SFAC

Nurturing art for and by the people, where they live and work.

Taylor Street in the Tenderloin

September 10, 2009

Elvin Padilla, Jr., Executive Director of Tenderloin Economic Development Project at the Tenderloing/Central Market launch event

Elvin Padilla, Jr., Executive Director of Tenderloin Economic Development Project at the Tenderloing/Central Market launch event


The Tenderloin is San Francisco’s most central neighborhood, positioned between Civic Center and Downtown. Adjacent to Union Square’s many hotels, Powell Street and Civic Center BART, shops and Theater District, the Tenderloin is a historic neighborhood with a diverse and international community of residents and businesses.

Download an Art in Storefronts pocket-sized map.

View Taylor St. in the Tenderloin in a larger map

The Tenderloin, and Taylor Street in particular, is rich in arts and cultural organizations. Building on this asset, a key community economic development strategy – supported by the Mayor – is to attract additional arts uses to and near Taylor Street. This new arts district will be anchored by the Golden Gate and Warfield, as well as a new endeavor called Gray Area Gallery which will feature a gallery, boutique, digital media lab, and artist studios on Taylor Street.

Contact: Elvin Padilla, Jr.
Executive Director of Tenderloin Economic Development Project
415-663-4010
eapadilla@gmail.com

Tenderloin Artists

116 Taylor: Our Busy Lives
Central City Hospitality House’s Community Arts Program is the only free-of-charge fine arts studio and gallery space providing materials, professional instruction, and sales/exhibition support to poor and homeless Tenderloin artists and neighborhood residents. Founded in 1969, the program is pleased to be marking 40 years as an epicenter of urban and ‘outsider’ art. Through the Community Arts Program, Hospitality House endeavors to showcase the unique and powerful cultural contributions Tenderloin residents make to the greater community.

144 Taylor: Fight For Your Neighborhood
Chris Treggiari & Billy Mitchell

Growing up in a family of social workers led Chris Treggiari, a Root Division Resident Artist, to eschew the art “establishment” in favor of public performances that allow him to interact with a broader audience and the public space outside of the art institution. Much of his work also involves collaborations, many times with local non-profits and usually involving mobile stages brought around SF to create public events.

Billy Mitchell is a 56 year old, disabled, black man who has lived and worked in the Tenderloin and SOMA for 20 years. He has also been a member of 6th Street Photography since 1995.

277 Taylor: Thingamajig: Nguyen is Nguyen
Betty Nguyen is the founder and creative director of First Person Magazine. She has been actively curating exhibitions for four years in San Francisco most notably the show “Cosmic Wonder” at YBCA in 2006 and last year’s “Carnivalesque” show for the Treasure Island Festival. Her own artistic work is not bound to material nor media, but utilizes the pop lexicon to recycle artist culture.

Other art happenings and community resources