“Tenderloin Buzz” is a recurring column on changes, tidbits and other news from the Richmond. Check out our Tenderloin web page for more.
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Three more businesses on the Larkin corridor — Gateway Croissant, Ruru Kitchen and Deli Shack — will receive decorative security gates funded by the Larkin Street Revival project. According to Marcus Guillard, owner of One Hat One Hand, the fabrication shop tasked with designing and installing the gates, they should be finished and installed in early October.
The Larkin Street Revival project, which intends to improve the neighborhood with beautification and safety efforts, was launched by a $5 million donation from cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen.
Eric Ehler, owner of Outta Sight Pizza, was one of the first businesses on Larkin to get a new gate, back in February. Larkin was already feeling safer than it did in the years directly following the pandemic, Ehler said. But he and co-owner Peter Dorrance decided they were open to adding one of the custom gates if it would improve the Tenderloin’s overall vibe.
“We wanted to do whatever was best for the neighborhood,” Ehler said.
Larkin Street Revival also subsidizes the free concert series Live on Larkin every second Saturday. The next one is Aug. 8 on Larkin Street, between Eddy and O’Farrell streets.
This Live on Larkin has a “back to school” theme. It will take place from noon to 5 p.m. and will feature retail and food vendors, and a dedicated area for kids.
There is also no shortage of live music nearby. Nearly every day in July, local musicians will be playing two-hour sets at different blocks along Market Street, as part of the Market Street Arts’ Busk It! program.
Coming up: “One-man electronic band” OrchKeystra will play on July 25 at Saluhall at 945 Market St. from noon to 2 p.m., and jazz band Fake Melody will play in front of La Cuisine Cate at 1145 Market St. at the same time the following day. “Powerhouse” vocalist Trianna Feruza will perform a few days later on July 29 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the same location.
At Moth Belly Gallery, S.F.-based artist Andrea Bergen will showcase more 40 papier-mâché sculptures and cut-paper collages that will transform the gallery space into a “fantastical reality” where “animals exist on a harmonious plane somewhere between the future, the afterlife and an alternate dimension.”
The show, titled “The Big Buffet In The Sky,” is a take on the concept that, after animals die, they go to “the big farm in the sky.”
“Critters of all kinds including cats, dogs, monkeys and pigeons chug soda, feast on junk food and lounge under candy colored sunsets,” Moth Belly wrote, of the event. “As climate change and environmental destruction accelerate, the collages and sculptures offer a refuge in which nature has regained equilibrium and thrives once again.”
The opening is 6 to 9 p.m. on Aug. 1 at 912 Larkin Street.
Wondering what the bright and shiny golden scaffolding is around the Pioneer Monument near U.N. Plaza?
Artist Kaleb Duarte and an all-immigrant crew are wrapping the scaffolding in gold mylar as part of an installation called “Embassy of the Refugee.”
The gold mylar is meant to reference the emergency blankets used at detention centers.
A section of the monument titled Early Days, which was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day, 1894, and depicted a Native American cowering at the feet of a priest and a vaquero, was removed from the Pioneer Monument in 2018 after a vote by the Board of Supervisors.
Duarte is one of four artists who have since been commissioned by the city’s Shaping Legacy initiative to create art that works in conversation with the city’s monuments.
“Embassy of the Refugee” is meant to be a living monument, rather than a static group of statues that remain behind the scaffolding. On July 25 from 1 to 4 p.m., Duarte, Regina Jose Galindo, Mia Eve Rollo, Marilyn Borror Bor, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña will perform at the site of the sculpture.
