Jan 23, 2024
Part 2 is a deep-dive into the
history of the Tenderloin, which we began toward the end of Part 1.
Katie digs into the infamous Compton's Cafeteria Riot and shares the
background and what lead to that fateful event.
After the moral crusaders
successfully passed new laws essentially controlling the lives of
women, the Tenderloin bounced
right back thanks to Prohibition, when the neighborhood's
nightlife effectively went
underground. Katie says that in the 1920s and Thirties, the TL was the glitzy, seedy
nightlife capital of the Bay Area, replete with bars and restaurants, some of which doubled as
gambling halls and brothels. Then came the 1940s, and World War II impacted all of San
Francisco, especially the Tenderloin.
Many servicemen were housed in
SROs in the TL before leaving for the Pacific. This
situation allowed gay members
to explore their sexuality. And it was this that established SF as a Gay
Mecca. Interestingly, the Army gave servicemembers a list of places
not to go in the Tenderloin, and the smarter
ones took that as a map
of where to go.
Then-Mayor George Christopher
had it out for the TL. His
brother had gotten into some trouble in the hood, and the mayor
blamed the Tenderloin itself, calling it a blight and generally scapegoating the
area. He led a crack-down on
gambling, removed the cable
cars, and created one-way
streets.
By the time the Fifties rolled
around, many came to see the TL as a hood to get away from. But
just a short decade or so later, in the 1960s, a significant migration of young people
to The City began. Many queer
folks landed in the TL and soon found that churches in the neighborhood were a safe haven,
especially Glide Memorial Church.
From this point in the story,
Katie shifts briefly to discuss the museum's work with Susan
Stryker, a trans historian and director of Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's
Cafeteria (2005). Stryker rediscovered and wrote a history of the
riot. She described Glide as
a "midwife" to LGBTQ history in San Francisco.
In the early Sixties,
sex workers didn't have legal means
of employment. Many of them
frequented Compton's because it was one of the few places in town
that served them. The joint was frequented by trans women, sex workers, and activists on most
days. Then, in 1966, SF cops
raided the place. The story goes that a trans woman poured hot
coffee in a cop's face, and all hell broke loose. It came to be
seen as a militant response
to police harassment.
Screaming Queens was
the first public program at TLM. In 2018, the museum produced an
immersive play about the riot
called Aunt Charlie's: San
Francisco's Working Class Drag Bar. Katie takes us on
a sidebar about Aunt
Charlie's, the last gay bar
in left in the Tenderloin.
TLM's plan was to produce play
again in 2020, and they've been hard at work since the pandemic to bring it back.
They now have a space on
Larkin to produce play year-round, so, stay tuned.
We end the podcast with a
discussion about the new neon sign outside the museum. Katie
explains that TLM is a fiscal sponsor of SF Neon, a
non-profit doing neon sign
restoration, walking tours, and other events.
We recorded this podcast at
the Tenderloin
Museum in November 2023 and January 2024.
Photography by Jeff
Hunt