The Best and Worst Street Corners in the Tenderloin

by Steve Zabriskie

It bears the reputation as the worst neighborhood in the city. But how bad is bad? An investigation of the 5 best and worst corners in the Tenderloin. (*)

Worst

1. Leavenworth and Ellis (**)

The locale where crack is most openly traded and smoked in the entire city and by extension the universe. Skinny, angry addicts with scratchy voices yelling at each other over who ripped me off, who owes me what, and which stankin-ass bitch need to get the fuck out my face. This corner is loud, nasty, and brutish. If only that vitality could be channeled into something more productive...

Mitigating factors: Amigo's market has decent produce, and the newly renovated Hotel Senator is just stunning. After parking my car there one night, a local handed me a crackpipe, asking "you wanna hit that?" I admire the generosity and esprit de corps, but crack's really not my favorite thing to unwind with.

Score: 260

2. Hyde and Turk

One of only a few corners in the Tenderloin that is actually worse during the daytime. In the morning this corner turns into a street bazaar where junkies attempt to sell tattered goods gleaned from the urban wastelands. Neatly arranged on old blankets laid out on the sidewalk you'll find unmatched high heels, unmarked VHS tapes, chipped porcelain figurines, and a wide selection of rusted out pre-Reagan-era appliances. All are peddled by a hapless (and toothless) pathetic old woman who's likely not all that old.

Mitigating factors: At night it's just a deserted parking lot, with a few misguided art students (is there any other kind?) smoking Gauloises in front of the scenesterish 222 Hyde Club. Mostly harmless.

Score: 290

3. Jones and O'Farrell

This one makes the list based solely on the repugnance of that filthy red-headed guy in the wheelchair who reeks of pee. He's always there, he's always got a Steel Reserve in his hand, and he relieves himself whenever he feels like it. Right in his chair. Disgusting. Hold your nose when you're downwind and do your best to stifle the gag reflex.

Mitigating factors: Home to a high concentration of tasty Indian restaurants and, in the wee morning hours (before the guidebook-toting tourists arrive), Dottie's True Blue cafe.

Score: 340

4. Polk and Post

This corner is blighted by hipsters and hookers and every manner of lowlife huckster trying to work a scam. Sandwiched between a massive homeless shelter and the hipster-Mecca Hemlock tavern, this is where the city's dregs coalesce.

Mitigating factors: Some of the best free entertainment in the city is sitting at the window seat of the Lush Lounge watching the she-males ensnare their prey.

Score: 350

5. The unexplored territories: the dark heart of the Tenderloin.

The area of 6 square blocks enclosed by Jones and Hyde, and McAllister and Turk. By the author's calculations, this places the black bosom of the Tenderloin directly at the intersection of Leavenworth and Golden Gate. Few reports are known to exist, but there are whispers of shuttered storefronts lined with broken men and women seeking shelter beneath their decrepit leaning huts. Waste and filth everywhere. Tragic beings living a life void of joy or beauty or anything resembling humanity. Unconfirmed reports of roaming bands of feral savages engaging in cannibalism and necrophilia. Enter at your own peril.

Mitigating Factors: None.

Score: Unknown

Best

1. Geary and Leavenworth

This is a remarkably clean and bright spot, probably because there's a decent business establishment on every corner and a pair of intersecting bus lines to whisk the rabble away. The neon lights of Osha Thai Noodle cafe, home to some of the best "it's after 2am and I'm drunk and hungry" food to be found anywhere, give this corner a round the clock urban feel.

Mitigating factors: A yuppie wine bar recently opened next door to Osha Thai, extending the westward reach of the scrubbed Redwood Room and Swig crowds. Back from whence you came, cockroaches!

Score: 660

2. Polk and Post

Yes, it made the worst list, but let that be a testament to this corner's bizarre and strangely appealing eccentricities. One man's man is another man's woman, after all. There are freaks everywhere and it can get a little sketchy at times, but there is serious fun to be had in these parts.

Mitigating factors: Too much fun might provoke an uncomfortable sexual identity crisis.

Score: A schizophrenic 550. Like the corner itself.

3. O'Farrell and Hyde

Home of the loiniest bar in the Tenderloin, the Nitecap. Fun and twisted, it's not uncommon to see hot lesbians making out, computer geeks arguing over processor speeds, old drunks pounding PBR, and at least one bar fight in the course of a single hour.

Mitigating factors: Jenny, the coolest sexually ambivalent bike messenger bartender chick in the world quit working here less than a week ago. Please don't make me have to start drinking at the Ha-Ra again! That Carl bums me out.

Score: 530

4. Post and Leavenworth

This intersection sits atop a steep slope on Leavenworth street, which keeps the sickly crackheads confined to the flatlands of Ellis street (see above). This is a peaceful residential corner, and home to the city's most unique book store, Kayo Books. Where most bookstores are organized into humdrum Fiction, Nonfiction and Cooking categories, Kayo's sections include Juvenile Delinquents, Hobos and Trains, and perennial favorite, Sleaze.

Mitigating factors: It's a block north of the Geary Street Mason-Dixon line, so it's almost cheating to stack it up against other corners deeper in the loin. This is tendernob territory.

Score: 520

5. Larkin and Geary

It's a nutty corner, within spitting distance of the Shooting Gallery (ultra-cool urban art gallery), Edinburgh Castle (trivia night!), The Magazine (historic ephemera and used porn!), Whiskey Theives (unreal selection of Bourbon), Subterranean Motorcycles, a cheap but good produce stand, and a decent Thai restaurant. A lot of activity on this corner and always something interesting, or at least puzzling, to be seen.

Mitigating factors: It's a block away from Larkin and O'Farrell where you have to pass through a gauntlet of (female) prostitutes and loitering degenerates who always want to borrow an oddly specific sum of change. No I don't have an extra .43 cents!

Score: 490

(*) Based upon a meta-scientific sampling of relevant data modeled by a mathematical algorithm yielding an output range of 200 to 800, 800 being the highest possible score.

(**) For years, the proud occupant of the number one spot was Eddy and Jones, former home of the largest open-air clearinghouse of pharmaceutical-grade narcotics in San Francisco. When the Tenderloin Police Station opened here in 2000, that put an end to that.

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