“Polk Gulch”
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/568036
“This book is dedicated to Pat Carey, distinguished artist, activist and once owner of The Nanny Goat Art Gallery on Bush Street.
She was a tireless Mother Teresa to the runaway teens who inhabited Polk Gulch in the 1980′s (some of whom are pictured in this book), which ultimately led to the establishment of San Francisco’s Larkin Street Youth Center.”
Before the Castro District in San Francisco California achieved fame as a gay playground, Polk Gulch, the area of Polk Street between California Street and Geary was known for its gay bars, raucous Halloween parades. elegant Shops, restaurants and sadly the young male prostitutes and drug addicts. The neighborhood was also home to a large number of elderly, minorities, and a small colony of former North Beach bohemians.
This book is a photographic record of Polk Gulch as it was in 1980.
Johnny Lee Ray, San Francisco Bay Guardian Arts and Entertainment editor says……
“…a rave for Blaine Dixon’s Polk Gulch…”, “Blaine’s black-and-white eye is a West Coast counterpart to the Times Square views of Larry Clark and Gary Lee Boas,.. “the book’s final contemporary color section is packed with wise irony.”, “Polk Gulch proves small publishing is still spirited, intelligent, and surprising.”
Roberto Friedman, Arts Editor of San Francisco’s Bay Area Reporter, says, ” ‘Polk Gulch’ a collection of photographs by Blaine Dixon, is a look into a time and place…Polk Street circa 1980…the vintage storefronts and the habitués who loitered there are presented in glorious black and white.”
Donn Saylor, theater writer for the Boston Examiner, critic for The Edge and owner of snark.com says…
“There are some intensely emotional pieces of work here, mesmerizing freeze-frame commentaries on society, art, and sexuality.”
The San Francisco City Library has nine copies of “Polk Gulch” and two copies of “Off The Road” The libraries of; San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley,USC,UCLA,Stanford , Columbia University, and Cornell have “Polk Gulch” in their permanent collections.
For more preview images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vercingtorix/sets/72157612595330999/
Title: Polk Gulch
Author: Blaine Dixon
Rating: 
Excellent!
Publisher: blurb.com
Web Page: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/568036
Reviewed by: Rod Clark | View Bio
When Blaine Dixon returned from living in L.A. to his old stomping grounds in San Francisco, he moved into a place on Bush St., near the Polk Gulch Neighborhood. At the time he had no idea what the Polk Gulch scene was all about, but shortly after arriving, in the spring of 1980, he decided to attend an art show in the neighborhood. There he met an old ex-wino/writer/artist friend, David Hansen, who was displaying his cross hatched drawings in the gallery. Blaine also met the gallery operator, Pat Carey, a compassionate and lively woman who was deeply concerned about the welfare of street children in the neighborhood. Upon finding out that Blaine was a photographer, Pat immediately began to pitch him on the idea of photo documenting the plight of young prostitutes and runaways that hung out in the Polk Gulch neighborhood. She promised to do a show of the resulting work in her gallery. Dixon did the show and also took some photos for papers and magazines. A friendship grew between Dixon and Carey. They were both artists and activists who wanted to reveal the plight of these street children to a larger oblivious world. Gradually, their friendship and what grew out of it became the catalyst for the creation of POLK GULCH.
Enshrined in this ephemeral photodom are the Polk Gulch hot spots of the early 80’s: The Blue Café, The Bagel deli, the sole surviving gay bar at the time: Kimo’s, the Nanny Goat Hills Gallery, Teller and Freed (Coffee Roasters), the continental Gift Shop, the H20 Café. Many of these locales are now gone or vastly transformed from what they were like in the early eighties.
In these pages, the boys, girls, men, women, and several genders in between come alive. The children we see here, posturing in greasy sunlight or night time neon have either long since grown up and escaped Polk Gulch, or have died or moved on to some other futureless place. Child prostitution still exists, of course, and districts like Polk Gulch emerge in one neighborhood when they are pushed out of another; but the world we see in these stark, pre-digital photos exists nowhere but in the pages of this book, and in the memories of those who walked those sidewalks and drank coffee in The Bagel or the Blue Café.
Here, rolled out for our voyeuristic enlightenment are people, places and moments long forgotten. Halloween on Polk Street in 1980. The Exotic Erotic Ball, on New Year’s Eve–glowing with ersatz glitz and a certain gritty and terminal elegance. Through the eye of the camera we cruise down neon-lit sidewalks past a cast of unforgettable characters, startling costumes,and lots of drag (both bad and not quite so bad). On sunlit sidewalks, we encounter the all knowing gaze of The Cosmic Lady, and the mysterious smiles of the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.” Meanwhile a sad host of costumed young people cruise the streets, trailed by the older men that prey on them. In one memorable moment, Blaine Dixon shows a woman artist a photo in Pat Carey’s gallery of a young man in a cap and sunglasses, waiting for a trick. “That’s my son,” she tells him. The boy had been missing for months.
Interspersed with the photos are Dixon’s notes and snippets of writing by his friend the late David Hansen; in particular, brief sketches written by Hansen on some of the locations in the photos, including the Blue Café. (Hansen is the subject of another fabulous photo book by Dixon entitled OFF THE ROAD, documenting Hansen’s final years living under the foundations of the old International Hotel.) Through Hansen’s writing, and in the faces of these lost young people we see inspiration, longing, and devastated potential. POLK GULCH is a haunting, unforgettable book, full of beauty and sadness, like a graveyard with flowers and broken glass. In it, Blaine Dixon has captured yet another world which, without his artistry, would have been irretrievably lost.
