2 Half a century later, the property at Turk and Taylor is owned by GEO Group, one of the world’s largest for-profit prison companies. In August of that year, this popular hangout became the site of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot - a landmark incident of collective resistance to police oppression targeting transgender or gender-variant people, most of whom were sex-working, young, and precariously housed. In 1966, a structure at the northwest corner of the intersection, now identified by the San Francisco Assessor’s Office with the nondescript name 101-121 Taylor Street Properties, was home to Gene Compton’s Cafeteria. The resistance to police oppression at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria and the building’s later use as a for-profit prison are not unrelated. The crossroads of Turk and Taylor challenge us to envision - and to build - a future where justice dwells. 1 Turk and Taylor Streets intersect precisely once in San Francisco’s impoverished Tenderloin neighborhood, but that singular geographical locus invites us to encounter the many forms of need and possibility that converge there. More than mere intersections, crossroads are sites at which to dream, to conjure new realities through the paths we choose to forge or follow. Faust met Mephistopheles at the crossroads to wager his soul, and Robert Johnson made a deal there with the Devil to learn how to play the blues. Ĭrossroads are mythopoetically charged spaces where one realm of existence touches another, and transformative encounters can take place. Taken in aftermath of a fire at the Hyland Hotel, 1970. The only known photo of 101–121 Taylor Street with signage for Gene Compton’s Cafeteria fully visible. Resisting carceral power in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District
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