1 January 2009
by Katie Dettman
Joey Plaster is in search of people who are knowledgeable about San Francisco's Polk Gulch neighborhood to serve as narrators for the Polk Gulch Oral History Project, which will focus on the area through the decades, with a focus on the 1960s through the present.
Plaster is in the beginning stages of the project, and hopes to be finished by April 2009.
"The finished project will include an exhibit at the GLBT Historical Society, a series of radio documentaries, a Web site, and roundtable discussions at the GLBT Historical Society," noted Plaster. In addition, all recordings will be archived at the society.
Plaster, 29, a freelance journalist and oral historian, decided to pursue the project because when he became interested in the neighborhood a few years ago, he was unable to find a wealth of written historical documents about "the Polk," as it is sometimes called.
"We hope that this project will create an enduring snapshot of the neighborhood, help diversify representations of LGBT people, dramatize issues important to the city and the nation as a whole, and help promote understanding in an area that is experiencing rapid change and tension," said Plaster.
Martin Meeker, an academic specialist at UC Berkeley's Regional Oral History office and a historical society board member, is advising the project.
Shortly after graduating from Oberlin College in 2000 with a bachelor's degree in history, Plaster moved to San Francisco and lived near the Polk, which was unlike anything he'd seen before in terms of its diversity and rich history.
"People of all races, ages, professions, classes, genders, and nationalities seem to share space with each other there," Plaster, who currently resides in Berkeley, explained. "I started asking people about the neighborhood's history, and the stories I heard were fascinating. The Polk, a largely working class LGBT neighborhood, seems to have been passed over, while San Francisco's wealthier gay male centers, like the Castro and North Beach, have been written about and studied in detail."
Plaster, who is openly gay, felt that the history of the Polk was being lost quickly as the neighborhood changes, which has leant a sense of urgency to the project.
"The Polk is now quickly changing, as mid-income heterosexual businesses replace the LGBT bars on the street and long-term residents move elsewhere," he said. "It increasingly feels like its now or never for recording the area's history. It's a history that is also almost completely unexplored and, during a time of rapid neighborhood change, at risk of being lost."
Alexis Miranda, 40, has been performing at Diva's bar in the Polk for 21 years, and currently bartends and manages the club. Plaster has interviewed Miranda several times as part of the project, and she has been able to refer him to other potential narrators.
"A lot of young people today take a lot of things for granted today that we weren't able to do even when I was younger,� said Miranda, who was Absolute Empress XXXIII and identifies as a transgender woman. "There were a lot of people that contributed to the community that are no longer around."
Miranda worries about the gentrification and recent transformation of the Polk, and hopes the oral history project will preserve some of the neighborhood's history.
"In the beginning, I was doing this more as a favor to [Plaster]. I like to encourage and help young people get to their goals," she said. "But then we started talking and a lot of memories started coming up for me."
Plaster has been scouring the neighborhood for narrators for the project, and has already interviewed a diverse group of people familiar with the area, including Wayne Friday, the former Bay Area Reporter political editor and Polk bartender; Stephen Cornell, who was born and raised in the area and owns a business in the neighborhood; Bill Campbell, a member of Old First Presbyterian Church, who, along with the church, was instrumental in the founding of Larkin Street Youth Center (now Larkin Street Youth Services); and longtime B.A.R. columnist Dick Walters, a.k.a. Sweet Lips, a founding member of the Tavern Guild, an organization of gay bar owners concerned about police harassment that was founded in 1962.
Larkin Street Youth Services is also working on the project, spokeswoman Nicole Garroutte said, as the agency is compiling its own history project in advance of its 25th anniversary next year.
Megan Rohrer, 27, an out lesbian, is director of Old First Presbyterian Church's Welcome Ministry, which assists homeless residents of the Polk. Although she has only lived and worked in the neighborhood for the past six years, Plaster plans to interview her, too.
"It just really intrigues me to go into what the history has been for lessons that can help us today," she said about Plaster's project. In addition to running the Welcome Ministry's various programs, Rohrer counsels homeless people in the Polk.
"We've done a lot of talking through things and I've connected [Plaster] to people that would be really helpful for him to talk to, particularly homeless people who have a long history of being in the neighborhood." Rohrer also feels compelled to tell the stories of those who cannot speak for themselves.
"What I've noticed is a lot of the people who end up in this area are queer individuals from the Midwest whose families kicked them out, or they thought they would and so they came to San Francisco thinking it would be a safe space for them," Rohrer explained. "They found hundreds of other people who had done the same thing and ended up going through a meat grinder and becoming sex workers and homeless and were trapped in this neighborhood."
"If you try to think about what gentrification does to a neighborhood, there is no way to care for both the people on the lowest sidewalks of the neighborhood and also the people in the highest buildings unless you're willing to sit down and listen to all of their stories," she said. "I think it's really amazing that [Plaster] is willing to sit with those stories and come up with something out of it. I'm really excited to see what it looks like."
Plaster is on the lookout for more narrators, particularly those who are knowledgeable about the Tavern Guild or the Polk neighborhood as it was in the 1960s and 1970s. He needs potential narrators to contact him by July in order to ensure representation in the project. Plaster is also in need of volunteers to transcribe interviews.
In addition to applying for several grants, Plaster is seeking tax-deductible donations for the project. Contributions can be made online at www.glbthistory.org, or checks made out to GLBTHS with "Polk Project" in the memo line can be mailed to: Daniel Bao, GLBTHS, 657 Mission Street #300, San Francisco, CA 94105. Plaster hopes to raise $20,000 through grants and individual donations.
Those interested in participating in the project can e-mail Plaster at polkstories@gmail.com or call (415) 615-2107.
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