The Center SF Co-Op Was Evicted. Here’s What Life Was Like There.
From The Center’s FB Page
I get off the bus and approach the huge brick Romanesque Revival palace built in 1923. Out front there is a team of Sunset Scavenger workers loading “trash” into a garbage truck. The “trash” is a mountain of personal things left behind in a crazed hurry: idiosyncratic art projects, beautiful furniture, unique clothes, audio equipment, books, magazines, and one pile of nothing but hats. I pluck one very nice cowboy hat from the pile then continue walking to my actual destination: Ecstatic Dance in the church next door.
I have a friend who lived at the famed Center SF Collective three days ago. But he doesn’t live there anymore. All residents were ordered to move out this last weekend. All the stuff piled up on Fillmore Street was a collection of relics from their hasty relocation to who knows where, if anywhere at all.
As for why they moved out, the official word is: There was an increasingly complex web of tension between the landlord, master tenant, and residents both current and past. In the end, there isn’t one single entity to blame, just the chance confluence of many volatile factors.
What was The Center SF? A former priests’ rectory, it became a living co-op in 2012. It housed a vibrant group of 25 people, it hosted events, and it was a creative anchor in the neighborhood. Most of all, it fostered a potent culture of growth, expression and community.
I lived at The Center for two years, about a year after its inception. To apply for the room, I had to attend a group interview with 30 other applicants, going around in a circle, each of us trying to tell the established residents how cool we were. I don’t love public speaking, so my voice was subdued. A week later, when they called and told me they’d picked me to move in, I thought “wow, I tricked them good.”
I always call those two years the social peak of my life. It was like a tornado—rollicking, colorful and kaleidoscopic, with the risk of getting whacked in the face by a defunct fridge at any moment.
The kitchen was ground zero. Massive, with black and white checkered tile floors, so it felt like Alice’s cafeteria in Wonderland. I walked down there one day and encountered a very cute stranger. I didn’t know who he was or what he was doing there. But an hour later we were on acid together, floating in the Pacific Ocean via Baker Beach.
The Tea House & event space. Still open—for now. Photo from the official website.
We had meetings. Sometimes they’d be three hours of arguing over how many dishes you could leave on the dish rack before a fatwa would be issued on your head. Other times, everyone would collectively cry.
I had a major crush on my roommate down the hall. I didn’t know what to do about it. I just felt the tension.
Another roommate was named Hawt Flash. An actual superhero.
I met a guy named Dan (not to be confused with me) there one day. Today we’re still best friends.
I met another Dan there one day, not to be confused with me or my best friend Dan. This particular Dan was so blindingly attractive I couldn’t understand how he could be so friendly with regular old me. He lives in Porto now and I’m going to visit him next month.
And yet another Dan, one who did Thai massage and talked about fine tea. We became friends there too. (Yep—also very cute.)
An all-around artist, Mikey, ran the whole house. He also ran the collective next door, The Convent. Where The Center SF was historically a rectory, the Convent had been the adjacent nunnery. They were affiliated with the giant Sacred Heart Church on the corner of Fillmore and Fell. Today, people know that as the Church of 8 Wheels, home to roller skate disco and Ecstatic Dance.
San Francisco, where religious buildings become havens for art.
We called The Center SF “The Beatles.” The Convent next door was “The Rolling Stones.” We’d go to the Convent for parties and party favors. They’d come to us for massages.
In the basement event space at The Center, I started something called The Healer Jam in 2013 — a bunch of people hanging out doing bodywork for three hours once a month. The best one was when I offered a Holotropic Breathwork journey. Thirty people showed up, and I saw the room delve into outright hysterics. People wept like infants, people screamed like banshees. One guy ripped off his pants and kept thrusting his hips into the air while continuing the breath routine. My roommate from down the hall, the unrequited crush, he cried so hard I had to go over and help. I put my hand on his chest. He calmed into a peaceful rest.
There was a prototype of a tea house down there too. It was run by Travis, who was largely famed for not wearing a shirt for over eight years straight.
Even after I moved out in 2015, The Center SF was still a part of my life. The tea house was always (and will remain, it seems for now) filled with characters. I’ve been a part of massage workshops there. Dance classes. Parties. You could walk by at any moment and smell the potent combination of pu-ehr, cacao, and palo santo.
I’ll always remember how much art we made.
I’ll remember our open mics. Talented musicians breezed through like the wind, and I see many of them at the top of bills across the City. I just noticed that one of them is headlining High Sierra Music Festival this year.
I’ll remember how we made fresh juice and sold it out front on Fillmore Street. Lettuce Turnip the Beet, the sign said.
I’ll remember how we danced.
I’ll remember how we did yoga on the roof deck. Sometimes naked. (I might be mis-remembering that part. My memory often fabricates nudity.)
I’ll remember how we loved. We bickered. We played Jenga. We schemed.
One former bedroom on Sunday. Photo by the author.
There’s some good news. The event center and the tea house on the first floor, they haven’t reported any plans to close—despite pressure from the City for this reason or that.
San Francisco. Where religious buildings become havens for art. All the red tape, you can only hold on for so long, holding hope, perhaps being delusional, pretending the red tape is pretty ribbons.
When Ecstatic Dance ends, I gear up to leave. I grab my phone and my keys and my new cowboy hat. I try the hat on. It doesn’t fit.
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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