TODCO Community Art Initiatives Celebrate The Soul of San Francisco
TODCO Group
Over 50 Years of South Of Market Neighborhood Building and San Francisco Civic Impact.
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The Bay Area mass transit system transformed San Francisco into a corporate and finance headquarters of the Pacific, generating enormous wealth for the powerful. But as it was being constructed here in San Francisco, it threatened the Mission District with bulldozer redevelopment and gentrified displacement of its people.
In 1973 the Latino community arose in response, the Mission Coalition Organization, and other groups, to protest, oppose, and stop that top-down agenda for the future for their Latino neighborhood.
This revolutionary energy ignited a new era of Mission Latino community art and culture still embodied in surviving murals today throughout the neighborhood. The landmark 24th Street Station BART Plaza mural “BART” painted by Michael Rios with Anthony Machado and Richard Montez in 1975 following that seminal year of BART’s birth, powerfully depicts the crushing load of the elite BART vision on the shoulders of the Mezo-American peoples de La Misión.
Michael Rios and associates are now undertaking the mural’s three week full restoration process sponsored by the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District, coordinated by Precita Eyes Muralists, and funded by a $140,000 grant from the TODCO Group.
Rios, now 75 years old, and TODCO’s Artist In Residence, was first inspired as a young Latino artist by the great muralists of Mexico, Rivera, Orozco, and Sigueiros. In 1974 he brought his vision for the Mission neighborhood’s new BART station plaza to San Francisco Arts Commission President Ray Taliaferro, and with logistical support from the Commission and a $7,500 grant from the National Endowment For The Arts, Michael and his two colleagues completed the work.
“I wanted to show that without the workers, the people of community whose work supported it, just like the concrete pillars holding up its elevated tracks, BART could never have been possible.” Erik Arguello, President of the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District describes the mural’s significance to the Mission community. “The Bart Mural illuminates the indomitable spirit of our people, capturing our unwavering determination and the pivotal role we play within the entire San Francisco Bay Area. The mural depicts the struggle and resilience of our workers and our community as a testament to our unwavering strength and perseverance.” Rios has created murals throughout the Mission District throughout the last 50 years, an early founder of the renowned San Francisco Latino muralist movement.
This powerful mural is just one example of how TODCO is helping to harness the power of artistic expression to build community and unite San Franciscans. One of most recent projects is a collection of powerful photographs from local artists that reveals a “Secret” San Francisco.
Secret San Francisco Reveals The City Between Dusk and Dawn
“Looking for that single photo to tell the story of the night.”
“We met on Minna for the Thursday night journey, venturing into unknown streets and alleys. Looking for that single photo to tell the story of the night. Do you click the shutter, or silently walk away from what you saw in the shadow?”
The 6th on 7th Gallery and Photography Workshop has released their new book, Secret San Francisco. The book features a collection of night images from various neighborhoods of San Francisco, taken by workshop participants from 1998-1999. The project was inspired by Brassai’s classic series Paris by Night. The images were created out of collaboration amongst the members.
“The Sixth Street Photography Workshop shares the art and skills of photography with residential hotel tenants, those living without housing, and others living below the poverty line. The Workshop’s mission is to awaken creative and artistic expression within individuals and to help those who are otherwise unempowered to develop a voice. Photography becomes a vehicle for analysis and expression so that workshop participants have both an outer voice for their community as well as an inner voice for themselves. What distinguishes Sixth Street Photography Workshop from similar projects is that participants are challenged to communicate the richness of their perceptions and understandings. In the Workshop, traditional subjects for photography control the tools of representation, focusing them on the outside world and on themselves. The work of the members is a creative and documentary expression of poor and disenfranchised adults," said Tom Ferentz, Workshop founder.
TODCO, a San Francisco nonprofit focused on civic impact and community building for its South of Market communities grew from a movement of Central City tenants and owners who joined forces to prevent redevelopment’s displacement of poor and elderly residents in the 1960s and 70s. Now TODCO is an affordable housing developer with 1400 tenants living in 8 affordable SOMA residences. TODCO’s Community Arts Initiatives include the 6th On 7th Photography Workshop and its 6th On 7th Gallery at 7th and Mission Streets. To learn more, visit the TODCO website and follow TODCO on social media @TODCOGroup across all platforms.
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