This Tenderloin street closed to cars and opened to kids. It could be a model for S.F.

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When the doors to the Tenderloin Community Elementary School reopen this week for the start of the school year, another gate will close: The one that blocks Elm Street to cars and opens it to school children. 

The alley closure, which began as an unpermitted social-distancing measure during the pandemic and evolved to a city-approved expansion of the school’s play area, offers a spot for elementary school students to play soccer, swing hula hoops and cover the asphalt with chalk during school hours.

The concrete is decorated with a spray-chalk snake; a sidewalk mural is coming soon. Across the way sits a vacant lot, its fence decorated with ribbons and the letters “TLC,” for Tenderloin Community. 

It’s an open-space oasis in a neighborhood with a dearth of them, especially for children. The Tenderloin has the highest density of kids of any neighborhood in San Francisco, but some of the lowest park acres per person and about half as much open space per person compared to the rest of San Francisco. That breaks down to about one yoga mat’s worth of open space per resident. 

Tenderloin advocates want change. They want the alley to become a permanent fixture with expanded weekend and weekday hours, serving not just children during school hours but the entire community. 

The city is on board: The Planning Department hopes its development will be a “catalyst for change” and a model for building more children-oriented spaces across San Francisco, says Ilaria Salvadori, a senior planner at the San Francisco Planning Department.

Salvadori has helped these advocates navigate the permitting process and beautify the street, including pushing for a mural on the sidewalk going in later this month.

“During the pandemic, kids had literally nowhere to go,” said Scott Bravmann, a former Tenderloin Community Elementary School parent and a volunteer at Elm Alley. 

When young students came back to school in spring 2021, Bravmann, the school, and other volunteers began blocking the street to allow for social-distanced drop-offs and a place for children to play. Traffic on the alley was low to begin with and had dropped off almost entirely during the pandemic. 

But as the rest of the city opened back up, Bravmann wanted to keep the street closed. He wasn’t alone. 

Dr. Kara Wright, a pediatrician working as a family advocate at the Tenderloin Community Elementary School at the time, said having the space was key: Kids need to burn off their energy before class, she said, and the empty road facilitated creative play. 

Every school day, the street is blocked by a barricade from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and staffed by a volunteer. It’s usually Bravmann — when he can, he stays out there all day. “Kids like to play in the street,” he said. 

Kids in the Tenderloin tend to live in small apartments. The streets are dominated by cars, and loitering and open-air drug use is common on the sidewalks, leaving very little room for kids to run or learn to ride a bike.

Boedekker Park and the Tenderloin Recreation Center provide play areas, but the park is shared by all residents of the neighborhood, and the rec center is about to close for a remodel that will last into spring 2026. 

The Golden Gate Greenway, a stretch of road on Golden Gate Avenue that is closed to cars from 6 a.m to 6 p.m. daily, is an exception. But Mission Local found that the greenway project has stalled and, thus far, failed to live up to its initial vision as a community space. 

Both the Golden Gate Greenway and Elm Alley are part of the Tenderloin Community Action Plan, a resident-created improvement plan for the neighborhood that focuses on wellness and public space improvements as well as youth services.

The plan has funding set aside for Elm Alley through June 2026, which includes money for a better swing gate and murals on the street and sidewalk, pending transportation agency approval, as well as a Safe Passage staff member to man the gate. 

Elm Alley’s funding after 2026 is less certain: The city neglected to delegate funding for the Tenderloin Community Action Plan in its most recent budget.

“When it’s not activated regularly, it fills up with trash and detritus from homeless encampments and drugs,” Bravmann said of the alley. When volunteers first began blocking off the street, they would have to clear the alley of needles and trash left there the night before. 

A few times, he’s arrived at Elm Street to close the gate and found paramedics blocking the way, treating someone having a health crisis in the alley. 

On those days, the children stay inside.  

Bravmann’s vision for the alley is bigger than a blocked street: He’s working with the owner of the vacant lot across the alley to turn that space into a soccer field, though after two years, the plan is still in the works. 

Salvadori from the planning department said Elm Alley needs just “a few more steps to really complete it,” including getting a permit from the transportation agency to paint a mural in the road.

With that and a new gate, she believes the space will become more of a consistent resource for the whole community. The developing process could act as a blueprint for other streets in the city, she said. 

“When you design a space for children, you design a space for everyone else,” Salvadori said. “Little projects like this, they’re small drops in the ocean, but they’re making a point.”