Writing a new chapter for dicey Tenderloin site
Tenderloin landlord Paul Boschetti was more than a little skeptical when a local real estate broker phoned to say a local nonprofit was interested in leasing his building at 172 Golden Gate Ave.
Boschetti has owned buildings in the Tenderloin for 40 years. One thing the Tenderloin, already heavy with social- services providers, didn’t need, in his opinion, was another nonprofit.
“I said, ‘ No way. I’ve had it up to here with nonprofits,’ ” he said, waving his hand up over his head.
But as it turned out, the organization that broker Santino DeRose had in tow was not just any social- services group. It was author Dave Eggers’ 826 Valencia, the San Francisco pirate store and children’s writing center, a place that feels part writers’ workshop, part Victorian bookbinder and part joke shop from Harry
Potter’s Diagon Alley. Not a fellow with a literary bent, Boschetti, an Italian immigrant and former airplane mechanic, had never heard of 826 Valencia.
But he agreed to check it out.
“I went over there reluctantly,” he said. “When I saw what they were doing for the young people of the neighborhood, how much fun the kids were having, I immediately changed my mind,” he said. “If I was a kid I would like this kind of stuff myself.”
15- year lease
It took a while to hammer out, but last week Boschetti and 826 Valencia agreed to a 15- year lease. Rent is about 25 percent below market and the first year will be free. It will be the largest of 826 Valencia’s seven locations — a 5,000- square- foot space with windows wrapping around the northeast corner of Leavenworth Street and Golden Gate Avenue.
Bita Nazarian, executive director of 826 Valencia, said the organization has raised $ 1.8 million for the project and hopes to drum up another $ 2.2 million. The $ 4 million will cover capital expenses as well as providing enough money to operate for the first year or two. She hopes to open in January.
She said the center would start with two main programs: the bookmaking and storytelling program, similar to the one in the Mission District, as well as an afterschool education and activities program for middle and high school students, in partnership with groups like Boys and Girls Club and the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp.
The opening comes as Mayor Ed Lee has been pushing to expand the successes of Mid- Market Street into the Tenderloin.
While the Mid- Market renaissance has brought 12,000 jobs and 5,400 housing units into the area, along with arts organizations, critics have questioned whether the investment flooding in has benefited the mostly poor families in the Tenderloin’s residential hotels and low- income housing buildings.
Some have suggested that Market Street’s gain has been the Tenderloin’s loss — that as drug dealers and vagrants no longer feel comfortable along Market Street, they drift up onto the already besieged blocks along streets like Leavenworth, Eddy, Golden Gate and McAllister.
Even in the Tenderloin — which has a high standard when it comes to troubled corners — the intersection of Golden Gate Avenue and Leavenworth Street is notorious. It was home to Big Boy Market, a store that Tenderloin Station police Capt. Jason Cherniss says was a “beehive of crime.” Supervisor Jane Kim said it was one of the three most problematic stores in the Tenderloin — a source of constant complaints about the sale of stolen goods. The landlord evicted the store after neighbors put pressure on the city to take action.
The location is in one of nine “action zones” Lee’s office has identified as central to efforts to make the Tenderloin safer and healthier. But improvements could take awhile — a visit to the corner this week found a brisk drug trade.
‘ At a crossroads’
“The Tenderloin is really at a crossroads right now,” Cherniss said. “That an entity like 826 Valencia is willing to come invest in a location like Leavenworth and Golden Gate, which really has a bit of a history, means that we are not the only ones who know we are at a crossroads.”
Cherniss said his kids have taken writing programs at 826 Valencia and “love it.”
“We are going to help support them. We are going to make sure they get a win out of this. The police are. We’ll be here,” he said.
Started by novelist and publisher Dave Eggers in 2002, 826 Valencia is now in seven cities and serves more than 6,000 children a year. Nazarian said that she was not looking to move into the Tenderloin, but that the organization’s board was talking about a San Francisco expansion when she got a one- line e- mail from Tenderloin Housing Clinic Director Randy Shaw.
“It said, ‘ We are ready for you in the Tenderloin,’ ” she recalled.
She was baffled — and then intrigued. At first 826 Valencia looked at operating out of the Tenderloin Museum, which is to open in June at Leavenworth and Eddy. They looked at space in a few other buildings, which were either too small or too expensive. Finally they checked out the former Big Boy building which, once renovated, will have 18- foot ceilings, brick walls and exposed wooden trusses.
The building started out as a warehouse where horse carriages were repaired, and then United Artists Theaters used it to store film and make popcorn. For the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development and Tenderloin neighbors trying to attract groups like 826 Valencia, the goal is to make the streets safer and healthier. They want busy retail on the corners, fresh produce in the stores, restaurants and stores that will benefit current residents by bringing in jobs, and people who have money to spend on things besides drugs. That will help places like the DeMarillac Academy, the inner- city Catholic School right across from 826 Valencia’s new home.
Face painting at corner
DeMarillac Academy hosts “Four Corner Fridays” at Leavenworth and Golden Gate, when kids and parents take over the corners for face painting and bubble blowing.
“The drug dealers are curious,” said Jennifer Kiff, director of Tenderloin Health Improvement Partnership. “They pull over in the cars and ask what’s going on and when we are leaving.”
One question everyone wants answered is what kind of store 826 Valencia’s Tenderloin outpost will have. In the Mission it’s the Pirate Supply Store. In Boston it’s the Bigfoot Research Institute. In Chicago it’s the Wicker Park Secret Agent Supply Co. And the Tenderloin? “It is going to have the same flavor with a new twist — a new twist that I will not divulge,” Nazarian said.