Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

The building in front of you was once a furniture store called The Shaft. In 1977, local artists and activists transformed the site into the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts to provide a permanent home for the neighborhood's flourishing Chicano and Latin American creative movements. They specifically chose this four-story structure because its layout perfectly suited their needs, with a ground floor capable of holding a theater, a mezzanine for galleries, and upper levels for dance studios and printmaking workshops.