Open Letter on The Tenderloin and Sunday Street

I'm glad that  Jill Tucker reported on Sunday Streets in the Tenderloin for the San Francisco Chronicle.  I just wish the headlines had been a bit different.  Instead of "Tenderloin's respite from the seedy side," I wish it had been "The Tenderloin shows a changing face." 

Back in the days when I thought SRO meant  Standing Room Only, I went to the Tenderloin only for shows at the Golden Gate and the Exit theater--and maybe for a dip into McDonald's Dirty, Poorly Lit Place for Books at 48 Turk Street. 

But now I know that SRO also  means Single Room Occupancy--something I first learned from a Laotian immigrant in my class at City College when, drawing a map of his neighborhood, he asked me for the English word for "look at naked lady."   Peep shows, the word he was looking for, are much less prevalent in the Tenderloin now than are people like him and his children, refugees who started moving into SROS in the 1970s, after what the Vietnamese call The American War.   In fact, according to the Sunday Streets web site, the Tenderloin houses the highest number of families with children in San Francisco.

I was in the Tenderloin on Sunday with other faculty and staff of City College of San Francisco when a Tenderloin resident pointed towards Eddy Street and said, "School closed!"  We told her that, yes, 750 Eddy Street was closed, but there was another campus.  "Too far!"  She said, and we understood that she didn't yet know about the new location of the Civic Center at 1170 Market Street. 

City College, like Recreation and Parks' Sunday Streets, tries to serve the people in every neighborhood.

When I started volunteering for the CCSF enrollment campaign, which included community based organizations in the Tenderloin, I notice the banners proclaiming, "409 HISTORIC BUILDINGS IN 33 BLOCKS.  YEAH, WE'RE PROUD" beside another banner saying "LIVING IN THE TEN."  Now I've read Randy Shaw's book The Tenderloin and know more about those historic buildings and some good reasons for the residents to feel pride instead of scorn.   Last Sunday I saw a group of people painting "Living in the Ten" in big letters. 

Just as we want to get out the word that City College is open and accredited and has a new location for the center on Eddy Street that was closed so abruptly at the beginning of the year, I'll bet the Tenderloin would like it to be known that they now have a Safe Passage program, leading children on a yellow brick road from home to school and back.  On Sunday Streets I followed that route, more or less, and saw several beautiful community gardens including The Tenderloin National Park on Ellis Street.  I also saw  the site for the extension of the 826 Valencia writing project  at 172 Golden Gate near Leavenworth and the site for the Tenderloin Museum, which opens this Thursday at 398 Eddy Street.

The Tenderloin really does have a changing face and a fascinating history.