LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District

Andrea Aiello, Executive Director of the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District, has updated us on the Harvey Milk Plaza project.  The plan has received great feedback and support, and generated lots of comment and discussion, as it was presented at its first SF Arts Commission hearing last week.

Anyone involved in the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District — and anyone else — is invited to attend the 2nd Open House for The New Harvey Milk Plaza at the Castro Art Walk on Thursday, November 1, 2018 from 6 to 9 p.m., at 3989 17th Street (the old Wild Card building, next door to Orphan Andy’s).

You can view the renderings, and a special video animation of the new plaza design, showing off the significant community gathering spaces built into the design. The members of the planning group, Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza, will be available to answer any questions, and wine and cheese will be served.

Here’s a valuable tip for local artists:

Robynn Takayama, of the San Francisco Arts Commission, has let us know that the Commission is accepting applications from San Francisco residents who have lived in SF continuously for two years and have a project in visual art, literary art, or media art. These grants are for individual artists in literary arts, media arts, and visual arts. The application deadline is Nov. 8 at noon.

There will be a workshop to learn about applying one of these grants, courtesy of the SOMA Pilipinas cultural district.  Lian Ladia, the SFAC Ambassador in SOMA Pilipinas, is organizing a grant writing circle to support artists and arts organizations who are working on SFAC applications, both within SOMA Pilipinas and from the other Cultural Districts!

The “SFAC Grant Writing Circle” will review the SFAC application process and documentation, and will discuss helpful tips for your application-writing process.  The Circle will meet on Monday, October 22, 2018, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, at the BAYANIHAN Center, 1010 Mission.  Please RSVP to Lian at lian@plantingrice.com, as space is limited to 15 people.

Thank you SOMA Pilipinas for your leadership!

The resolution to create a Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District in the South of Market neighborhood passed its first reading by the Board of Supervisors unanimously, with some nice comments from Supervisors Kim and Ronen.  (Video here, 0:06:30 through 0:08:40).

There was extensive press coverage of this achievement, both locally and nationally:  Articles by Janie Har of the Associated Press (here and here) were both picked up widely, including by the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Reporting by Carolyn Tyler was shown on ABC 7 News on Tuesday evening and there was a follow-up story in the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday.  A story by Joshua Sabatini in the San Francisco Examiner is already receiving some thoughtful comments. There’s also a fun write-up in  Pink News (World Edition)., and another in London’s Gay Star News.  KTVU Fox News‘ Rob Roth did a report as well.  An article by Brock Keeling appeared in the “Curbed” Web site.   

After the resolution creating the District was was signed by the Mayor on May 9, 2018, there was additional coverage:  An article about Cultural Districts, including ours, appeared in the Chronicle on May 21, 2018, and can be viewed here.

Finally, a wonderful story on the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District was broadcast recently on KPIX 5, with great interviews and powerful comments.  Definitely worth viewing: find it here.

 

“Sunday Streets SOMA” will take over Folsom Street this Sunday, stretching from a kiddy hub below 2nd Street to the Leather Hub from 8th to 10th Street.

OK, what is this “Sunday Streets” thing?  It’s a series of free, fun events empowering local communities to transform 1-4 miles of car-congested streets into car-free community spaces for kids to play, seniors to stroll, organizations to connect, and neighbors to meet.  You can read all about it at sundaystreetssf.com: no cars, and no outside vendors or fundraisers; just local community folks doing their thing.

And for the August 19 event, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance and the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District have each agreed to “adopt” the intersections of 9th and Folsom and 8th and Folsom respectively, sending out our volunteers to greet and welcome locals and visitors alike, offer them information and entertainments of various kinds, and let them know that we are a part of the neighborhood and the community.

The Leather Hub will be bursting with activity:  country/western dance lessons with the Sundance Association, flag dancing with the folks from Flagging in the Park; an HIV/STI testing truck courtesy of the UCSF Alliance Health Project; a puppy mosh by the K9 Unit; guests from the Imperial Court  of Tamales con Pollo; bootblacking by the SF Bay Area BootLab, a whip-cracking demo; a Shibari demo, music with DJ Barbara Steele; and booths hosted by the Bay Area Rope Club, the Huckleberry Youth Programs, the LGBTQ Credit Union Coalition, and the Friends of Eagle Plaza!

This is a permitted event, so clothing may be considered optional, and we invite folks in the Leather Hub to stop by the SOMA Guardians’ clothes check table at the corner of Folsom and Dore to better enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.

[Note:  please do be thoughtful and considerate of the feelings of our neighbors, and avoid provocative or outrageous garb or behavior.  We want to introduce ourselves to the neighborhood in an inclusive and welcoming way. And remember, folks:  nudity does not give consent to be touched or photographed. Thanks!]

And of course all our local queer and kinky businesses and organizations will be invited to take part in various ways:  some organizations may just provide a banner or a stack of organizational brochures, businesses along the Folsom Street route may have their own outposts in the street, there may even be a “passport stamping” promotion involving local businesses.

All in all, it will be great fun, and also a great way to boost the visibility of — and support for — the new Cultural District among our South of Market neighbors and other San Francisco residents and visitors. 

But it will take lots of people helping to make this event happen.  First and foremost we need a whole bunch of volunteers to be our “Intersection Troops”  — you can sign up to volunteer here, and be sure to include your t-shirt size and indicate that you want to be part of the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District troop!

Next, the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance will be having an information table, displaying banners and offering brochures, flyers or swag of any kind from the Alliance and its member organizations.  You can sign up to sit at this table here — past and present leather community titleholders are particularly invited to sign up for this!

And of course the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District will also have an information table, offering information and encouraging folks to sign up for the mailing list on an available tablet.  You can sign up to sit at this table here .  (Please be sure you sign up for the table you want to sit at!

By the way, if you are a local Leather, kink, or LGBTQ business or organization, please consider getting us a banner we can display, and/or a big stack of flyers, brochures, or fun & kinky swag we can give away at the informational table.   

To coordinate any of this, or to chat about other ways we can make this event a success, please write to DavidHyman “at” leatheralliance “dot” org or Jeff Jelsma at jeff “at” livablecity “dot” org.

See you on the street!

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