Uptown Tenderloin Approved as National Historic DistrictRandy Shawbyline‚ Feb. 17‚ 2009The National Park Service announced last Friday that it has added 33 blocks of the Uptown Tenderloin to the National Register of Historic Places. The federal designation make the Uptown Tenderloin one of the nation’s largest residential historic districts, and represents a milestone in a thirty-year campaign to preserve the community’s working-class, historic character. The story of how a community that nearly everyone saw as inevitably becoming an upscale adjunct to downtown and/or Union Square went a different direction began in 1979, when Leroy and Kathy Looper purchased the rundown Cadillac Hotel at 380 Eddy Street. Rather than convert the Cadillac to a tourist hotel, or tear it down to build a highrise---both permitted uses at the time---the Loopers restored the building’s historic character and inspired new community groups to organize residents to chart the neighborhood’s future. The road was longer and bumpier than expected, but the Loopers’ vision has been realized, and the neighborhood’s forgotten history reclaimed. |