The San Francisco Women’s Building

Specialties

The Women’s Building provides contemporary and affordable meeting and event space supporting cultural events, educational forums, advocacy meetings, and support groups. Thousands of people each year come to The Women’s Building for events that address a full spectrum of current social and cultural issues. Also, our rooms are available for weddings, baptisms, birthdays and any family event.

We are located in between the Mission and Castro neighborhoods and easy to get to by public transportation. Our facility includes an auditorium and three well-​lighted, beautiful event rooms, all wheel chair accessible. With a variety of room size available, we can accommodate virtually every size and type of event. Flexible sitting arrangements make the perfect space from groups ranging from 10 to 350. Also for events schedule at our facility, a child care room with a 20 children capacity is available for rent.

All rooms are wheel chair accessible.

History

Established in 1971.

In 1971 a group of visionary women founded San Francisco Women’s Centers (SFWC) to incubate emerging Bay Area women’s projects.

The first offices, on Brady Street, soon grew too small for the volume of work that they took on, like publishing a newsletter, staffing a community switchboard, and organizing activist groups. So in 1979, SFWC purchased Dovre Hall, a former Sons of Norway meeting hall and neighborhood bar, and transformed it into the first woman-​owned and operated community center in the country: The Women’s Building.

Since then, TWB has sponsored over 170 emerging organizations, many growing into established nonprofits, such as The Women’s Foundation of California and LYRIC (Lavender Youth Recreation & Information Center). In 1999, TWB underwent an extensive renovation & seismic retrofitting, reopening in September of 2000. We estimate that over 10,000 people pass through the doors every year to take advantage of a variety of services or attend trainings and cultural events.