Intersection for the Arts has been running its reading series since 1965, making it the longest continuous literary reading series outside of an academic institution in the state of California. That longevity -- more than sixty years of writers standing at a microphone and reading their work to a San Francisco audience -- tells you something about the organization's stubbornness and the city's appetite for literary performance. Intersection is the oldest alternative nonprofit art space in San Francisco, a distinction that carries both pride and precariousness in a city where nonprofit arts organizations are perpetually one lease renewal away from extinction.
Intersection for the Arts was established in 1965, during the same cultural ferment that produced the Fillmore, the Mime Troupe, and the other countercultural institutions that defined San Francisco's 1960s. As an alternative nonprofit art space, Intersection occupied a position deliberately outside the mainstream gallery and theater systems, providing a venue for experimental work that commercial venues would not touch. Literature, visual art, performance, and interdisciplinary work have all found a home here, united by a commitment to artistic risk that has remained consistent even as the definition of risk has changed.
The reading series is Intersection's most enduring program. For more than sixty years, writers have come to Intersection to read new work, test material, and connect with a community of listeners that has been showing up, week after week, since Lyndon Johnson was president. The series has hosted emerging writers who would become famous and established writers who came to stay sharp. Its longevity makes it an institution within an institution -- a living tradition that connects the literary San Francisco of the 1960s to the literary San Francisco of today.
Surviving for six decades as a nonprofit art space in San Francisco requires a kind of institutional artistry that gets no grants and wins no awards. Intersection has navigated rising rents, shifting neighborhoods, changing funding landscapes, and the constant temptation to compromise its mission for financial stability. The organization's persistence is its most radical statement: in a city that celebrates disruption and novelty, Intersection has been doing the same thing -- presenting challenging art in an accessible space -- for longer than most of its neighbors have been alive.
Located at 37.7658°N, 122.422°W in San Francisco's Mission District. Best viewed at 2,000-3,000 feet AGL. Nearest airports: KSFO (11 nm south), KOAK (10 nm east).