I moved to the South of Market District in 1978, as the first posts were being poured for San Francisco’s largest redevelopment project now known as the Moscone Convention Center. I began to ask who had lived and worked in this ten-block area that had been clear-cut of 7000 residents and 400 businesses and was now a massive hole in the ground? How would this new development affect the lives of my working class neighbors who had called this place home for many years? These photographs were my way of giving a voice to those who remained at the edges of the site, but were about to be immeasurably impacted by rising rents brought on by the arrival of the conventioneers. The work was accompanied by interviews with the residents and business owners. This project was published by Mack, 2013, and exhibited at the de Young Museum of San Francisco in 2015.
Janet Delaney, March, 2017