Walking San Francisco

Simone Star’s Balmy Alley mural Antepasadas (Ancestors) is just one of the many striking artworks celebrating Latin culture and heritage in the Mission.

PARKING: Off-street parking is available on the corner of Valencia and 18th Sts.

San Francisco’s most colorful, diverse, and creative neighborhood is the Mission. This broad, flat district is populated by Latino families, artists, hipsters, and a growing number of white-collar workers. Amid the bars, bodegas, taquerías, and upscale restaurants are many buildings distinguished not so much by the businesses operating there but by the art on the exterior walls. Murals—some in the tradition of Diego Rivera, others drawing on contemporary pop culture—are ubiquitous throughout the Mission. There are far too many works of art to take in on a single walk. This walk passes many of the key murals and ducks into a few shops to get a feel for the neighborhood. Take your time, slow down, and breathe it all in.

Our walk concentrates on the Latin-infused side of the Mission—the corazón, if you will. To sample the neighborhood’s latest trends and tastes, head to the 2-mile stretch of Valencia Street between Cesar Chavez Street and Duboce Avenue. Known as the Valencia Corridor, this is a treasure trove of coffeehouses, bars, parklets, and restaurants, with nary a chain to be found.

Walk Description

Start at the corner of Mission and 16th Streets, which is convenient if you’re arriving on a BART train. Unfortunately, this busy intersection often feels like the end of the line for a growing number of addicts and homeless, but thanks to the station, there’s plenty of foot traffic. Walk a block east on 16th and you’ll reach the

Redstone Building, at No. 2940. This building, also called the Temple of Labor, was a meeting hall for labor unions and played a pivotal role in the 1917 United Railroads Streetcar Strike. These days the building houses theater groups and nonprofits. During business hours, enter to view the murals that cover every inch of wall in the lobby and hallways. The murals, including works by Barry McGee, Rigo, Aaron Noble, John Fadeff, and Sebastiana Pastor, were unveiled in 1997. Many of the works here echo the styles of the Depression-era artists who contributed pro-labor murals in Coit Tower and elsewhere in the city. The artists who worked on the Redstone Building are all associated with the Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP), and we’ll see more of their works on the next stop of this tour. Across the street, you’ll notice the ornate exterior of the

Victoria Theatre, San Francisco’s oldest operating theater. Originally home to vaudeville acts upon its construction in 1908, the theater has changed with the times and the neighborhood. Cycling through various identities as a movie theater, Spanish-language cinema, burlesque house, and others, the Victoria now hosts film fests and various live events.

Return to Mission Street and, after crossing, turn left on Mission and right onto narrow

Clarion Alley. Without its continuous murals, Clarion Alley would just be a gritty alley inviting illicit activities. The alley’s transformation began in the early 1990s, when artists living in an artists’ loft midway up the block formed CAMP. The original group included Rigo, Aaron Noble, and Vince Oresman, among others, and some of their early works still survive on the alley’s continuous wall of backyard fences and garage doors. Many other artists have joined them since. (Rigo and Noble have moved on, and the warehouse they worked in has since been demolished.)

The murals here on Clarion reflect the influence of pop art, comic books, outsider art, and graffiti. Critics sometimes categorize the Clarion painters, along with other Mission District artists, as the Mission School. Sometimes their diverse styles are lumped into a catchall description: “urban rustic.” Near Mission Street, a work by Brian Tripp, an American Indian artist, represents just one of many cross-cultural connections established by Clarion Alley painters. The Mission Mural movement began as predominantly Latin American, with an obvious concern for immigration issues and the Reagan-era wars in Central America. Here the concept has broadened to embrace a postpunk and hip-hop street aesthetic. A lot of the work, such as Matso’s mural of ghosts emerging from the downtown skyline, are both political and cartoony. Clarion is a permanent work in progress. Over the years, weather has faded some of the older murals, while fresh new murals are continually introduced. Of late, taggers have had a hand in modifying the murals—Julie Murray’s realistic elevator painting, midway up the block, is almost completely obscured. (Not surprisingly, Murray has also painted movie sets for a living.) More murals are located one block north along Sycamore Street.

At Valencia Street turn right and then turn left at 17th Street. Make a left at Dearborn Street. At Bird Street, you’ll notice the

Dearborn Community Garden spanning both sides of the road. Here, more than 40 plots are carefully tended by neighboring gardeners on what was once a parking lot for a Pepsi bottling plant. As you approach 18th Street, the spectacular

Women’s Building comes into view. The mural on the building, called Maestrapeace, wraps like vines around two sides of the building. It was painted in 1994 by seven women artists, and thematically the painting celebrates women of all cultures. Walk a little ways up Lapidge Street to enjoy the inspiring artwork on the building’s east side.

Return to 18th Street and turn right. Then right again to follow Lexington to 19th Street and turn left. Across the street you’ll see the Precita Eyes Mural Vamos Gigantes showcasing local pride. Turn right onto Mission Street, one of San Francisco’s liveliest and most interesting streets. Amid the taquerías and tiendas you’ll see signs of the street’s pre-Latino past, from a time when this was a largely Irish neighborhood. Some blocks are dominated by the faded and rusted beacons of grand old movie palaces that closed down decades ago. Not all cinematic hope is lost, however.

Foreign Cinema has been showcasing movies on its elegant outdoor patio since 1999. Tables have drive-in-style speakers, but the real star of the show is the award-winning cuisine. Next door, new life was breathed into the

New Mission Theater, as the old Art Deco masterpiece was restored to glory in 2015 by the Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse group that brings food and drink to your cinematic experience. To get a real feel for the street, though, have a veggie burrito at

Taquería Can-Cun (between 18th and 19th Streets) or a carnitas taco at

La Taquería (between 24th and 25th Streets). If you’re not ready for a full meal yet, head left on 22nd to the corner of Capp Street for a quick side trip to family-owned

La Copa Loca, where an Italian gelato maker mixes the flavors of Central and South America with creamy scoops incorporating guanabana, tamarind, dragon fruit, lucuma, and other exotic tastes.

Returning to Mission Street, continue and turn left at 23rd Street. A few doors down, a barber shop is completely covered by

La Lucha Continua (The Struggle Continues), a mural composed of portraits of political and multicultural icons such as Pancho Villa, Martin Luther King Jr., Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, Mohandas Gandhi, Sitting Bull, and Che Guevara. The mural was supervised by Susan Greene but was a collaborative effort (as are many murals) that resulted in a rich variety of styles in the portraits.

Return to Mission and turn left. Continue on for a block and turn left onto leafy 24th Street, lined with shops, restaurants, and cantinas almost all catering to the Latin American community. This is the true heart of the neighborhood. While murals abound, be sure to stop at the corner of 24th Street and South Van Ness to admire

La Rumba No Para (The Party Won’t Stop), by artist Carlos “Kookie” Gonzalez in collaboration with Precita Eyes Muralists. The mural honors Chata Gutierrez (1953–2013), a DJ and community activist who championed Latin music with her radio show Con Clave. So beloved was Chata that the neighborhood raised funds to help her with her cancer treatments. Next to Chata, above the House of Brakes, is an homage to Carnaval San Francisco, a pulsating multicultural block party rife with costumed dancers, drumming, live music, and all manner of pageantry that the Mission throws every year over Memorial Day.

Backstory: Kinky Stuff

In December 2006, a historic building in the Mission District was sold: the old San Francisco Armory, a huge pile occupying an entire city block at 1800 Mission St., designed to resemble a Moorish castle. The buyer, Kink.com, is a producer of bondage films. So just when people were starting to worry that the Mission was getting less interesting, along came the porn industry to the rescue!

The building is strikingly well suited to its current purpose. It has a menacing medieval exterior, and the last surviving stretch of Mission Creek runs through its dungeonlike basement. According to filmmaker James Mogul, the boiler room was tailor-made for a film set.

Kink has also hosted art festivals, open to the public and suitable for all ages, so occasionally you can see what the building’s interior is like without consenting to appear in a movie. Kink’s ownership has also entertained the idea of developing condominiums in the building, but with a catch: each unit would come equipped with cameras that could capture the residents’ private moments on film. These days, the best way to get a feel for the vibe is to nurse a swank cocktail across the street at the Armory Club (1799 Mission St.; 415-431-5300, armoryclub.com), an atmospheric lounge that feels like a Victorian gentlemen’s club.

Just past Shotwell, you’ll come to the first of two great bookstores that each feature art galleries as well; a testament to the neighbohood’s rich independent art scene. The first is the worker-owned

Adobe Books & Arts Cooperative, a comfy spot with new and used titles and a plethora of author and community events. A few blocks down, you’ll find

Alley Cat Books and Gallery, another funky, freewheeling bookstore offering titles in Spanish and English and showcasing local artists. Across the street from the bookstore, turn right onto

Balmy Alley, the Mecca of the Mission District’s mural arts scene. It’s your classic back alley lined with garage doors and backyard fences, but the entire length of it is covered with colorful murals. Balmy predates Clarion Alley by nearly two decades. Some of the oldest murals on the block were painted in the 1970s by Ray Patlán and a group of women artists who called themselves Las Mujeres Muralistas—painters who favored the Mexican folk styles that inspired Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. At the time, their collectivist politics, florid color schemes, and phantasmagoric compositions also would have meshed fairly easily with the psychedelia of the Haight and the idealism of hippie communes. The machine guns are more Latin revolutionary than flower power, however.

As you enter the alley from 24th Street, Susan Cervantes’s mural of a woman giving birth is sure to grab your attention, followed by older murals inspired by Aztecan imagery and a mural depicting campesinas wielding AK-47s. New murals appear all the time. Some of the more contemporary works are by artists cut from the Clarion Alley cloth, and while not apolitical, these are stylistically less tied to the traditions of the Latin American left. Some works make use of stencils, while others are inspired by cinema and comics. Toward the end of the block, a mural pays homage to classic Mexican film stars, including the comedian Cantinflas, painted by Rigo. A native of Portugal, Rigo is one of the city’s better known contemporary artists, having made a visible impact on South of Market with prominent murals such as One Tree and Inner City Home. Here, in a more collaborative spirit, his work blends with the work of others. His Cantinflas shares the spotlight with an alluring dancing woman, painted by Carolyn Castaño. Walk to the end of the block and double back, taking in the art along both sides of the alley, and continue east down 24th Street.

Independent bookstores like Alley Cat Books and Gallery abound along 24th Street.

Half a block down, at No. 2981, is

Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitors Center, which is a great place to learn about the local mural arts scene. Founded in 1977 by muralist Susan Cervantes, Precita Eyes has overseen many important commissions throughout the neighborhood, including along Balmy Alley, and the center’s educational wing has produced many of the Mission’s artists. The shop sells postcard photos of murals and T-shirts with murals on them. Anyone wishing to delve deeper into the culture can gather books and information here. Precita Eyes also organizes walking tours of the neighborhood’s public art, sometimes led by local muralists.

Across the street, past Alabama Street, are a couple of very traditional Latino markets and panaderías (bakeries).

Casa Lucas, at No. 2934, is a colorful shop that’s useful if you’re in need of a piñata or a bottle of guava juice. On the corner of Florida Street, at No. 2884,

La Palma Mexica-Tessen is a classic purveyor of over-the-counter snacks, including excellent tamales and tacos. Grab a pack of hand-patted corn tortillas for an authentic treat. Sometimes you can spot women making them in the back of the shop.

Head to an authentic panadería to satisfy your sweet tooth with specialties like the niño envuelto (jelly roll).

At the corner of 24th and Bryant Streets,

Galería de la Raza is a neighborhood institution that was founded in 1970 by artists involved in the Chicano civil rights movement. The gallery is an interdisciplinary space where art is exhibited and performances are staged. The gallery often showcases provocative and controversial art that usually casts perspective on topical issues such as illegal immigration.

A block down 24th Street at York Street, you can end your tour over a milkshake at

St. Francis Fountain, a classic ice cream parlor that’s been dishing out scoops since 1918 and shows no signs of stopping. (They haven’t bothered to maintain museum-quality decor, but hey, the place is more comfortable for it.) You can also get a burger or BLT if you haven’t already filled up on delicious Mexican food.