A quiet sliver of green amid the chaos
The Tenderloin District is the city’s “gut”; a gritty 50-block area roughly bordered by Geary Boulevard and Union Square to the north, the Civic Center to the south, Market Street to the east, and City Hall to the west. Its name refers to a similar neighborhood in late-19th-century New York City, and it has been popularized in such books as Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon.
Although in recent years the incidence of violence in the Tenderloin has receded, the district is still known locally for corpses, as well as live nude girls, suburban johns, transvestites, gang members, big-time jazz musicians (the likes of Brubeck and Monk), writers, actors, felons and ex cons, refugees from Vietnam and the Philippines, Palestinians running the corner markets, and of course transients down on their luck—or their mental health.
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Address 509 Ellis Street, San Francisco, CA, 94109, www.luggagestoregallery.org, +1 415.255.5971 | Public Transport Bus: 38 (O’Farrell St & Leavenworth St stop) | Hours Tue–Fri 11am–3pm| Tip Stop in for an inexpensive and tasty banh mi at Saigon Sandwich (560 Larkin), which the New York Times has said "may be the best in America."
And in the midst of this urban wilderness is the “Tenderloin National Forest,” formally known as Cohen Alley, a 25 by 136-foot strip of green space between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets. At the entrance you’ll find a massive handcrafted wrought-iron gate that’s generally open from 10am to 5pm beyond which is a unique interlude of lush foliage, trees, boxes of herbs and edible flowers, and a fish pond surrounded by bright murals and a mosaic-covered floor.
Artists Darryl Smith and Laurie Lazer of the Luggage Store Gallery have been slowly transforming the alley into this little art oasis since 1989. It’s a quiet and peaceful sanctuary nestled in a cluster of residential buildings and hotels, an eccentric gathering spot to enjoy public art—and the right place to come if you need your slacks mended or a button replaced: on the 15th of every month, the artist Michael Swaine arrives with his old sewing machine and repairs clothing free of charge.
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