Sunday Streets Tenderloin #1
April 19th, 2020 | 11:00am – 4:00pm
With open streets, free activities and plenty of chances to meet your neighbors, Sunday Streets most urban route celebrates the centrally-located and densely-populated Tenderloin, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.
Blocks of Fulton, Hyde, Larkin, Ellis and Golden Gate Avenue transform into a temporary park for all, with over a mile of open streets accessible to the district’s families, youth and seniors for two yearly Sunday Streets Tenderloin events.
In partnership with Lers Ros and Turtle Tower restaurants, Sunday Streets will present the second annual Thai New Year in Little Saigon with a South East Asian Food Fair. Larkin Street from Eddy to O’Farrell will transform into a celebration of Thai and Vietnamese culture and the Tenderloin community on April 19.
Car-free streets offer an intimate way of interacting with the area’s array of authentic and affordable restaurants, small businesses and nonprofit services. Pick up an Explore Local Map for your guide to all things local – grab a banh mi or a bubble tea, learn about the area’s history at the Tenderloin Museum, or explore Larkin’s Street’s Tenderloin Community Garden.
Home to large apartment buildings, fabulous architecture and many SROs, the area’s culturally diverse population includes a high percentage of families. Sunday Streets works with local residents, businesses and nonprofits to create programming tailored to the unique needs of the district.
For Sunday Streets Tenderloin’s fall event, click here.
TRANSIT & LIVABILITY
Per capita, the Tenderloin contains the lowest amount of open space in the city. One of the few is the beautiful Tenderloin National Forest, an unofficial city park created from an alley on Ellis Street – look for its bright red gates!
Though Tenderloin streets are thoroughfares for downtown traffic, its residents have the lowest percentage of car ownership citywide. The district experiences the largest number of pedestrian traffic fatalities and contains the most high-injury corridors in any neighborhood, and all are part of the Vision Zero high injury network.
Supervisor Matt Haney has called to create permanent car-free space in the area – an idea inspired, in part, by Sunday Streets Tenderloin.
DID YOU KNOW?
The Tenderloin is a historic and ongoing center of LGBTQ activism, including the 1966 Compton Cafeteria Riot, the first recorded militant uprising by the queer community against police harassment in US history. In 2017, Compton’s Transgender Cultural District was approved to preserve and continue the neighborhood’s legacy.
The Tenderloin got its name because police once bragged that the price of bribes afforded them the highest grade of beef.
In 2004, the city recognized the two-block corridor of Larkin Street between Eddy and O’Farrell streets as “Little Saigon” for its thriving Vietnamese American population and culture.