Tenderloin National Forest

The Tenderloin is the most densely populated neighborhood in San Francisco by a long shot, with nearly 58,000 residents per square mile, compared to a rate of 16,000 per square mile citywide. Population density is greater in the Tenderloin’s fifty square blocks than in New York City.

In a neighborhood this crowded, the pleasures of taking a quick stroll through a garden only become more apparent. That’s what a few of us discovered today when we took a detour after lunch to explore the Tenderloin National Forest, an urban garden in a narrow alley on Ellis between Hyde and Leavenworth. (Thanks for the heads up, Dolores!).

The Tenderloin National Forest has been an ongoing project of the gallery and “non-profit artist-run multidisciplinary arts organization” the Luggage Store, whose artistic directors decided to transform Cohen Alley, long plagued by litter, loitering, and open-air drug activity, into a garden with natural vegetation, a modest pond with real fish, and murals on the walls. It also serves as a community events space.

And it provides those living and working in the neighborhood with a place to while away a short lunch break (the gates are often open mid-day when the gardeners are working), and a chance to admire the uncommon sight of greenery in the Tenderloin. It’s well worth seeking out: a forest in the TL as unique as the neighborhood itself.a