Blocker: 100 Taylor

Taylor and Turk, one of the Tenderloin’s more infamous corners, appears to be ground zero for agitation, addiction, mental illness, walking canes, and open sores on bare arms. As we photograph Taylor’s street sign, a woman with a particularly scratchy throat acidically asks, brown bag in hand, Are you gonna take my picture, too? A surly-faced man on her right, with whom she’s sharing her afternoon refreshment, sizes up our camera, possibly for resale value.

Leaving the party behind, we cross Turk and peek inside the 21 Club at the southeast end of the block. Its dive status is unassailable – so much so, it’s apparently remained untouched by young, zeitgeist-chasing sophisticates seeking the next great Tenderloin pisshole to get blitzed at this weekend. Kitty-corner across Turk sits the 65 Club, where the minimum drinking age is so high, Gavin Newsom can’t even hope to get served until at least 2032.

A pair of single-room occupancy hotels populate Taylor’s east side. A man shuffles by us en route to the Hotel Warfield, above the 21 Club. In his right hand: a thin plastic bag featuring a 40-ounce bottle of Miller High Life and nothing else, freshly procured from Cool Super Discount at the north end of the block. Over his right shoulder: a pet ferret.

Throughout our visit, the preposterously loud bellowing of a man’s voice is a constant, although we don’t identify its source right away. When we do finally spot him, he’s slumped against a wall across the street from Original Joe’s, and he’s about to get accosted by an awfully angry woman who has just blindly crossed through moderate, 30-MPH traffic just to read him some sort of unintelligible riot act to his face. The woman, whose sanity seems to have escaped her as well, delivers her spiel forcefully and efficiently, and it suitably humbles (and silences) the man...for a bit. He begins howling again a few minutes later.

Imagine everything Original Joe’s façade has seen on this block through the decades. The unsinkable restaurant, which has been dishing forth “fine Italian” entrees since shortly after Dashiell Hammett started writing Sam Spade stories a few blocks away on Post, defines “neighborhood staple.” Its true-to-form, dated entrance is flanked by notably long and thin bricks, and some think its food tastes about as fresh as the front of the building looks. This seems like a harsh assessment to us, although we have it on good authority from someone who once ordered the roast beef platter that the soda gun behind Original Joe’s bar features a Bolognese sauce setting alongside the more accepted Sprite and iced tea options.

Across from Original Joe’s and downwind from still-slumping Howlin’ Wolf, we give Curran House a once-over. The affordable family housing complex, completed in 2005, brings a welcome update to this tired block, and its front balconies are of particular visual interest. From below, the small square decks, staggered as they are (right to left, floor to floor), resemble outsized speaker cabinets.

Still, all the architectural ingenuity in the world can’t begin to mitigate the stench of pee alternating with the odor of disinfectant along Taylor’s sidewalks – and believe it or not, when applied in mass quantities, the latter is only slightly less disgusting than the former. A glance to the northeast from the Eddy end of the block reveals the luxuriant Parc 55 Hotel stretching 32 stories skyward. Looking east down Eddy, the new Bloomingdale’s center comes into quick focus two blocks away. It’s a long two blocks, though.

Later on, we learn that a 17-year-old was shot to death at Ellis and Larkin earlier in the day.