[tech12]

Well mostly from the 5th floor, actually...



http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/2117/P1010082.jpg

The new federal building:

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/3756/P1010075.jpg

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/504/P1010074.jpg

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/1200/P1010073.jpg

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/4335/P1010067.jpg

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/5984/P1010046.jpg

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/4527/P1010050.jpg

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/7594/P1010042.jpg

This block was the scene of a gunbattle two weeks ago, that wounded 5 innocent bystanders, killing one of them:

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/7085/P1010066.jpg

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/3410/P1010058.jpg

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/7981/P1010063.jpg

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/1957/P1010078.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8494/P1010045.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/7381/P1010027.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/9729/P1010035.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/3458/P1010044.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/5220/P1010043.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/1314/P1010026.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/7372/P1010034.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/3528/P1010033.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8951/P1010036.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/3756/P1010075.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/7269/P1010076.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4695/P1010085.jpg

The Intercontinental Hotel rises:

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/9118/P1010088.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/306/P1010071.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/5264/P1010072.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/9926/P1010068.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/504/P1010074.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/1200/P1010073.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2117/P1010082.jpg

One Rincon Hill can be seen peeking through right here:

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4420/P1010087.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/5124/P1010084.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6995/P1010083.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4576/P1010080.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4335/P1010067.jpg

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/799/P1010089.jpg


And some older Street-level Pics from the area:

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/1498/P1010119.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/7304/P1010118.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/3660/P1010117.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/7524/P1010116.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/6900/P1010115.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/4382/P1010114.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/6227/P1010113.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/2481/P1010112.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/9391/P1010111.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/9230/P1010110.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/8929/P1010109.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/1662/P1010107.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/9021/P1010106.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/8272/P1010104.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/6662/P1010103.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/4977/P1010102.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/7035/P1010101.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/4473/P1010100.jpg

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/5893/P1010099.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/8462/P1010401.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1795/P1010400.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/9513/P1010398.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/4774/P1010379.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/6840/P1010377.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/4778/P1010368.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/4320/P1010269.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5457/P1010268.jpg

[Ex-Ithacan]

One of the unique cities in the US, but it ain't all pretty. Nice to see a litle bit of the city not in the brochures. Cool skyline pics too. Thanks for the mini-tour tech.

[OhioGuy]

Some of it may not be as pretty as we often see, but it still looks good to me! :)

[insanenuyawka]

OMG that gun incident makes me scared...Sometimes I wonder if I'll be one the"innocent bystanders" one day...I never mind going out late at night or in questionable areas.....Nonetheless great pics.

P.S. Guns should be illegal and not even exist!!

[sfcity1]

The Tenderloin is San Francisco Grit at its best The land of soup kitchens and bits of gentrification. The misson district (with a large mexican culture) is another area with alot of Grit, but also with alot of gentrification and yuppies, and great mexican food.

We need a Pacific Heights thread, where mansions, bay views and parks define 1 mile long area. :tup:

[Evergrey]

incredible pics!

[the dude]

love that town! dig the shots.

[ltsmotorsport]

Cool angle I don't think I've seen before.

[WesternGulf]

The Tenderloin is so photogenic in a weird way. Great photos.

[BTinSF]

The Tenderloin is San Francisco Grit at its best The land of soup kitchens and bits of gentrification. The misson district (with a large mexican culture) is another area with alot of Grit, but also with alot of gentrification and yuppies, and great mexican food.

We need a Pacific Heights thread, where mansions, bay views and parks define 1 mile long area. :tup:

The Tenderloin isn't so much soup kitchens these days as Pakistani food and these photos show at least one Pak restaurant in many of them.

Speaking of the gun battle, I'm not so sure the "bystanders" were so innocent. There have been a number of such battles in recent weeks and I can't remember one where the victims were entirely innocent, but maybe . . . . Usually, such things are over drugs in one way or another and since I used to work in a methadone clinic in the T-loin I find I often know the participants.

I also just missed being a victim once (years ago): Was walking up Turk St at night (my mistake) and somebody did a drive-by on a large group of teens hanging out in front of a rec center just after I had walked past them (I heard pop-pop-poppop-pop and turned around and saw several of the teens lying on the sidewalk just before a million cop cars decended).

[tech12]

The Tenderloin is San Francisco Grit at its best The land of soup kitchens and bits of gentrification. The misson district (with a large mexican culture) is another area with alot of Grit, but also with alot of gentrification and yuppies, and great mexican food.

We need a Pacific Heights thread, where mansions, bay views and parks define 1 mile long area. :tup:

Don't worry, there may very well be a Mission District thread coming up for you guys;)

And regarding the gunbattle thing, I'm just going by what I read in the news. One man opened fire on another guy, who was in a wheelchair. That man then returned fire, and 5 people were hit. The person who was killed was a 53 year-old women. Whether she was "innocent" or not, she apparently didn't have anything to do with the whole incident. Also, on that same day, a 16 year-old Oakland boy was chased into a donut shop on Hyde street, by 7 local gangbangers, who then shot him to death, for encroaching on their drug turf...Not to mention the man who was stabbed to death last week for a Playstation, on Market and 7th, and another guy who was shot to death after an argument on Hyde. The Tenderloin seemed relatively quiet this year, until the last three weeks or so.

Anyways, glad you all liked the pics, thanks for the comments!

[Manarii]

Love looking at your pics. I never hung around the tenderloin in all the years I lived there, but I always drove in it going up Leavenworth if I was in a car.

I've always thought the area around Turk/Eddy/Leavenworth had some incredible architecture. Beautiful apartment buildings, stores etc. Do you have any street level (or better yet not street level but 2nd level pictures of some buildings? lol). It's always interesting to see the ages of buildings going up Nob Hill due to the building of the area after the 1906 earthquake. Older down towards market, 1910s to 1919's towards Bush st and the 1920's further up Nob Hill.

I always imagine that "one day" that area will probably be totally gentrified with smart shops, cool restaurants and a different crowd of people that live there now. Not that Im saying I want that to occur, but it's proximity to Union Square and the Fin. district, hotels would seem to make it an eventual target for that. The Tenderloin iseems s far less gritty than when i first arrived in SF in 1982. Just my opinion.

ps. anybody remember the old "Airporter" bus depot in the Tenderloin? That used to be "the way" to / from the airport.

[BTinSF]

I always imagine that "one day" that area will probably be totally gentrified with smart shops, cool restaurants and a different crowd of people that live there now. Not that Im saying I want that to occur, but it's proximity to Union Square and the Fin. district, hotels would seem to make it an eventual target for that. The Tenderloin iseems s far less gritty than when i first arrived in SF in 1982. Just my opinion.

Not likely to happen. As you may know, genetrification WAS progressing west from Union Square as exemplified by the Hilton, Park 55, JW Marriott and other hotels, but our ever-"progressive" Board of Supervisors concluded the poor need a place too (Sup. Daly says so explicitly these days). So they put in a couple of measures designed to stop gentrification. One limited heights to 9 stories--the new hotels were much taller than that and no for-profit developers were interested in doing anything that short. Another forbid the conversion of monthly-rental hotels to overnight rental ("tourist") hotels. That blocked the newer wave of "boutique" hotel conversions by outfits like Joie de Vivre. Finally, the city has channeled funds extracted for "affordable" housing from developers elsewhere in the city to non-profits targeting the Tenderloin.

The result is many new 8 and 9-story non-profit housing developments for seniors, poor families and others. These buildings are indeed making the place look nicer and certainly newer, but they are still filled with poor people so its unlikely any "smart" shops will follow. What has come along, though, in recent years, is a wave of south and southeast Asian immigrants. The Pakistanis are now so dominant that many locals are calling the area "the Tandoor-loin". I don't know if you'd call the inexpensive curry places on every block "cool" or not, but they serve very tasty food cheap.

I ate in this place (Punjab) today--it's one of my favorites:

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4335/P1010067.jpg

[condodweller]

:previous: I feel that the Tenderloing might "gentrify" organically, as 20-somethings move in because it is relatively affordable (and they are young enough to put up with bad plumbing, intermittent heat, and landlords who long ago stopped giving a damn!). It is definitely less forbidding, and somewhat more clean, than it was just a few years ago. Architecturally, there are some beautiful apartment buildings, put up back when the area was officially the "Apartment District" on city maps. It really was an area where young downtown professionals and office workers lived in the days when cars were rare and people walked to work.

[Wheelingman04]

Very well done.

[boden]

Good streetscapes of a not often seen area.

[Sacto]

Thanks for the pics.

[BTinSF]

I feel that the Tenderloing might "gentrify" organically, as 20-somethings move in because it is relatively affordable (and they are young enough to put up with bad plumbing, intermittent heat, and landlords who long ago stopped giving a damn!).

A lot of Tenderloin landlords do give a damn, though--in both directions. My ex lives in the 'loin--on Hyde, uphill from Post--in a small building owned by a little old Asian lady. He has lived there for 10 years or so and she is thinking of selling the building, but she likes him so much she has told him if there are problems with a new owner, he can move into her home.

On the other side of the coin, there are some large corporate landlords in the Tenderloin who are very astute at extracting value from their properties.

[viewguysf]

OMG that gun incident makes me scared...Sometimes I wonder if I'll be one the"innocent bystanders" one day...I never mind going out late at night or in questionable areas.....Nonetheless great pics.

P.S. Guns should be illegal and not even exist!!

Yes, most of us in SF hate guns too, but you can't live your life in fear either.

[Jeeper]

Nice street scenes. I recently saw a documentary about cops who work the Tenderloin, and it sure portrayed it as a pretty nasty neighborhood to live in. Thanks for sharing.

[Jularc]

Great shots! San Francisco is so amazing! I can't wait for another visit.

[BTinSF]

Nice street scenes. I recently saw a documentary about cops who work the Tenderloin, and it sure portrayed it as a pretty nasty neighborhood to live in. Thanks for sharing.

Jeeper, a lot of that is very overdone. There are a few hardcore blocks along streets like O'Farrell, Ellis, Eddy, Turk and Golden Gate that get pretty gritty in the sense that they have a lot of San Francisco's poorest and most substance-abusing residents living there, but the violence is almost all between people who know each other and caused by interpersonal conflicts over drugs and money (usually money related to drugs). There is some disagreement about the boundaries of the Tenderloin, though, and some of the streets further up the slope of Nob Hill (Geary, Post, Sutter, Bush, Pine) that often get called "Tenderloin" are lined with nice 20's-vintage apartment buildings that once housed a lot of San Francisco's middle class and still house many of its retail workers (and other middle class but less affluent types).

I must say that the city doesn't help the Tenderloin's problems when it locates such a concentration of drug treatment programs and homeless assistance facilities there, further concentrating the populations served. But still, normal citizens living near the area, passing through it or visiting it for whatever reasons (there are some good restaurants and bars) are not much in danger if they use even a little common street smarts.

[Kingofthehill]

Superb.