do I know there is a wonderful story there somewhere.
“Power is in the face of the people”
this mural was here before the project began, it is by world famous muralist Brett Cook Dizney.

The Tenderloin National Forest

 Posted by on July 12, 2011
Jul 122011
 
Steel Gate by Kevin Leeper
I stopped short when I saw this beautiful gate. It is the entry to Cohen Alley off Leavenworth, near Eddy.  This is the Tenderloin, an area of town that starts many a conversation.    It has a fascinating history,  if you are interested, head over to wikipedia.  I was amazed at the things I learned about this area.
What most people think about the Tenderloin is high crime, but at the same time the high concentration of apartment buildings in the Tenderloin gives it the densest population (people per square mile) in the city, and also the highest proportion of families and children.
It is also one of the poorest, with a median family income of around $20K, a figure that is less half the overall city average. The area has a large number of immigrants from Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America, and the 2004 demographic summary stated that the Tenderloin is home to the city’s entire Cambodian population.”

Kevin Leeper is a San Francisco Art Institute graduate and part time teacher at Diablo Valley College. He designed and fabricated the gate in 1993 in response to the local residents wish to have a more secure area at night.  What this door opens onto is “The Tenderloin National Forest”.  In 1989 a group of artists formed the nonprofit Luggage Store Gallery. The artists annexed the 25 by 136 foot alley and began slowly transforming it. The idea to build a forest was sparked when the group covered the area with rolls of sod as part of one of its many public events. The forest consists of cherry, cypress and Japanese maple trees plus a pair of redwoods, the tallest of which is four stories high. Edible plants and herbs grow in raised boxes, and aloe, cactus, ginkgo and ferns are scattered throughout.

I was unable to find the artist that did this mural.
The site is now officially sanctioned by the city, which charges the gallery a symbolic annual rent of $1. It is left open for visitors daily between roughly noon and 5 p.m.
 
These “Guardians” are by Johanna Poethig.  We have seen her work in Tutubi Plaza
 
This is the bottom half of Woon Socket.  The top half can be seen over the fence in the first photograph.  This is by Ricardo Richey and Andrew Schoultz.
*
These amazing mosaics are entitled cultural geometry by Rigo 23 a Portuguese muralist, painter, and political artist.
I borrowed this from the San Francisco Chronicle, I just really needed you to see the entire mosaic. This was obviously taken during the installation, the greenery is so much more lush and the trees so much bigger, you would not get this shot today.



Tenderloin – Fear Head Mural

 Posted by on April 5, 2011
Apr 052011
 

Golden Gate and Market
The Tenderloin

This mural is entitled “Fear Head” it was installed as part of the Wonderland exhibit in 2009.  The creators are Roman Cesario and Mitsu Overstreet.  Wonderland was the brain child of a teacher at SF Art Institute, Lance Fung.  Wonderland created a lot of interesting chatter in the blogsphere at the time.  Adrienne Roberts of SFMOMA wrote of her concerns, that I felt were a tad highfalutin regarding bringing art to the tenderloin. You can read her article, Wonderland a World Turned Upside Down, here.

For those that don’t live in San Francisco, it is “considered” the last bastion of serious poverty and homelessness in the city, read “scary” neighborhood.  I prefer the take of locals (expressed by a blog (sadly closed) called livintheloin)   for a more honest take, they greeted and appreciated this whirlwind of art that arrived in their backyard.

This is the description of the piece by the artist:
In San Francisco there is a giant monster watching the people of its neighborhood walk by its enormous head. It sees its residents and visitors with six enormous eyes walk by with the looks on their faces and the experiences that happen day by day. This monster has a face of fear. Why is it in a state of fear? Well you see this enormous head is fed everyday and its food is saturated in this horrible emotion. The homeless feed it everyday every time a police officer is on the same block. The Police feed it everyday when ever they get a call about violence. The onlookers feed it as they watch the police and the ambulances wail through the streets. The immigrants feed it everyday as they try to assimilate themselves into San Francisco and the United States. The Prostitutes feed it every time they meet a new John. The drug addicts feed it when they don’t get in contact with their dealers. The drug dealers feed it when they go meet their clients. The Tourists feed it when they walk a bit too far from the plaza. This head eats and eats and has become to be in a permanent state of fear. Every time it eats it gets bigger snorting lines of the poverty stricken and getting drunk on the urine of the schizophrenics as bedbugs infest its skin. It can taste the worlds fear pouring down its streets. It fiends for the unhealthy. It looks at the unemployed like its staring down at a buffet.

This enormous face and head is a mural and it lives in the Tenderloin.

I don’t want to get into the appropriateness of art in one neighborhood or another, I have always felt art was for the masses, and should be as public as possible.  Walking in neighborhoods where you feel uncomfortable works both ways on the socio/economic ladder.
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