San Francisco’s Tenderloin has always been more than its headlines.

Long treated as a containment zone, it has also been a refuge — a place where marginalized communities found belonging, built culture, and made public life possible in spite of neglect, oppression and disinvestment.

In 1966, that history erupted inside a cafeteria at Turk and Taylor. The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot is often told as a single night of resistance. But like most movements, it began long before that moment — and it didn’t end there.

Today, the site of that uprising is owned by one of the largest private prison contractors working with ICE. Which raises a complicated question: what does it mean to honor a place if you don’t control it?

In this episode, Chip speaks with Breonna McCree, Co-Director of San Francisco’s Transgender District, about what it means to move from being tolerated in a neighborhood… to claiming it. The conversation weaves together history, policy, art, and activism to explore how cities remember — and who gets to decide what stays.

The Transgender District is a formally recognized cultural district in the Tenderloin, created to honor, protect, and sustain a neighborhood that has long been a center of transgender life, community, and resistance. Breonna and Chip explore what a district actually is and does, how this particular place came to be named, and why formal recognition matters, how neighborhoods carry history long before they’re officially acknowledged, and what it takes to turn lived experience into lasting civic infrastructure.

Transgender District

Susan Stryker

Compton’s Cafeteria Riot

Tenderloin Museum

Screaming Queens

Tenderloin Community Benefit District

Glide Memorial

Crossroads of Turk and Taylor

Comptons x Coalition

TurkxTaylor Initiative

Miss Major

SF Black Wall Street

In this episode of The Sidewalk Ballet, Chip is joined by Lezlie Lowe, journalist and author of No Place to Go, for a wide-ranging conversation about one of the most essential—and most ignored—elements of city life: public bathrooms. What begins as a seemingly simple question about access quickly unfolds into a deeper exploration of gender equity, disability access, public health, privatization, and dignity in public space.

Drawing on research and reporting from cities around the world, Lezlie traces how historical decisions, cultural norms, and policy gaps have shaped who gets to move freely through a city—and who has to plan their day around the nearest restroom. Along the way, the conversation touches on gender parity and the “urinary leash,” access for unhoused neighbors, the absence of legal requirements for cities to provide public toilets, and the growing role of private businesses and BIDs in filling a public gap. From Tokyo’s carefully designed public restrooms to Vienna’s human-centered approach and San Francisco’s Pit Stop program, this episode reframes bathrooms not as an afterthought, but as a powerful lens for understanding how cities care for the people who use them.

We also Visit Portland Maine and talk with Cary Tyson about Portland Downtown’s Public Bathroom Master Plan.

Plus we grab a burger in a converted Bathroom with Curious Claire.

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And just in case you want more content about Public Bathrooms in cities, check out this great pod from our friends at We are City People.

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Episode Links

Lezlie Lowe

Portland Maine - Restroom Master Plan

Curious Claire - Would you eat from a Converted Toilet?

London Loo Tours

Bowl Plaza - Lucas Kansas

Hundertwasser Toilets - New Zealand

Tokyo Toilet Project

Dr. Christine Brooks is the founding chair of the Masters in Expressive Arts Coaching and Community Building, a new program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, that blends creativity, leadership, and social impact. With a background spanning coaching, the arts, and community practice, she and her colleagues designed the program to prepare students to meet the challenges of our time — cultivating leaders who can navigate complexity with imagination, empathy, and resilience.

Through this innovative curriculum, Dr. Brooks helps students explore how artful approaches to leadership can strengthen communities, deepen collaboration, and foster personal and collective transformation. Her work is rooted in the belief that coaching and community building are not separate disciplines but intertwined practices essential for justice, wellness, and belonging.

Dr. Brooks talks with Chip about coaching in the expressive arts, community leadership and the science of friendship.

Also in this episode: We talk with Leva Zand from ARTogether, a small but powerful organization based in downtown Oakland that works with immigrant and refugee communities through art-making. Founded in response to moments of fear and exclusion, ARTogether creates spaces where people can gather, make things together, and build connection without pressure or performance. From open community sessions to youth programs and public art projects, their work treats art not as an end product, but as a shared practice—one that helps people feel seen, supported, and connected in a world where belonging is often contested.

Episode Links

Expressive Arts Coaching and Community Building

Arts and Health

Role of Arts in Health and well being - WHO report

Neuroarts Blueprint

Science of Friendship

Effortless City

ARTogether

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