TenderLoin

The TEN or TL is San Francisco's most diverse densely populated neighborhood in downtown and shaped like a tenderchuck. The lively neighborhood lies in the flatlands below the slopes of Nob Hill, west of Union Square and east of the Civic Center.  About 50 square blocks in size, the TL's is comparable to New York 's Manhattan neighborhood population centers and has a population density of 71,694 people per sq mi.

Midde East American schoolboys make their way home in the Tenderloin.

The Tenderloin has a long history as a center of alternate sexualities, including several historic confrontations with police. The legendary female impersonator Rae Bourbon, a performer during the Pansy Craze, was arrested in 1933 while his show "Boys Will Be Girls" was being broadcast live on the radio from Tait's Cafe at 44 Ellis Street. On New Years Day in 1965 police raided a Mardi Gras Ball at California Hall on Polk Street sponsored by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, lining up and photographing 600 participants and arresting several prominent citizens. One of the first "gay riots", pre-dating the Stonewall riots in New York, happened at Compton's Cafeteri at Turk and Taylor Streets in August 1966 when the police, attempting to arrest a drag queen, sparked a riot that spilled into the streets. Prior to the emergence of The Castro as a major gay village, the center of the Tenderloin at Turk and Taylor and the Polk Gulch at the western side of the Tenderloin were two of the city's first gay neighborhoods and a few of these historic gay bars and clubs still exist.

The Tenderloin