The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley is a public art installation of four works honouring gay and lesbian leather culture in South of Market (SOMA), San Francisco. The pieces are embedded along Ringold Street, an alley between 8th and 9th Streets, and opened in 2017. The alley sits inside the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District—street-level memory work for a neighbourhood that once held world-famous leather bars, baths, and play spaces.
Leather Memoir: Four Artworks
Collectively titled Leather Memoir and created mainly by landscape architect Jeffrey Miller, the installation includes:
- A black granite stone etched with narrative text by anthropologist Gayle Rubin, an image of Mike Caffee’s “Leather David” statue, and a reproduction of Chuck Arnett’s 1962 mural from the Tool Box, a legendary gay leather bar.
- Engraved standing stones honouring community leather institutions, including the Folsom Street Fair.
- Leather Pride Flag pavement markings through which the stones rise.
- Bronze bootprints along the curb honouring twenty-eight individuals central to local leather communities.
The Twenty-Eight Bootprints
The curb bootprints form a roll call of SOMA leather history. Names and roles preserved in the source record include:
- Jim Kane — community leader and biker
- Ron Johnson
- Steve McEachern — owner of the Catacombs, the famed gay and lesbian S/M fisting club
- Cynthia Slater — a founder of the Society of Janus
- Tony Tavarossi — manager of the Why Not
- Chuck Arnett
- Jack Haines — owner of Fe-Be’s and The Slot
- Alexis Muir — owner of South of Market bars and baths including The Stud
- Sam Steward
- Terry Thompson — San Francisco Eagle manager
- Philip M. Turner — founder of Daddy’s Bar
- Hank Diethelm — The Brig owner
- Kerry Brown, Ken Ferguson, and David Delay — Ambush co-owners
- Alan Selby — founder of Mr. S Leather, known as the “Mayor of Folsom Street”
- Peter Hartman — owner of 544 Natoma art gallery and theater
- Robert Opel
- Tony DeBlase — creator of the leather pride flag
- Marcus Hernandez — Bay Area Reporter leather columnist
- John Embry — founder and publisher of Drummer magazine
- Geoff Mains — author of Urban Aboriginals
- Mark Thompson — author and cofounder of Black Leather Wings
- Thom Gunn
- Paul Mariah — poet, printer, and activist
- Robert Davolt — author, San Francisco Pride leather contingent organiser, Bound & Gagged editor
- Jim Meko — printer and South of Market activist
- Alexis Sorel — cofounder of The 15 and Black Leather Wings member
- Bert Herman — author, publisher, handball-community leader
- T. Michael “Lurch” Sutton — biker and cofounder of the Bears of SF
For visitors and locals, the alley is not abstract public art; it is a sidewalk syllabus of bars, publishers, educators, and play-space owners who built SOMA leather. Related sites include the San Francisco Eagle, Folsom Street Fair, and the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District maps that treat these names as civic history rather than only nightlife trivia.
