Randy Shaw likes the Tenderloin. He really does. First he spearheaded the project to install historic plaques on the walls of the neighborhood’s old buildings. Then he lead an effort to get plaques placed outside historic sites such as the parking lot where the Blackhawk Jazz club once stood.
In Shaw’s mind, the entire neighborhood is like a museum - erected from the dust of the 1906 earthquake and fire - and passed over by decades of development. It seemed natural Shaw would then want an actual museum.
“I think we do have an authenticity,” said Shaw, standing inside a barren, disemboweled storefront building at Eddy and Leavenworth. Through the building’s windows, Shaw could take in the neighborhood’s “authenticity” with the down-and-out lounging in doorways, openly pedaling drugs or weaving along the sidewalk in fits of madness.
"People who have never been to the neighborhood have a very negative perception of it,” Shaw said. “People who have been here like the neighborhood.”
Shaw is now the force behind the effort to build a new Tenderloin Museum devoted to the neighborhood’s long roller coaster history. This week, construction crews began transforming an empty corner of the storied Cadillac Hotel into a museum, scheduled to open in April.
“We think the museum is going to bring a lot of positive street life and foot traffic into the neighborhood,” said Shaw, rambling around the space.
Shaw said the museum would feature interactive exhibits aimed at revealing the neighborhood’s history from as early as 1907, when it re-emerged from the wake of the 1906 devastation. The museum will also focus on the neighborhood’s cultural contributions like helping to launch the gay-lesbian movement, since it was home to some of the city’s first gay bars.
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Shaw said it will also feature the neighborhood as a center for films and rock music - the Grateful Dead and other bands recorded legendary albums in studios on Hyde Street.
“We have a history of writers, we have a history of artists,” said Katherine Looper of the Cadillac Hotel. “We have a history of musicians - we have a history of madams and brothels.”
Despite the neighborhood’s dodgy reputation, Shaw sees the museum as playing a future role in a neighborhood resurgence, that’s already drawn cutting-edge restaurants and bars.
“We’re going to get more people come here,” said Shaw, “and see it’s a good neighborhood, and want to come back.”
