The Tenderloin

I have lived in SF for 38 years and love the history of the city. I learned much about this district and its history. Until 1950 residents of many neighborhoods came here on a regular basis to eat before theater, to attend jazz clubs,to drink in many bars, and of course to gamble and partake of sexual services. Pornography was a late revival after the mayor shut down gambling. Today 25% of rooms in hotels and apartments are controlled by non profits. This preserves much precious low cost housing for seniors, those on SDI, and Vietnamese. New housing for low income pele is going on just in from Mid Market's Tax Break commercial development. This is a very informative book.

Love that someone got some of this history down in writing. Although it got somewhat repetitive every now and then the fabric of the neighborhood is there, and it is quite a story to behold!

It was too politically oriented for my taste. I liked reading about specific persons and places rather than events.

As a former resident of the Tenderloin (1999-2005) at Geary and Larkin it was great to read this history of the neighborhood. My sole critique is not content-related but text-related, that too much information is repeated in ways that should have been better edited. Beyond that I thought the author did a great job covering the neighborhood's history from the Quake onward. The two one-star reviews that I saw have made a stunning oversight: fellas you are supposed to review the book, not the neighborhood ...

Should have been fascinating but no...

I have always been fascinated by the history of the Tenderloin and this book, by far, the most informative that I have come across on the subject. I found it very easy to read and I never realized the vital impact the Tenderloin had on San Francisco until reading this book. There is no doubt that Randy Shaw is a longtime historian of the Tenderloin and is deeply passionate about the district.

I really enjoyed it this book. As a Hastings College of the Law and Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp alum, the Tenderloin is near and dear to my heart. Thanks to Randy Shaw, I now have a much better understanding of how the Tenderloin has developed into the neighborhood we see today. Overall it was a very enjoyable and informative read. Down right inspirational at times! Well done.

Filled with lots of really great forgotten (or lost to time) facts about SF's most maligned neighborhood. I came away from this book with a new appreciation for the TL. The book is written as series of historical vignettes rather than as one single continuous history, which means information gets repeated from section to section. While that format sacrifices dramatic narrative and prose, it makes the book a much more useful resource as a reference to which you can easily return. I only wish that the book covered some of the policing strategies (containment, splitting the district) that harmed the neighborhood more deeply. Overall, it's a great hyperlocal history.