Folsom St. Food Court

By Michael Rababy, Miah Jeffra

“Folsom Street Food Court” is a documentary photography monograph that captures San Francisco’s infamous Folsom Street Fair (The annual event will occur this Sunday, September 30th, 2018).  The unguarded images feature people in various states of dress and undress in the rarely photographed street fair food court.  Rababy chose to cover two years shot a decade apart (2007 and 2017) to demonstrate that although the city of San Francisco has gentrified over time, the Folsom Street Fair seems to maintain its authenticity.

The SF community had been active in resisting the city's ambitious redevelopment program for the South of Market area throughout the 1970s. City officials had wanted to "revitalize" the historically blue collar, warehouse, industrial district by continuing successful high rise development already underway on Rincon Hill.  But as the AIDS epidemic unfolded in the 1980s, the community's relative autonomy from City Hall was dramatically weakened. The crisis became an opportunity for the city (in the name of public health) to close bathhouses and regulate bars, which they did beginning in 1984.

As these establishments for the leather community were rapidly closing, a coalition of housing activists and community organizers decided to start a street fair. The fair would enhance the visibility of the community, provide a means for much-needed fundraising, and create opportunities for members of the leather community to connect to services and vital information (e.g., regarding safer sex) that bathhouses and bars might otherwise have been situated to distribute.  Thanks to the success of the first Folsom Street Fair, the organizers created the Up Your Alley Fair on Ringold Street in 1985. This fair moved to Dore Street ("Dore Alley") between Howard and Folsom in 1987.

Paperback, 64 pages
Published by Delency Street Press
ISBN-13: 9780692183731
Dimensions: