Delancey Street Foundation

Delancey Street Foundation
December 1976
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Delancey Street
Foundation took its name
from a major cross street
in New York City’s
Manhattan borough.
In the older days, the poor
lived south of the street
and the wealthy lived
north.
The phrase “crossing
Delancey” symbolically
meant moving up the
social ladder – a great
change in one’s life.
Co-founder John Maher
lived south.
The former Egyptian Consulate in San Francisco’s wealthy Pacific
Heights neighborhood was the first home for the foundation. John
Maher and Mimi Silbert moved in with a dozen hard core criminals.
Work supervisors at a morning meeting.
Part of a fleet of distinctive vehicles
The original Delancey Street Restaurant: “the soup doesn’t come out of a
can – but the help did”
The milk bar – no drugs or alcohol
This “cell on a trailer” is sometimes brought to public speaking
engagements
Delancey Street’s new home back then…
…and today.