Mythologizing the Polkstrasse: Memoir & Memory with William Martin

Readings and discussion exploring queer life on Polk St. from the gayborhood's 1970s heyday and celebrating William Martin's expansive book series San Francisco: the Luxury of Eccentricity. Featuring the author & friends David Nemoyten, Dirk Alphin and Juanita MORE!

Author William Martin has described Polk St. in the 1970s as the “epicenter of Gay Civilization.” With an emergent culture of queer liberation, San Francisco occupied a mythical place in queer consciousness, and Martin’s expansive novel series–San Francisco: the Luxury of Eccentricity–casts this mythical time and place in an epic light. The books chronicle the “adventures and misadventures of young, queer, gender-fluid Twink, Trevor Oliver Tadich III from 1970s until present day” as he finds himself and makes his home in SF. The tales form a coming out, a coming-of-age, and “coming-of-place” for both Trevor and the city itself. 

Within these fictions are richly detailed accounts of Polk St. during its “gayborhood” heyday and during a formative moment in the LGBTQ Movement. These books conjure a colorful and entertaining picture of these times and places from the perspective of someone who lived them. Martin is a raconteur with great panache, and his prose is effervescent and unfettered, matching the energy of its subjects. The Polk St. scene–the old Polkstrasse–is rendered in a sprawling, semi-fictionalized universe where memoir and memory transmute into a prolific creative opus.

Stage Struck, the 7th book in San Francisco: the Luxury of Eccentricity, was published in the final days of 2024 and follows Trevor Oliver Tadich III as he becomes enthralled with theater and film. Like his protagonist, Martin thrived in the theater and film scenes of San Francisco–in addition to being a longtime denizen of the Polkstrasse, Martin is a prolific playwright who was deeply involved with Theatre Rhinocerous and the San Francisco Playwright’s Center, as well as an actor and independent filmmaker in addition to his more recent novelistic pursuits.

To celebrate Martin’s series, the importance of Polk St. history, and the power of memoir and storytelling to shape that history, Tenderloin Museum hosts a reading by the author plus discussion with some of his longtime friends and compatriots from the Polkstrasse: David Nemoyten, Dirk Alphin and Juanita MORE! Join us for this special program exploring queer memoir and memory and “mythologizing the Polkstrasse” at the Tenderloin Museum!