Oct 15 · San Francisco Lights ON!
The BROADWAY marquee comes back on over North Beach — and every name on it gets read out loud.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
6:15pm — lights at 6:45, right at dusk
435 / 443 Broadway
North Beach, San Francisco
Getting in
The sidewalk is free. A lit bulb gets you through the door.
Anyone can stand on Broadway and watch the sign come on — no ticket, no list. To come upstairs for the reading, back a bulb first. Brightening one someone else named starts at $5; naming your own starts at $100.
Upstairs is a room, not a stadium — a lit bulb puts you first through the door, but once we reach capacity that's it, and the street party goes on all night either way. Google Calendar
What this is
The sign over 435 Broadway was dark for decades. This year the neighborhood brought it back — stripped, rewired, repainted, relit, paid for by gifts from people who love this building. It's burning again right now.
What's left is the part that belongs to everyone: the bulbs are being dedicated, one at a time, to the people and nights this city doesn't want to forget. On October 15 we turn it on in front of everybody and read those names out loud.
The night
- 6:15
The block fills
Doors open, music comes out onto the sidewalk. Look up and find the bulb you lit.
- 6:45
Lights ON!
We count it down out loud and Broadway comes back on over North Beach.
- 7:15
The reading of the names
Upstairs, every name on the sign is read aloud and projected — the story behind each bulb.
- 8:00
The house plays
Live music in a room that has been doing this since 1919.
Everybody who ever played this room
Poetry, punk, comedy, jazz, swing, and two immigrant communities who kept the doors open. The sign never belonged to one scene.
- 1919
The Italians who built it
A mutual-aid hall raised from post-quake brick, on a vow that nobody faced hardship alone.
- 1945
The Dimas-Alang Temple
A Filipino fraternal order buys the building and makes the upstairs a refuge.
- 1959
Ginsberg, upstairs
He read Kaddish here — grief out loud, in a room that could hold it.
- 1962
The curtain goes up
The On Broadway Theatre opens. Jazz, cabaret, and a five-year run of the blues.
- 1976
The Fab Mab plugs in
Ness Aquino opens his supper club to punk. The Dead Kennedys make it home.
- 1978
Comedy hell
Robin Williams opens for the Ramones, bombs, and keeps coming back.
- Now
The Lindy still spins
Swing nights every week. The dance never stopped.
We chose October on purpose. It's Filipino American History Month, and this building was the Dimas-Alang Temple for decades before it was anything else you've heard of. The punk history the world knows happened because a Filipino family said yes.
Three ways in
Every one of them gets you upstairs. Only one of them puts a new name on the sign.
Naming a bulb by October 1 gets that name into the reading.
Brighten one right now
Pick what you want to keep going. We'll put your gift behind a bulb that already carries that story, and your note goes up with it.
1 · What do you want to keep lit?
2 · How much?
Finishes on our secure checkout, and it's your way in on the 15th. Want a specific bulb instead? Browse every story →
Want a nudge closer to the night?
One email before October 15. That's it.