The Castro Neightborhood in San Francisco.
No visit to San Francisco would be complete without a trip to the Castro, San Francisco’s own gay village. The main drag of the Castro runs on Castro Street from Market to 19th although the neighborhood extends a few blocks in either direction. You can tell you’re in the Castro by looking up, if there are rainbow banners lining the streets then you are in the right place.
The Castro is also the home of the Castro Theater, a popular cinema and historical monument that was built in 1922. Be sure to include a movie in your agenda as the exterior of the Castro Theater does not do the ornate interior justice and you can’t hear the live organ music from outside either. Organ player? Yes, the Castro Theater has a resident Wurlitzer organ player who comes out about fifteen minutes before a movie starts and warms the crowd up with an eclectic mix of tunes that can range from ragtime to rock-n-roll.
San Francisco’s Castro District is one of the safest neighborhoods in the city and it tends to be a little cleaner than most as well. Since it is easily accessible with public transportation you can expect to find a lively crowd of all types; families, singles, couples both gay and straight, and even those people that can’t quite be identified by either gender or sexuality.
The Castro District, better known as The Castro, is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, which is also known as Eureka Valley.
Description
San Francisco’s gay village is most concentrated in the business district that is located on Castro Street from Market Street to 19th Street. It extends down Market Street toward Church and on both sides of the Castro neighborhood from Church Street to Eureka Street. Although the greater gay community was, and is, concentrated in the Castro many gay people live in the surrounding residential areas bordered by the Mission District, Noe Valley, Twin Peaks, and Haight-Ashbury neighborhoods. Some consider it to include Duboce Triangle and Dolores Heights which both have a strong LGBT presence.
Castro Street itself runs south through Noe Valley, crossing the 24th Street business district, and terminating a few blocks farther south as it moves toward the Glen Park neighborhood.
History
Stores on Castro near the intersection with 18th Street. Rainbow flags, which are commonly associated with gay pride, are hung as banners on streetlights along the road.Castro Street was named for José Castro (1808-1860), a leader of Mexican opposition to U.S. rule in California in the 19th century, and governor of Alta California from 1835-1836. The neighborhood now known as the Castro was born in 1887 when the Market Street Cable Railway built a line linking Eureka Valley to downtown.
From 1910 to 1920, the Castro was known as “Little Scandinavia” on account of the number of people of Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish ancestry who lived there. A Finnish bathhouse (Finilla’s) dating from this period was located behind the Cafe Flore on Market Street until 1986. The Cove on Castro diner used to be called The Norse Cove. The Scandinavian Seamen’s Union was near 15th Street and Market, just around the corner from the Swedish-American Hall which remains in the district. Scandinavian-style “half-timber” construction can still be seen in some of the buildings along Market Street between Castro and Church Streets.
The Castro became a working-class Irish neighborhood in the 1930s and remained so until the mid-1960s.
According to Morgan Spurlock, who filmed “Straight Man in a Gay World”, a 2005 episode of his documentary TV series 30 Days in the Castro, the U.S. military offloaded thousands of gay servicemen in San Francisco during World War II after they were discharged for being homosexuals. Many settled in the Castro, and this began the influx of homosexuals to the Castro neighborhood.
The Castro came of age as a gay center following the controversial Summer of Love in the neighboring Haight-Ashbury district in 1967. The gathering brought tens of thousands of middle-class youth from all over the United States. The neighborhood, previously known as Eureka Valley, became known as the Castro, after the landmark theatre by that name near the corner of Castro and Market Streets.
By 1975, Harvey Milk had opened a camera store there, and began political involvement as a gay activist, further contributing to the notion of the Castro as a gay destination. Some of the culture of the late 1970s included what was termed the “Castro Clone,” a mode of dress and personal grooming — tight denim pants, black combat boots, tight T-shirt, possibly a red plaid flannel outer shirt, and usually sporting a mustache or full beard — in vogue with the gay male population at the time, and which gave rise to the nickname “Clone Canyon” for the stretch of Castro Street between 18th and Market Streets. There were numerous famous watering holes in the area, contributing to the nightlife, including the Corner Grocery Bar, the Norse Cove, the Pendulum, the Midnight Sun, Twin Peaks, and the Elephant Walk. A typical daytime street scene of the period is perhaps best illustrated by mentioning the male belly dancers who could be found holding forth in good weather at the corner of 18th and Castro, on “Hibernia Beach,” in front of the financial institution from which it drew its name. Then at night, after the bars closed at 2 AM, the men remaining at that hour often would line up along the sidewalk of 18th Street to indicate that they were still available to go home with someone.
The area was hit hard by the AIDS/HIV crisis of the 1980s. Beginning in 1984, city officials began a crackdown on bathhouses and launched initiatives that aimed to prevent the spread of AIDS. Kiosks lining Market Street and Castro Street now have posters promoting safe sex and testing right alongside those advertising online dating services.
The Castro’s gay majority has sometimes been accused of trying to defend their culture by discriminating against straight people as they enter the neighborhood in increasing numbers.
