The Castro

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The Castro

Though the Castro district has been a distinctly defined neighborhood of San Francisco since the 1880s, the district did not gain worldwide fame until the 1970s when it became a mecca for a newly liberated gay community—in effect a west coast equivalent to New York's Christopher Street. It has been said that if San Francisco is America's gay capital, Castro Street is its gay Main Street.

The Castro district had a rebellious reputation from its beginnings: the street was named in 1840 for General Juan Castro, who led the Mexican resistance to white incursions into Northern California. By the 1880s, Eureka Valley, as it was then called, was a bustling working-class neighborhood, populated largely by Irish, German, and Scandinavian immigrants. After World War II, many of the area's residents joined the widespread exodus to the suburbs, leaving empty houses behind them. Coincidentally, post-World War II anti-gay witch hunts resulted in the discharge of hundreds of gay military personnel. Many were discharged in the port of San Francisco, and others were drawn there by the comparatively open and tolerant attitudes to be found there. Low housing prices in the unassuming district around Castro Street attracted many of these migrants, and gay bars began opening quietly in the 1950s. In 1960, the "gayola" scandal erupted in San Francisco when it was discovered that a state alcohol-board official had taken bribes from a gay bar. The scandal resulted in increased police harassment of gay bars but also sparked pleas for tolerance from religious and city officials. It was this reputation for tolerance that drew counterculture youth to San Francisco, culminating in the "Summer of Love" in 1967. Soon, thousands of gay men and lesbians were finding the Castro district an attractive place to live and open businesses, and during the 1970s the Castro thrived as a gay civic center.

The 1970s were heady years for the gay and lesbian community. Tired of the oppressive days of secrecy and silence, gay men created the disco scene where they could gather to the beat of loud music, with bright lights flashing. The new bars in the Castro, with names like Toad Hall and the Elephant Walk, had big glass windows facing the street, a reaction against the shuttered back-street bars of the 1950s. Since the 1960s, more than seventy gay bars have opened in the Castro. Many lesbians disavow the male-dominated Castro, however, with its 70:30 male-to-female population ratio; they claim nearby Valencia Street as the heart of the lesbian community.

Harvey Milk, a grassroots politician who would become the first openly gay man elected to public office in a major city, played a large part in creating the Castro phenomenon. Known as the "Mayor of Castro Street," Milk ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (city council) until he finally won in 1977. With an exceptional gift for coalition politics, Milk forged alliances between gay residents and the local Chinese community as well as with unions such as the Teamsters, building bridges where divisions had existed, and mobilizing the political influence of the thousands of gay men and lesbians in the city. In November of 1978, Milk and San Francisco mayor Dave Moscone were assassinated by a former city employee, Dan White. When the gay community heard the news, a spontaneous outpouring of Milk's supporters took to the streets of the Castro, and thousands marched there in a silent candlelight procession. Some weeks later, when Dan White was sentenced to only seven years in prison, it was not grief but anger that sent protesters into the streets for the "White Night Riots." Cars were torched and windows were smashed by rioters; when they dispersed, the police followed them back to the Castro in a rampage of violence that left sixty-one police and 100 protesters hospitalized.

Though the energetic early days of gay liberation are over, and notwithstanding the heavy toll taken by the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, the Castro is still a center of gay life in San Francisco, and famous the world over. The district is renowned for its street festivals, such as Gay Pride and the Castro Street Fair. The best-known party, the Halloween bash, was moved in 1996 to the civic center at the request of Castro merchants, who complained of rowdiness and vandalism. The district has only half as many people of color as the city at large, and the median age of residents is around thirty.

A walk down Castro Street in the 1990s still shows it to be very gay identified, with gay symbols, such as the pink triangle and the rainbow flag, adorning many stores and houses. Shops containing everything from men's haute couture fashions to leather-fetish dog collars and leashes attract both residents and tourists. Whether it is called a gay ghetto or a gay capitol, the Castro is clearly a political entity to the city of San Francisco and a symbol of liberation for the world.

—Tina Gianoulis