top of page
san francisco history
place-based research projects
This cluster explores San Francisco’s history through place, tracing how social struggles, cultural formations, and changing relations of power become embedded in the built environment. The projects move between historical research and the present to understand how these histories continue to shape the city.
· screaming queens: the riot at compton's cafeteria
documentary · co-directed with victor silverman · 2005
Screaming Queens recovers the largely forgotten history of the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria Riot and the world of drag queens, hustlers, trans women, and queer street youth who lived in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. The film situates the riot within a longer history of police harassment, poverty, survival, and militant resistance. Through oral histories and archival research, it restores Compton’s to the history of queer and trans resistance in San Francisco.
watch on kanopy
watch on youtube
· at the crossroads of turk and taylor:
resisting carceral power in san francisco’s tenderloin district
academic article · 2021
In At the Crossroads of Turk and Taylor, Susan Stryker traces how carceral power has shaped the Tenderloin, from the policing and containment of gender-variant people to GEO Group’s occupation of the former Compton’s Cafeteria site. She “re-members” the Compton's Cafeteria Riot as part of an anti-carceral struggle whose legacy can be mobilized to liberate 101-121 Taylor Street and imagine a different future.
read on places journal
· a transecological poetics of reterritorialization in san francisco's tenderloin
academic article · 2024
In A Transecological Poetics of Reterritorialization in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, Chandra Laborde takes up Susan Stryker’s call to envision a future of justice at the former Compton’s Cafeteria site. The article develops a transecological poetics of reterritorialization as a way to resist capitalist co-optation and gentrification, drawing from the contrasting examples of Eagle Plaza and the Tenderloin National Forest to imagine a just, anti-carceral future for 101-121 Taylor Street.
read on TSQ
· compton's cafeteria as site of trans-formation
academic roundable · 2026
In Compton’s Cafeteria as Site of Trans-Formation, Chandra Laborde examines the building’s changing architecture to show how its spatial features facilitated trans liberation during the 1966 riot and were later co-opted for carceral containment. Tracing the site across seven decades, the essay reveals how architecture mediates shifting relations of power and how spaces of repression can be transformed again toward collective liberation.
read on society of architectural historians
related
· turkxtaylor initiative
cultural production and political education
The TurkxTaylor Initiative uses cultural production and political education as tools for community building toward the liberation of the former Compton’s Cafeteria site. Through collective envisioning, it also works toward developing a shared vision for the future the site. Programming at its space at 141 Taylor Street includes exhibitions, panels, screenings, celebrations, and social gatherings.
website
· compton's x coalition
movement building and grassroots advocacy
The Compton’s x Coalition is a cross-movement coalition building collective power to liberate the former Compton’s Cafeteria site. Working alongside abolitionist, anarchist, and other grassroots political organizations, it advances the campaign through political organizing, legal advocacy, mobilization, and direct action.
website
bottom of page