Turn Broadway back on.
One historic sign. Hundreds of real stories. Light a bulb, and your story slides in beside theirs.
The sign went dark.
The stage did not.
Some signs mark a street. This one marks a community. Help us bring it back.
Every light is a real story.
A hundred years of nights.
Italian hall. Filipino fraternal temple. Beat reading room. Legitimate theatre. The Fab Mab. For more than a century, one door at 435 Broadway has held San Francisco's nightlife, music, and reinvention.
Garibaldi Hall
The building opens as Garibaldi Hall, an Italian mutual-aid club — a room built so a community would always have somewhere to gather. It later served the neighborhood as the Dimas-Alang Temple, a Filipino fraternal home.
Beat poets & the Purple Onion
The upstairs room becomes a stage for the Beat generation read aloud, while the marquee fills with new comedy and song downstairs.
The On Broadway Theatre
The room becomes a legitimate theatre. Names go up in lights along the vertical marquee — nightly, in person, on Broadway. By 1969 the building wears a coat of red, and Oscar Brown Jr.'s Joy '69 fills the marquee.
Mabuhay Gardens — the “Fab Mab”
Filipino restaurateur Ness Aquino turns the room into Mabuhay Gardens, and 435 Broadway becomes the West Coast's punk headquarters.
The room is still here
The building has survived every era — and its BROADWAY sign still stands over the street, dark, waiting to come back on.
"Some lights remember. Some lights hold. Some lights invite."
Choose your light.
Let's light the sign.
Your light helps restore the BROADWAY sign and keeps 435 Broadway visible as an independent stage.