Sharing tales of Tenderloin life.
Two artists found Temporal Cities to collect, share residents’ stories in the neighborhood
Nearly 30,000 people live in the Tenderloin. Not counting all the people who have passed through or moved on, right now, in this moment, there are no less than 30,000 stories to be told about this neighborhood of 50 square blocks. There are stories of births and deaths, of falling in love and getting dumped, then drunk. There are stories about a church that has saved more than a few lives, and a bar full of glittered-up drag queens.
There are all these stories, but the one that gets told the most is the one about a neighborhood with sidewalks that smell like urine, full of people desperate for help. The story about a neighborhood people just don’t go to after a certain time of night.
Radka Pulliam and Lizzy Brooks wanted to collect all the other ones. “I live on Ellis and Larkin/ I call my apartment/
‘Two hundred and/ fifty feet of heaven’./ There is no place/ like home,/ and there is no place like/ the Tenderloin”
It’s been about five years since Pulliam and Brooks started collecting stories in the Tenderloin. They didn’t know when they first set up a typewriter in Ramon’s Tailor on Jones Street and invited people to use it that the project would last so long (or even survive the night). They certainly didn’t know that eventually they’d come to gather 400 stories, creating an archive they now call Temporal Cities.
This summer, they began returning bits and pieces of those stories to the Tenderloin, spray-painting them in chalk paint on the sidewalk for the world to read so that the neighborhood could feel seen and so that others might finally see it.
“People who live here are not being heard,” Pulliam says.
“There’s just a really rich history here,” Brooks adds.
“She said Damn Girlie/ you look like you’ve had/ a loooooong day./ It was the first time/ I felt cared for in weeks.”
Pulliam and Brooks first met at the art space Southern Exposure in the Mission District, working as mentors in an after-school program. Pretty quickly they realized they lived just a couple of blocks away from each other in the Tenderloin.
A monthlong stay at the Motel 6 on Geary Street turned into permanent residency for Pulliam. Brooks landed here after moving to the city for a boyfriend who became a husband, though now the two live in the Richmond.
After a while, Brooks and Pulliam started collaborating on a one-off art project about a neighborhood they’d come to love. The stories were almost an afterthought, an add-on to a piece that involved projectors and archival photographs of the Tenderloin. But soon the stories took over. They keep saying they’re done. They never are. Instead, they collect more stories, they create a video, they plan for a book.
“The Tenderloin is/ a very special place for me/ because it’s the only place/ that has the beat/ and the rhythm/ of San Francisco”
The story about poverty and a neighborhood in need of more support than it gets isn’t untrue; both women understand that, and they don’t ignore it.
“It’s hard to see so much suffering daily,” Brooks says. But it’s also important to acknowledge it. “I feel like a lot of people choose not to really deal with the fact that (these issues) exist.”
These stories aren’t meant to hide the hurt. They’re a nod to the area’s complexity, to the families eating dinner, and the people without homes. These stories are first
and foremost for the people living here, but they also call to those that would rather look away.
“I used to work for/ a bar called the Basement./ Before it was the Basement,/ it was the 222 Club and/ before it was the 222 Club,/ once upon a time,/
it was the/ Black Hawk Jazz Club”
It’s a big number, 400 stories, especially considering all the time Brooks and Pulliam have spent at the Tenderloin Museum pulling stories out of people. But they’ll be the first to tell you their collection is incomplete. Not everyone tells their story so easily, and there are nearly 30 languages spoken in this neighborhood. They have plans to work on it, it’ll just take time.
“It has its own life. We don’t need to rush it,” Pulliam says. “It’s there.”
As for how they pick the
stories that wind up on the street, it’s more an art than a science. “I think we both like to look for something specific yet vague,” Pulliam says.
“The person I miss the most/ used to live in the Tenderloin./ Maybe he still does/ but I haven’t seen him/ in a couple of years./ His name is Alex/ and I used to call him/ German Alex.”
What the two artists leave behind on the sidewalk is only part of why they put it down. As they walk around the Tenderloin — paint-freckled shoes, a pull cart full of stencils — they do a lot of talking.
“This is a neighborhood where people talk to each other a lot on the street,” Brooks says. “So there are a lot of people who are curious about what we’re doing and have something to say.” She loves it. The sun was starting to set when Greg Doxey found them laying out a fresh stencil outside the Essex Hotel on recent afternoon.
“Do your thing,” he said to them. “Make this neighborhood beautiful.”
Doxey had been wondering who was painting up the sidewalks. “They’re beautiful. They tell the truth about the neighborhood. That we’re still here.”
The paint, words in black and pink, had already dried.
“I love the Tenderloin/ and the people/ who make it memorable.”
“It’s hard to see so much suffering daily. I feel like a lot of people choose not to really deal with the fact that (these issues) exist.” Lizzy Brooks, co-founder, Temporal Cities