SF Advocates Propose Trans Historic District

A group of LGBT advocates in San Francisco wants to create the country's first transgender historic district in the city's Tenderloin neighborhood, where in the summer of 1966 transgender and queer patrons of a late-night diner rioted against police harassment.

They have formed the Compton's Historic District Committee, named after the defunct eatery Compton's Cafeteria that drew LGBT patrons in the 1950s through the early 1970s. And they have engaged Stacy Farr, a historic preservation professional, to assist them in writing the application to the National Register of Historic Places to create the historic district.

It would encompass the building that once housed Compton's Cafeteria at the corner of Turk and Taylor streets, which was renamed Compton's Cafeteria Way in June, and adjacent important LGBTQ sites such as Aunt Charlie's at 133 Turk Street, whose block is also designated Vicki Mar Lane after the late transgender performer and activist Vicki Marlane who hosted drag shows at the gay bar.

"We are narrowing in on Compton's and the trans queer and LGBT historic assets right there. There isn't a more rich LGBT history area anywhere in the country," said Nate Allbee, a member of the committee who is also with the San Francisco LGBTQ Legacy Business Coalition. "Creating a transgender historic district would draw more LGBT businesses to the area and create a safe space for transgender people."

The Compton's LGBT Historic District is modeled after the Stonewall National Monument, which encompasses New York City's Stonewall Inn as well as the streets and park in front of the gay bar where patrons rioted against police harassment three years after the Compton's riot. President Barack Obama in June signed off on the monument, which is part of the National Park Service's initiative to landmark LGBT historic sites across the country.

A report on LGBTQ history the federal agency released in October includes mention of numerous sites in the Tenderloin that would be included in the Compton's LGBT Historic District.

"We are taking inspiration from Obama's creation of the Stonewall Inn national monument. The blocks around Compton's are deserving of recognition and equal in importance," said Brian Basinger, a gay man who class=st>co-founded San Francisco's Q Foundation.

The Compton's district would include four city blocks, said Allbee, a gay man and former aide to gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos. Starting on Market and Mason streets on the east, it would run west to Jones Street along Eddy Street to the north and Golden Gate Avenue to the south.

The eastern boundary includes the buildings at 950-974 Market Street, where several gay bars once operated and helped facilitate gay and transgender prostitution and hustling in the area. As detailed in the Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco, the Old Crow Bar opened at 962 Market Street around 1935, while the Silver Rail opened at 974 Market Street about 1942.

"Geographically, the bars at 950?974 Market Street historically may have represented a sort of welcoming gateway to this neighborhood, where so many found refuge," wrote Farr in a letter to the city's planning officials.

Additionally, the Flagg Brothers shoe store that had occupied 950 Market Street was documented in the history report as a well-known gay cruising spot. As longtime LGBT activist and former street hustler Cleve Jones recounts in his memoir When We Rise, set to be published on Tuesday and excerpted in this week's Bay Area Reporter, when he "needed some quick cash," he would hang out "down on Market Street in front of Flagg Brothers Shoes, where the daddies drove by."

Backers of the historic district worry its creation could be jeopardized if the Market Street buildings are demolished. Group I, a San Francisco-based real estate development company, plans to tear down the existing buildings in order to construct a 12-story, 120 foot tall building. It would include a 232-room hotel, 244 housing units, ground floor retail, and space for a local nonprofit theater company.

As the B.A.R. reported on its blog last Thursday, November 17, the Planning Commission rejected calls by LGBT advocates to delay voting on the proposed development by up to 90 days so they could further research what impact the demolition of the Market Street sites could have on winning approval from state and federal preservation officials for the Compton's LGBT Historic District. Instead, the oversight body approved the project on a 6-1 vote, sending it to the Board of Supervisors for review.

Planning department staff, in their evaluation of the LGBT historic sites, had determined none of the existing structures would qualify for federal or state landmark status due to the extensive alterations made to the buildings over the years. Nor would their demolition preclude the creation of an LGBTQ historic district in the area, according to the department.

Tearing down the buildings, said planner Melinda Hue, "would not result in material impairment on the LGBTQ district."

In her letter to the commission, Farr called the planning department's evaluation "admirable" but said it fell short of what was needed. She wrote that she believes "the significance of these sites in relation to the larger LGBTQ history of the Tenderloin must be evaluated more comprehensively, to fully understand their historic role within the district."

Allbee told the B.A.R. that the Compton's Historic District Committee would continue to contest the project when it goes before the supervisors for approval, likely in early 2017. And he said the committee would appeal the planning commission's decision to not require a full environmental impact report be done of the project.

"We are not against the project but the way they are handling LGBT historic resources and the way it will affect the future Compton's historic district," he explained.

Meanwhile, the developer has hired Shayne Watson, a lesbian and local LGBT historian who co-wrote the city's LGBT context statement, to work with an advisory committee on a proposal for memorializing the Market Street sites' LGBT history in the new development. Watson had filed an appeal last winter against the planning department's initial analysis of the Group I project for omitting the site's historical ties to the LGBT community.

In response, city planners issued a new preliminary mitigated negative declaration for the project in July that examined the LGBT historical significance of the existing buildings. Watson had told the B.A.R. at the time that she disagreed with their determination that the buildings no longer were historically significant due to their physical alterations over the years.

Group I President and CEO Joy Ou, speaking at last week's planning commission hearing, said she had pledged to the Compton's committee to work with it in creating the historic district.

"We take their concern very seriously and are going to work with them," said Ou.