Saturday August 22, 2026 | 4-5pm
At The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot venue | 835 Larkin St. SF, CA 94109
As we mark the 60th anniversary of the riot at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, TLM reflects on the ongoing production of The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot play alongside the role of performance and theater in activism and historicization. Susan Stryker, the historian who resurfaced the 1966 transgender-led riots as a critical moment in the burgeoning LGBTQ movement, leads a round-table discussion amongst The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot’s co-writers and long-time cast & crew.
Free to attend, donations welcome
Thursday August 13, 2026 | 5-8pm
At Dodge Alley (Turk & Larkin St.)
2nd Thursdays at Dodge Alley celebrates Transgender History Month with an evening of drag and dance featuring two longtime Tenderloin Museum and Compton’s Cafeteria Riot collaborators, Per Sia and Miss Jaylyn, with music by DJ Brown Angel.
Free to attend | No registration required
$15 vouchers for food/drink at nearby businesses first come first serve
Saturday, August 1, 2026 | 2:00-3:30 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
Please note: The tour guide will meet the group outside the entrance to the museum. The museum, however, is temporarily closed.
Register via Humanitix ($15)
There’s no better way to get to know the Tenderloin than by walking its streets! Traverse the neighborhood with our passionate, knowledgeable resident tour guides, visit key sites from the Tenderloin’s history, and connect these notable places to what’s going on in the neighborhood today.
Thursday July 30, 2026 | 6:00 PM
NEW LOCATION: 835 Larkin St., SF, CA 94109 (The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot venue!)
It is the greatest comeback since Lazarus! Bambi Lake has risen from the dead in the form of a new book. Wow. Did you hear? This book, aptly titled Devour Me, Again, features poetry and an interview series—words of wisdom and revolution, a time long gone; glitter, glam, queens colliding, and, of course, some gossip…
Out July 21 via Nightboat Books, this volume was edited by August Bernadicou of the LGBTQ History Project. This non-profit digital archive preserves primary sources of the LGBTQ+ liberation movement and makes accessible thousands of hours of oral histories with queer activists, performers, and “cutting edge catalysts.” Bay Area writer, rocker, and multi-valent performance artist Brontez Purnell contributed a beautifully written reflection on Lake as a foreword; Purnell will read at the July 30 TLM event alongside Donna Personna, Britney Smears, Stanley Frank, Fauxnique, Tahara, August Bernadicou, Birdie Bob Watt, and Nicole Henares and MORE!
Free to attend | Register via LGBTQ History Project Partiful
Tuesday July 28, 2026 | 4:30 - 6:30 pm
at The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot venue | 835 Larkin St. SF, CA 94109
Tenderloin Museum continues a years-long partnership with LaborFest, San Francisco’s annual month of grassroots labor programs, to present a panel on non-profit unions. Non-profit and NGO unionization is the fastest growing militant wing of the labor movement. Despite being ignored by the left media, these new mostly self-organized independent unions are taking on the “due gooder” myth of long hours, low wages and bad bosses—and they’re winning. Panelists include current and former non-profit & NGO workers and union staff union organizers. Much gratitude to Steve Zeltzer for organizing!
Panelists:
Robert Ovetz, moderator, Senior Lecturer, Political Science, SJSU
Author of the Rebels For the System: Non-Profits, NGOs, Capitalism and the Labor Movement (Haymarket Press 2027)
Katie Duberg, Bargaining Committee Member, CAWFC Workers United, CWA Local 9415, IG: @cawfcworkersunited
Fátima Murrieta, Pacific Northwest Staff Union (PNWSU), Writers Guild Staff Union NPEU, Shop Steward
Jeff Armstrong, PNWSU Organizing Officer
Free to attend | No Registration required
Saturday, July 25, 2026 | 2:00-3:30 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
Please note: The tour guide will meet the group outside the entrance to the museum. The museum, however, is temporarily closed.
Register via Humanitix ($15)
There’s no better way to get to know the Tenderloin than by walking its streets! Traverse the neighborhood with our passionate, knowledgeable resident tour guides, visit key sites from the Tenderloin’s history, and connect these notable places to what’s going on in the neighborhood today.
Monday July 20, 2026 | 7pm book event (6pm Appalachian music pre-show)
At Medicine For Nightmares | 3036 24th St. SF, CA 94110
Jesse Montgomery’s new book, It Is Not Enough To Survive: The Young Patriots Story, chronicles one of the New Left’s most evocative and enigmatic anti-racist organizations composed of poor white Southern migrants who helped found Fred Hampton’s Rainbow Coalition. Formed in the late 1960s, the YPO grew from a local street gang into a powerful political and social force in the city’s Uptown neighborhood, where it fought against police brutality, racism, economic exploitation, and displacement through community organizing, the establishment of survival programs, and working-class cultural organizations.
The milieu that created the YPO has several direct links to San Francisco and the Tenderloin by way of the radical student movements of the ‘60s and Oakland’s Black Panther Party. But more broadly speaking, the aims, discourse, and challenges of the YPO should resound in the Tenderloin. Our neighborhood, like the YPO’s Uptown Chicago, has been characterized by its dense population of embattled tenants, transplants, immigrants, and refugees struggling on the margins (or just outside of) the working class and perennially fighting against forces of urban renewal.
Due to TLM's unanticipated facilities-related closure, we are teaming up with our friends at Medicine for Nightmare, the superlative independent bookstore and community event space in the Mission, to co-present their event with Jesse Montgomery on Monday 7/20 at 7pm. Please join us there! Arrive early (6-7pm) to hear some old-time Appalachian music in homage to The Young Patriots while shopping at Medicina's excellently curated selection!" James Tracy, co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power, a book that helped open the field for Montgomery’s scholarly focus on the YPO, will introduce the author, Chika Okoye (Center For Political Education), and Finn Finneran.
No registration required | more info via Medicine For Nightmares website
Saturday, July 18, 2026 | 2:00-4:00 PM
Meet at SW corner of Geary & Powell Sts., Union Square, SF
Register to attend via Humanitix
Tenderloin Museum is thrilled to partner with Unspeakable Vice, “a volunteer history initiative making queer belonging accessible to everyone,” to offer a monthly walking tour focused on the LGBTQIA+ history in the Tenderloin and Polk Street neighborhoods.
Thursday July 16, 2026 | 6:30-8:30 pm
NEW LOCATION! UC Law SF Auditorium, 198 McAllister St., Lower Level
Celebrate Tenderloin Museum’s 11th Anniversary with a special presentation of West is West, featuring director David Rathod and actor Sumati Patel in conversation with novelist Shruti Swamy. Shot on location in the mid-1980s, this jaunty rom-com follows Vikram, a would-be student from Mumbai whose college plans quickly disintegrate, as he lands a room and a job in a Tenderloin SRO and falls in love with a plucky, punky artist working at a Market St. cinema. While he finds his footing in work and love, his visa runs low, imperiling his new life in San Francisco. Exploits ensue, making for a highly entertaining, fast-paced romp of a film that also happens to quite realistically portray the milieu of the TL at that time, with its network of Indian run residential hotels and seedy culture of movie-going on the bedraggled Mid-Market strip, as well as the ever-present challenges immigrants face attempting to live and work in America. All this, and a love story!
Originally released in 1987, this overlooked gem of local independent cinema stars Ashutosh Gowariker, who would go on to direct the Oscar-nominated Bollywood smash Lagaan, and was directed by David Rathod, who still lives locally and is an active filmmaker. Rathod will present West Is West in person, after which he and Sumati Patel, an actor in the film, will be in conversation with San Francisco-based writer Shruti Swamy.
$10 | Register to attend via Humanitix
Thursday July 9, 2026 | 5-8pm
At Dodge Alley (Turk & Larkin St.)
July’s 2nd Thursday at Dodge Alley features a Bay Area supergroup—The Sampaguitas play Filipino folk songs and inspired original music sung in glorious three-part harmony! Drawing influences from folk, blues, doo-wop girl groups, and the Filipinx-American diaspora, Jenevieve Francisco, Cristina Ibarra, and Aireene Espiritu share music from their roots and explore what it means to be in a “third culture” between worlds.
Free to attend | No registration required
$15 vouchers for food/drink at nearby businesses first come first serve
Wednesday July 8, 2026 | 7-9pm
At the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
NEW LOCATION! Yes SF Headquarters | 220 Montgomery St., SF, CA 94104
Your presence is requested at the San Francisco Commission on Sex in the year 2126. What is sex? Who has it? Who pays for it? What feels good? What is missing from the way we have sex now? What kind of sex do we want our descendants to have? How do our current laws, medical practices, and cultural norms affect the sex we have, or want to have?
“Future of Sex” gathers a speculative “San Francisco Commission on Sex”--set in the year 2126–to conjure a portrait of sex in the not-so-distant future imbued with radical and/or utopian visions we can see from the present. This “town-hall style” immersive, interactive collective imagining is presented as part of the inaugural Future of Us Festival and organized by Olivia Bratko, a regular actor in TLM’s Compton’s Cafeteria Riot. Join us on either July 7 & 8!
Sliding scale admission | Register via Future of Us Festival’s LUMA page
Tuesday July 7, 2026 | 7-9pm
At the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
NEW LOCATION! Yes SF Headquarters | 220 Montgomery St., SF, CA 94104
Your presence is requested at the San Francisco Commission on Sex in the year 2126. What is sex? Who has it? Who pays for it? What feels good? What is missing from the way we have sex now? What kind of sex do we want our descendants to have? How do our current laws, medical practices, and cultural norms affect the sex we have, or want to have?
“Future of Sex” gathers a speculative “San Francisco Commission on Sex”--set in the year 2126–to conjure a portrait of sex in the not-so-distant future imbued with radical and/or utopian visions we can see from the present. This “town-hall style” immersive, interactive collective imagining is presented as part of the inaugural Future of Us Festival and organized by Olivia Bratko, a regular actor in TLM’s Compton’s Cafeteria Riot. Join us on either July 7 & 8!
Sliding scale admission | Register via Future of Us Festival’s LUMA page
Indigenous Forever, a new gallery show at Tenderloin Museum, featuring paintings by Adrian Arias that honor the strength, wisdom, and continuity of Indigenous cultures, has been postponed, with a new opening date to be announced.
Tuesday June 30, 2026 | 4-6pm
at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
TLM presents Indigenous Forever, a new gallery show of paintings by Adrian Arias that honor the strength, wisdom, and continuity of Indigenous cultures. Join us on the evening of June 30th for a special preview reception with the artist. Opening during the 4th of July holiday and the United States’ milestone 250th year as a nation, Indigenous Forever reframes notions of place, belonging, and permanence in a poignant and timely conceptual gesture. The humble postage stamp, one of the most fundamental trappings of modern statehood and a basic currency for communication, is enlarged and remixed, memorializing the land, its Indigenous people and their culture. Medicinal plants, native flora and fauna, and sacred designs from several Indigenous cultures past and present comprise the visual vocabulary of Indigenous Forever, symbolizing solidarity amongst the land and its original inhabitants, and celebrating place and people without the overlay of divisive, extractive colonial states. Tenderloin regulars will recognize the imagery from this Indigenous Forever gallery show from an evocative mural of the same name on Larkin St. unveiled in the spring of 2025–many of the paintings in this show served as studies for the mural. Indigenous Forever is on view July 1 - October 3, 2026.
Free to attend | No Registration Required
Friday June 26, 2026 | 8-9pm (timed to coincide with the conclusion of Trans March)
at 33 Turk St. (outside of the Timbri Hotel at the corner of Turk & Taylor Streets)
TRANSMARSH is a free outdoor vertical dance performance by trans people, for trans people — and all who love them. The show features B Dean/BODYSTORM, Pangaea, and tome performing on the Taylor Street facade of the Timbri Hotel, soaring over the intersection of Turk and Taylor Streets, the site of both the 1966 trans led Compton’s Cafeteria Riots and present-day for profit reentry housing for the incarcerated. TRANSMARSH kicks off Pride Weekend by rewilding the Transgender District with the trans history and ecology alive in the Tenderloin's soil.
8pm TRANSMARSH preview performance | Free; register via Eventbrite
Thursday June 25, 2026 | 7 - 9pm
at 33 Turk St. (outside of the Timbri Hotel)
TRANSMARSH is a free outdoor vertical dance performance by trans people, for trans people — and all who love them. The show features B Dean/BODYSTORM, Pangaea, and tome performing on the Taylor Street facade of the Timbri Hotel, soaring over the intersection of Turk and Taylor Streets, the site of both the 1966 trans led Compton’s Cafeteria Riots and present-day for profit reentry housing for the incarcerated. TRANSMARSH kicks off Pride Weekend by rewilding the Transgender District with the trans history and ecology alive in the Tenderloin's soil.
The Thursday evening “preview” performance is preceded by a trans history walking tour led by community historian and advocate Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer at 7pm–separate registration required (as space is limited). The night also features a performance by Skywatchers, GRAVITY Access Services, and Oaklash Block Party at the Timbri Hotel, with local drag performers and DJs.
7pm Trans History Walking Tour | Free; register via Humanitix; space is limited!
8pm TRANSMARSH preview performance | Free; register via Eventbrite
Saturday, June 20, 2026 | 2:00-4:00 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
Register to attend via Humanitix | Admission to the Tenderloin Museum included with ticket
Tenderloin Museum is thrilled to partner with Unspeakable Vice, “a volunteer history initiative making queer belonging accessible to everyone,” to offer a monthly walking tour focused on the LGBTQIA+ history in the Tenderloin and Polk Street neighborhoods.
Saturday June 13, 2026 | 2-3:30pm
Meet at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
$15 or $25 (with TLM admission) | Register via Humanitix
Discover the work of Herman C. Baumann, who ushered modern multi-unit hotels and apartments into the Tenderloin with distinctive flourishes inspired by Spanish Colonial Revival and baroque styles. Seasoned walking tour guide, historian, and emeritus city planning professor Linda Day continues her spotlight series on notable architects whose post-quake buildings define the TL’s built environment.
Attendees will visit the San Francisco city landmarked Gaylord Suites at 620 Jones street, originally a residential hotel. Inspired by the buildings of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, it is embellished with a Spanish Colonial Revival building entry, facade, and lobby. The tour will also visit the Farrellworth at 601 O'Farrel, which is another stunning example of using this design vocabulary. Baumann often ornamented his buildings with terra cotta to express baroque details because it could be molded into intricate shapes and then fired with colorful glazes. A walk-by of Princess Apartments, 155 Hyde, shows his elaborate use of terracotta. In addition to this iconic trio, Day’s tour will highlight nine buildings that illustrate Baumann's artistry, equally divided between apartments and hotels.
Thursday June 11, 2026 | 5-8pm
At Dodge Alley (Turk & Larkin St.)
Free to attend | No registration required
$15 vouchers for food/drink at nearby businesses first come first serve
The Tenderloin Museum and TLCBD continue monthly “2nd Thursday at Dodge Alley” block parties featuring live music and presented as part of TLM’s ongoing “Sounds of the Tenderloin” program series. On June 11, TLM welcomes a master musician and special visitor from Cuba and some of the Bay’s most dedicated practitioners of Afro-Cuban music to share an evening of changüí, the folkloric Afro-Cuban party music from the country’s mountainous Eastern province. The lineup will feature:
Jose Andres aka “El Sinsonte” - lead vocals and auxiliary percussion
Jose Andres is the lead singer/songwriter of the Latin-Grammy nominated Changüí Guantanamo; and a living master of the 10-line Decima poetry.
Einar Leliebre - lead percussion and second voice
Einar Leliebre (“Tito”) is rated “First Level” (the highest level for musicians in Cuba) both as a percussionist and vocalist, and has toured the world in Afro-Cuban folkloric troupes. He recently accompanied Omar Sosa on the Bata Drums at SFJAZZ's Miner Auditorium with the Stanford Big Band.
Ernesto Mazar - baby bass and backup vocals
Ernesto Mazar toured the world with Charanga Habanera for a decade. He is the bassist in Omar Sosa’s Quarteto Americano, and was offered the prime spot as the steady bassist for Los Van Van, Cuba's most world-renowned band.
Kai Lyons - “tres” Cuban guitar and backup vocals
Born and raised in San Francisco (Excelsior District), Kai Lyons graduated from Ruth Asawa School of the Arts with the Excellence in Guitar award. He currently teaches at SFState, CSU East Bay, and the Berkeley Jazzschool. He has studied music in Cuba 16 times.
Thursday June 4, 2026 | 6:30-8pm
At the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
The Tenderloin knows and loves Sheena Rose as a fixture of the queen scene at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge. Earlier this year, Sheena–aka Jacob Anthony Rose–published a powerful debut memoir entitled Stillness and Survival: A Life Between Trauma, Glitter, and the Echo of My Own Voice. TLM kicks off Pride month by celebrating this essential TL artist’s story of survival, queerness, and becoming with a reading and drag show ft. Bliss, Kelly Rose, Olivia Hart, & Sophilya Leggz!
$10 Suggested Donation (+ tips for drag performers) | Register via Humanitix
Saturday May 30, 2026 | 3:30-5pm
At the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Mary TallMountain's poems evoke a deep sense of home and homelessness, separation and belonging. Join TallMountain’s friends and fellow poets Kitty Costello and Kim Shuck for a writing workshop that uses her work to guide us toward these themes in our own lives, in our own words. Presented in conjunction with the exhibit Finding Our Way Home: Mary TallMountain in the Tenderloin.
$10 or $6 for TLM Members (includes admission) | Register via Humanitix
Thursday May 21, 2026 | 6:30-7:30pm
At the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Discover the little known history of Indian immigrants from Gujarat who established a flourishing hospitality empire through strong community, mutual aid, hard work, and sacrifice. Mahendra K. Doshi’s book Surat to San Francisco chronicled for the first time how Patel “trailblazers” laid the groundwork for a vast network of Indian-owned hotels in San Francisco’s central city. The author will share this inspiring American success story at TLM with a lecture and screening of the 2025 short documentary inspired by his work, Patel Motel Story.
$10 Suggested Donation | Register to attend via Humanitix
Saturday, May 16, 2026 | 2:00-4:00 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
Register to attend via Humanitix | Admission to the Tenderloin Museum included with ticket
Tenderloin Museum is thrilled to partner with Unspeakable Vice, “a volunteer history initiative making queer belonging accessible to everyone,” to offer a monthly walking tour focused on the LGBTQIA+ history in the Tenderloin and Polk Street neighborhoods.
Thursday May 14, 2026
At Dodge Alley (Turk & Larkin St.)
Free to attend | No registration required
Sruti Sarathy and Gopal Ravindram share an evening of traditional South Indian melodies on the Carnatic violin and the mridangam, spanning traditional raga, improvisation, and original songs. Live music and local businesses animate the Tenderloin’s Dodge Alley every 2nd Thursday of the month, with support from the TLCBD & SFOEWD.
Tenderloin Museum continues the 2025-2026 season of “Sounds of the Tenderloin” programs with another “2nd Thursdays at Dodge Alley in collaboration with the TLCBD. This month, we welcome Sruti Sarathy, a leading Carnatic musician with a soulful, imaginative approach to Indian violin. Born and raised in the Bay Area as a diaspora kid, Sarathy began her training in the South Indian Carnatic music as a prodigious three year old. Her lifelong practice in this classical tradition formed the basis for a decorated career as a performer, composer, researcher, and interpreter. She regularly performs at top Carnatic music gatherings in the Bay Area and across both the United States and India; she is also a prolific collaborator, most frequently as a composer-performer for dance and theater pieces. Now, she splits time between California and Chennai, so we are lucky to have her talents on the streets of the TL!
$15 vouchers for food/drink at nearby businesses first come first serve!
Saturday, May 9, 2026 | 2:00-3:30 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
$15: Tour only / $25: Tour + museum admission | Register via Humanitix
There’s no better way to get to know the Tenderloin than by walking its streets! Traverse the neighborhood with our passionate, knowledgeable resident tour guides, visit key sites from the Tenderloin’s history, and connect these notable places to what’s going on in the neighborhood today.
Film screening & post-show discussion + Zhan Petrov’s HOW I SEE
Thursday, May 7, 2026 | 6:00-9:00 PM
6:00pm DOORS + HOW I SEE (2025, 15 mins) / 6:30pm CHALK (1996, 140 mins)
at Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix
TC (Kelvin Han Yee), a Korean pool prodigy, dominates the local talent, but his brother (Johnnie Reese) sets up a match with ruthless, gambling tournament player Dorian James (Don Bajema) that has dire stakes for their family and local hall. Will TC fold?
Maverick filmmaker Rob Nilsson returns to TLM for a revival screening of CHALK, his 1996 pool-hustling film cast from the Tenderloin Action Group, his long-running acting workshop that mingled TL denizens and local performers. Set in 1990s Richmond, CA at the hardscrabble Crabtree pool hall, CHALK marries high-stakes billiards with family drama of Shakespearean scope.
A post-show discussion will feature Nilsson, longtime production manager Mira Larkin, Tenderloin Action Group co-founders Rand Crook and Ethan Sing, as well as professional pool player Billy Aguero, aka “Billy the Kid,” who designed the pool matches in the movie.
“It is not just one more ‘Hustler’ clone, but a plunge into the hermetic world these characters have created and inhabit.” — Roger Ebert
Saturday, May 2, 2026 | 2:00-3:30 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
$15: Tour only / $25: Tour + museum admission | Register via Humanitix
There’s no better way to get to know the Tenderloin than by walking its streets! Traverse the neighborhood with our passionate, knowledgeable resident tour guides, visit key sites from the Tenderloin’s history, and connect these notable places to what’s going on in the neighborhood today.
Saturday, April 25, 2026 | 2:00-3:30 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
$15: Tour only / $25: Tour + museum admission | Register via Humanitix
There’s no better way to get to know the Tenderloin than by walking its streets! Traverse the neighborhood with our passionate, knowledgeable resident tour guides, visit key sites from the Tenderloin’s history, and connect these notable places to what’s going on in the neighborhood today.
CANCELLED DUE TO RAIN!
Tenderloin Museum is thrilled to partner with Unspeakable Vice, “a volunteer history initiative making queer belonging accessible to everyone,” to offer a monthly walking tour focused on the LGBTQIA+ history in the Tenderloin and Polk Street neighborhoods.
Saturday, April 11, 2026 | 2:00-4:00 PM
Meet at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
Register to attend via Humanitix | Admission to the Tenderloin Museum included with ticket
Created by downtown San Francisco resident and professor at California College of the Arts Shawn Sprockett, Unspeakable Vice began as a close look at the queer origins of San Francisco, traversing the city’s North Beach and Barbary Coast areas to trace the history through from 1770-1960. This new tour extends Sprockett’s richly detailed and craftily delivered approach to the TL and Polk Street to offer a deep dive into the emergence of LGBTQIA+ icons and movements that shaped the area from the 1960s to the 1990s.
2nd Thursdays at Dodge ft. Poets of the TL
Thursday April 9, 2026
At Dodge Alley (Turk & Larkin St.)
Tenderloin Museum continues the 2025-2026 season of “Sounds of the Tenderloin” programs with another “2nd Thursdays at Dodge Alley in collaboration with the TLCBD. This month, we present an evening of poetry (and a bit of accompanying jazz!) in honor of National Poetry Month and in celebration of Finding Our Way Home: Mary TallMountain in the Tenderloin at TLM. Over roughly two “sets,” this month’s show will feature readings and performances by:
Kitty Costello - Mary TallMountain’s literary executor, friend, and fellow poet
Kim Shuck - Cherokee Nation poet, weaver, bead work artist, and 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco
Jesse James Johnson - author of Mine is a Community of Misfits and Outlaws and recipient of the most recent Mary TallMountain Award
Joel Yates - poet, Tenderloin advocate, and Skywatchers/ABD Productions Lead Artist
Nazelah Jamison - poet, emcee, vocalist, and recently named the 2026 Janice Mirikitani Poet Theologian in Residence at Glide Memorial Church
Adrian Arias - multi-disciplinary artist, poet, and performer and creator of two recent large scale murals in the TL: River to the Sky and Indigenous Forever
+
Charles Curtis Blackwell - poet, playwright, painter, and dean of the TL art scene
Devorah Major - writer, performer, educator, and 3rd Poet Laureate of San Francisco
Perform with two master musicians: Sandra Poindexter (Violin) & Donald Griggs (Trumpet)
Free to attend | No registration required
$15 vouchers for food/drink at nearby businesses first come first serve
A fundraising gala benefiting the upcoming Indo-American Hotelier History Exhibition at the Tenderloin Museum
Saturday, April 4, 2026 | 6:00—9:30 PM
The Green Room, San Francisco War Memorial, 401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, CA 94102
Opening reception for Finding Our Way Home: Mary TallMountain in the Tenderloin, an exhibition celebrating the life, work, and words of an essential Tenderloin voice.
Thursday April 2, 2026 | 5-8pm (talk/screening at 6pm)
At the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
A new exhibit at TLM celebrates longtime Tenderloin resident and Native Alaskan (Koyukon Athabaskan) poet Mary TallMountain (1918-1994). Her extraordinary personal journey of recovery, writing, and cultural reclamation is told through key poems, rare photos, and video performances, with special emphasis on her community writing practice in the TL and how her legacy endures and inspires from SF to the Yukon.
Organized in collaboration with TallMountain’s literary executor, friend, and fellow poet Kitty Costello, this exhibit tells her incredible life story, sharing her biography interpolated with select notable poems and performances, with a particular focus on how Mary made a home for herself in the Tenderloin, how the neighborhood affected her, and how she shaped it in return.
The exhibit reflects a broader renaissance around TallMountain’s life and poetry locally as well as in her homeland of the Alaskan Interior. Opening at the start of National Poetry Month, TLM’s TallMountain exhibit coincides with the launch of Denakkanaaga’s Mary TallMountain Project and seeks to manifest TallMountain’s life and work once again in the heart of the neighborhood that was so much a part of her life, sharing her legacy with old friends and a new generation of readers, writers, and community advocates.
Saturday March 28, 2026 | 2-3:30pm
Meet at TLM | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
$15 | Register via Humanitix
Past and present, the Tenderloin has been home to a multitude of theaters, from movie palaces to grindhouses and cabarets to clubs. Linda Day leads a survey of some of our district’s notable stages and screens, exploring these theaters’ architecture, programming, iconic characters, and evolutions in tandem with the Tenderloin’s history.
Thursday March 19, 2026 | 6-8pm
At the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Free to attend with registration via Eventbrite
Join Mission Local for a community conversation on activating green spaces in the Tenderloin.
On March 19 at the Tenderloin Museum, a team of experts will sit down with Mission Local reporter Eleni Balakrishnan for a conversation on Tenderloin parks and green spaces and how community groups have mobilized to create them.
The speakers will dig into the history of efforts to get parks and public spaces created in the Tenderloin, obstacles to those efforts, and future plans.
The conversation will bring together:
Aseel Fara, who was raised in the Tenderloin and now works for the Planning Department
Curtis Bradford, a community organizer for the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, who was heavily involved in Tenderloin Community Action Plan to bring investments to the neighborhood
Esan Looper, who works with the Tenderloin Community Benefit District and played a critical role in the reopening of Boeddeker Park in 2014.
Larry Kwan, head of St. Anthony's that has played a vital role in cultivating green spaces in the Tenderloin.
Artwork will be on display from the youth of the Boys & Girls Club’s Tenderloin Clubhouse in response to the prompt: What do you envision for your community parks and green spaces?
The St. Anthony’s team will table at the event and be present to speak with community members about their role in activating green spaces.
Appetizers will be provided by Cantoo, a local Venezuelan-Chinese fusion restaurant. Come snack, mingle and share ideas with the staff of Mission Local.
Tenderloin Museum is thrilled to partner with Unspeakable Vice, “a volunteer history initiative making queer belonging accessible to everyone,” to offer a monthly walking tour focused on the LGBTQIA+ history in the Tenderloin and Polk Street neighborhoods.
Saturday, March 14, 2026 | 2:00-4:00 PM
Meet at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
Register to attend via Humanitix | Admission to the Tenderloin Museum included with ticket
Created by downtown San Francisco resident and professor at California College of the Arts Shawn Sprockett, Unspeakable Vice began as a close look at the queer origins of San Francisco, traversing the city’s North Beach and Barbary Coast areas to trace the history through from 1770-1960. This new tour extends Sprockett’s richly detailed and craftily delivered approach to the TL and Polk Street to offer a deep dive into the emergence of LGBTQIA+ icons and movements that shaped the area from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Thursday March 12, 2026
At Dodge Alley (Turk & Larkin St.)
Free to attend | No registration required
Live music returns to the Tenderloin’s Dodge Alley in 2026! Cascada de Flores share an evening of song and story, drawing on their vast repertoire and curiosity for the multitudes of Mexican music and its cross cultural reverberations. Música from the heart: song, dance, and story for all ages. $15 vouchers for food/drink at nearby businesses first come first serve!
Saturday, March 7, 2026 | 2:00-3:30 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
$15: Tour only / $25: Tour + museum admission | Register via Humanitix
There’s no better way to get to know the Tenderloin than by walking its streets! Traverse the neighborhood with our passionate, knowledgeable resident tour guides, visit key sites from the Tenderloin’s history, and connect these notable places to what’s going on in the neighborhood today.
Saturday, February 28, 2026 | 2:00-3:30 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
$15: Tour only / $25: Tour + museum admission | Register via Humanitix
There’s no better way to get to know the Tenderloin than by walking its streets! Traverse the neighborhood with our passionate, knowledgeable resident tour guides, visit key sites from the Tenderloin’s history, and connect these notable places to what’s going on in the neighborhood today.
Thursday February 26 , 2026 | 6:30 - 8:30pm
at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix
$50 / $35 (TLM members) full series tickets available at this link.
Film #9 in Rob Nilsson’s Tenderloin epic 9 @ Night. The sinking fortunes of an Oakland art cinema mirrors a shaky marriage. Michelle wants to program high minded films while her co-owner husband prefers "vintage porn" promoted by St. Tre, owner of a strip club and escort service. St. Tre's boy friend Ben Malafide, a recent inmate, begins to think life in prison is preferable to the "freedoms" of polite society. Bills pile up, homeless people begin to camp outside the theatre and, oddest of all, the theatre itself begins to speak.
Tuesday February 24 , 2026 | 6:30 - 8:30pm
at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix
$50 / $35 (TLM members) full series tickets available at this link.
Film #8 in director Rob Nilsson’s 9 @ Night film cycle. Bobby is a latch-key kid, a lonely 9 year old boy who plays at home as his single mother works to support them. Pan. an ex-convict tries to father a dysfunctional family of street people in an encampment by the railroad tracks. He tries to teach Bobby about life on the streets but violent consequences await those who challenge society's taboos.
Saturday February 21, 2026 | 2:00 - 3:30pm
Meet at Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
$30 GA / $20 Members | Register to attend via Humanitix
In celebration of Black History Month, TLM teams up with the “Mayor of the Tenderloin” and Tenderloin Blacknesscreator Del Seymour to offer a special walking tour highlighting the contributions and culture of the Black community in the TL past and present.
Thursday February 19 , 2026 | 6:30 - 8:30pm
at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix
$50 / $35 (TLM members) full series tickets available at this link.
Film #7 in director Rob Nilsson’s 9 @ Night film cycle. Petite robs johns in order to support Tyrone, a failing pool hustler. Jane works as a stripper in a Tenderloin club. Lou, Jane's mother and a heroin addict, is a renegade aging prostitute who works the streets in defiance of the pimps. Francesca manages an escort service and does phone sex. In a profession which thrives on fantasy and martyrdom these women struggle to hold onto their reasons for caring for each other.
Tuesday February 17 , 2026 | 6:30 - 8:30pm
at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix
$50 / $35 (TLM members) full series tickets available at this link.
Film #6 in Rob Nilsson's Tenderloin epic 9 @ NIGHT. A scheme is a dream with street smarts. but doomed to fail. Bid's father is a cop but Bid is an urban outlaw on a motorcycle determined not to need family or society. Yve, his anarchistic girl friend and Grey, his accomplice in stolen auto parts, are part of his scheme to stay one step ahead of the law. Bid invites rebellion but discovers loneliness.
Saturday, February 14, 2026 | 2:00-3:30 PM
Meet at Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102
$15: Tour only / $25: Tour + museum admission | Register via Humanitix
There’s no better way to get to know the Tenderloin than by walking its streets! Traverse the neighborhood with our passionate, knowledgeable resident tour guides, visit key sites from the Tenderloin’s history, and connect these notable places to what’s going on in the neighborhood today.
Thursday February 12 , 2026 | 6:30 - 8:30pm
at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix
$50 / $35 (TLM members) full series tickets available at this link.
Film #5 in director Rob Nilsson’s Tenderloin epic 9 @ Night. Phil Berkowitz, a 60 year old North Beach poet, survivor of the days of wine and roses, has a stroke. Helpless, he lies in his flea bag Tenderloin hotel room and is found by Johnny, part-time janitor in a seedy strip club run by St. Tre and Malafide, now operating under the name Modisco. Johnny tries to help him regain his speech and plays Cupid, Introducing him to Svetlana, a waitress, and alcoholic. Svetlana feels sorry for Phil, but Phil mistakes kindness for attraction.
Tuesday February 10, 2026 | 6:30 - 8:30pm
at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix
$50 / $35 (TLM members) full series tickets available at this link.
Film #4 in director Rob Nilsson’s Tenderloin epic 9 @ Night. SINGING follows Perry Truman, an accountant from the suburbs, rejects a tryst offered by his live-in girl friend of 20 years. She wants to rekindle their love. He has just quit his job. Wandering the Tenderloin that night he is drawn into a series of dangerous and erotic street encounters. Everyone sings in SINGING, except the real singer. Perry sings the same song twice but with different meanings. At the end he sings like a man who knows he has failed to live passionately.
Thursday February 5, 2026 | 6:30 - 8:30pm
at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix
$50 / $35 (TLM members) full series tickets available at this link.
Film #3 in director Rob Nilsson's Tenderloin epic 9 @ NIGHT. ATTITUDE follows Spoddy, an impossible small time auto thief who alienates everyone. Then he is diagnosed with AIDS. Stunned, and in denial, he confronts his girlfriend, sister of two tough partners in crime. She rages at him. Where did he get it? Spoddy rages back. “I spread what I want." The bottom is about to fall out of his life.
Tuesday February 3, 2026 | 6:30 - 8:30pm
at the Tenderloin Museum | 398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix
$50 / $35 (TLM members) full series tickets available at this link.
Film #2 in Rob Nilsson’s Tenderloin epic 9 @ Night. USED follows two pilgrimages to Reno. Malafide and Johnny hop trains to seek inspiration from People T, an ex-con Cherokee healer. But St. Tre takes would-be paramour Kenny by plane to play cards. Out in the Nevada desert one voyage ends in reconciliation... then suicide. The other ends empty-handed back where it started. Everyone has used and been used. A latter day WAITING FOR GODOT. but in constant motion.
Thursday January 29, 2026 | 6:30-8:30pm
398 Eddy St. SF, CA 94102
Tickets: $10 GA / $6 TLM members | Register via Humanitix
$50 / $35 (TLM members) full series tickets available at this link.
Film #1 in director Rob Nilsson’s 9 @ Night film cycle. Ben Malafide (Robert Viharo), arrives in San Francisco by ferryboat after 20 years in Federal Prison. He finds a world run by misdirection, euphemism, equivocation, downright lies and which avoids direct answers to any given question. Street raw meets digital glitz and Ben is transported...then thwarted.
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