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.  

Click here for more info.

“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

Purchase tickets via Humanitix

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.