My neighborhood in San Francisco has always been a bit of an attraction to outsiders for many different reasons. I mean come'on, where else can you see a one-legged prostitute cursing out a one-armed crack addict? But those days have begun to be a thing of the past.
Nowadays, "The Loin," as we residents call it, has experienced a gentrification wave that probably would've gone through the roof if not for the economic downturn. Whew!
A day spent hanging out in the loin will leave anyone with a story or two to tell friends. Why just two days ago I'm coming down Leavenworth and see the street, loaded with police vehicles and cordoned off with yellow tape. Instead of turning and going another direction, because after all it is the loin, I rush curiously to the scene to see what's up. I come upon two huge military style vans with the words BOMB SQUAD printed boldly on their sides. I see sniffing german shepherd police dogs being led car to car checking for explosives. I hear policeman telling the largely gathered crowd to continue moving one way or another. People are talking, police are everywhere and it seems the focus is one building in particular on Leavenworth and Turk.
I choose not to hang around for the explosive action that may or may not occur.
I've always wondered just how the neighborhood acquired the name Tenderloin District. I assumed it was due to the history of crime and vice that took place here. Then yesterday, while watching the movie "Legend of 1900" I hear mention of prostitution houses in the sleezy tenderloin district of New Orleans as the place where jazzman Jelly Roll Morton learned his piano playing craft.
So to make a long story less lengthy, I give you a mixture of fact and legend about my neighborhood "The Loin," as documented by wikipedia's no-it-alls:
Location
The Tenderloin is a neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, California.
The Tenderloin is a dense downtown neighborhood located in the flatlands on the southern slope of Nob Hill, nestled between the Union Square shopping district to the northeast and the Civic Center office district to the southwest. It encompasses about fifty square blocks and a conservative description has it bounded on the north by Post Street, on the east by Mason Street, on the south by Mission Street and on the west by Van Ness Avenue and Ninth Street. The northern boundary with Lower Nob Hill historically has been set at Geary Street, although many recent arrivals to San Francisco consider the range as far north as Pine Street in western sections of the Tenderloin, such as the Polk Gulch neighborhood.
The extension of the Tenderloin south of Market Street in the vicinity of Sixth, Seventh, and Mission Streets is known locally as Mid-Market and is "Skid Row," or sarcastically as "the Wine Country," an allusion to "winos" (street-dwelling alcoholics). The northern part of it beginning at Post Street is called a variety of names, including Tenderloin Heights, Lower Nob Hill (widely used in real estate listings) or The Tendernob. The eastern extent, where it meets Union Square is known as the Theater District. Part of the western extent of the Tenderloin, Larkin and Hyde Streets between Turk and O'Farrell, was officially named "Little Saigon" by the City of San Francisco.
[edit] History
There are a number of stories about how the Tenderloin got its name. One is that it is a reference to an older neighborhood in New York with the same name and similar characteristics. Another is a reference to the neighborhood as the "soft underbelly" (analogous to the cut of meat) of the city, with allusions to vice and corruption, especially graft. There are also some legends about the name, probably folklore, including that the neighborhood earned its name from the words of a New York City police captain, Alexander S. Williams, who was overheard saying that when he was assigned to another part of the city, he could only afford to eat chuck steak on the salary he was earning, but after he was transferred to this neighborhood he was making so much money on the side soliciting bribes that now he could eat tenderloin instead.[2][3] Another version of that story says that the officers that worked in the Tenderloin received a "hazard pay" bonus for working in such a violent area, and that is how they were able to afford the good cut of meat. Yet another story, also likely apocryphal, is that the name is a reference to the sexual parts of prostitutes (i.e., "loins").
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