The Lee Sims Photographs of Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment (TOOR) include 156 strips of 35mm negatives, 26 contact sheets and digital scans photographed by Lee Sims from June 1970 to July 1971 of various South of Market district single-room occupancy hotels and residents affected by San Francisco Redevelopment Agency projects in San Francisco, California. Photographs include interiors and exteriors of various single-room occupancy hotels, storefronts, street scenes, demolition scenes by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, and housing rights activism. Activism includes protesting outside of the annual luncheon for the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. Individuals depicted include residents, resident activist George Woolf and attendees of community meetings. Other subjects include Third Street, Sixth Street and meetings of the organization Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment (TOOR).

Lee Sims was born in 1944 in Palo Alto, California. Sims graduated from Stanford University in 1966 with a degree in political science. A few years after college graduation, Sims was a VISTA volunteer in Athens, Georgia, 1968-1969. When Sims finished his VISTA service in 1969, he returned to California and moved in with his cousin in San Francisco. His cousin was a legal aid for the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation and he helped Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment (TOOR) to get the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency to provide decent housing for displaced and otherwise South of Market residents. Sims photographed the documentation needed to support TOOR, which at times were lawsuits. This was the beginning of Sims as a freelance photographer until the mid-1970s. In the early 1970s Sims began his career in the newspaper business until his retirement in 2009.

3 folders of 156 strips of 35mm negatives, 26 contact sheets and CDs of digital scans (.25 Linear Feet)

All requests for permission to publish from photographs must be submitted in writing to the Photo Curator. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library as the owner of the physical items. San Francisco Public Library holds copyright to this collection.

The collection is available for use during San Francisco History Center's Photo Desk hours.