In 2023, at 11:11 am, on 11/11, my Uber arrived at the Tenderloin Museum, the place where a guided walking tour was going to later start. I was so early that I first took a tour by myself. The familiarity was overwhelming. I couldn’t remember exactly which street crossed where, but generally, I knew where I was. Later, back at the museum, the guide asked us, the participants, to briefly state why we were taking the tour. I hadn’t anticipated this question. Nonetheless, I answered honestly.
“In a past life, I lived here and it’s been a hundred years since I’ve been back.”
Never batting an eye, she kept a perfect poker face. What I didn’t say, is that I was once Jessie from the block. I worked my way up from prostitute to madam and ran notorious houses of ill repute, brothels, the finest and most decadent. I died in 1923 while visiting London. However, I’d called the Tenderloin home for decades. Since my death, writers have tried to tell my story in newspaper articles and in chapters of various books. So I was surprised when, as Connie, I arrived at the Tenderloin Museum and discovered no trace of me as the infamous Diamond Jessie.
The tip was the only on purpose 11.11. The unplanned 11/11 & 11:11 were like gifts in the form of signs/omens.
At the end of the walk, I chatted with the guide, who knew the Tenderloin inside and out. She was absolutely certain I would love her church, which was part of the tour, and she invited me to attend the next day. I didn’t tell her that I had quit regular church years ago and that I was certain I wouldn’t like it. Instead, I said I’d think about it. The next morning, I almost didn’t make myself get up in time. I went only to repay her graciousness. This is one of those times people pleasing really worked out well for me. I joined Glide Memorial Church that morning.
In a very short amount of time, I learned about the founder, the late Lizzie Glide, the late Minister, Cecil Williams, and the current Minister, Marvin K White. Glide is the literal hub of the Tenderloin. It isn’t just a church, it’s a place where be ye warmed and filled, is a verb, an action fulfilled through the work of Unconditional Love for the residents of the streets. The church members are advocates for the Tenders, housed or unhoused, sober or not.
Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered Glide’s theme is Unconditional Love! It hadn’t even yet been 30 days since the Ayahuasca ceremony where I sold my soul to Unconditional Love. Everything about this trip felt supernaturally designed especially for me. I took this photo of one of the walls inside the church.
Glide is truly a refuge and it’s where I want to serve.
I want to alleviate suffering within the Tenderloin. It is the one place I still do want to sometimes work as a nurse. I also want to provide therapeutic touch (massage) for the church staff and volunteers, those in recovery and those who serve the Tenderloin through other agencies such as Urban Alchemy and the TL-SFPD. I think now how wild it is that before it even existed, I had my massage business, Tenderloin Touch, registered as a trade name not only before I graduated from massage school, but also before I ever heard of Glide.
I want to serve in ways I don’t yet know are needed.
I want to assist Tenders (from the Tenderloin or not) in telling their stories. And I want to tell Diamond Jessie’s story. When I was her, my carefully hidden diaries burned in The Great Earthquake & Fire of 1906. I spent decades recreating them as best I could. Then I turned them into a novel series, a tantalizing tell-all work of fiction. But I suppose it was too close to the real truth because the final drafts were stolen from my London Hotel room on March 31, 1923, the day I died. The unrelenting desire to recreate that lost work of art birthed The Tenderloin Tribe Project.
I walked around and located the addresses of my old brothels. This one is 225 Ellis Street in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco.
(edited/completed 5/11/25)