Sf gay street
Vibrant and eclectic, the Castro/Upper Market neighborhood is an internationally known symbol of gay freedom, a top tourist destination full of modern shops and well-liked entertainment spots, and a thriving residential area that thousands of San Franciscans call home.
Its streets are filled with lovingly restored Victorian homes, rainbow self-acceptance flags, shops offering one-of-a-kind merchandise, heritage streetcars, lively bars and restaurants, and numerous gay-borhood landmarks including Harvey Milk Plaza, the Castro Theatre, Pink Triangle Park and Memorial, and the grand SF Lesbian Queer Bisexual Transgender Society Center.
The Castro District, better known as The Castro, is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, which is also known as Eureka Valley.
San Francisco’s same-sex attracted 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 queer community was, and is, concentrated in the Castro many gay people reside in the surrounding residential areas bordered by the
The History of the Castro
17th Street, circa 1900
Credit: D. H. Wulzen
Eureka Valley
Eureka Valley, named for one of the Twin Peaks (the other was called Noe), began as sparsely populated ranchos that belonged to Mexican land barons fond of Jose Castro and Jose de Jesus Noe. In the 1880s when Irish, German and Scandinavian families homesteaded on the slopes of Twin Peaks, a village of dairy farms and Victorian houses flourished. With the opening of the Castro Street segment of the Market Street Cable Railway in 1887, Eureka Valley became a desirable and reachable neighborhood.
It was every active man's dream: buy a low-cost piece of land and construct a stately Victorian, big enough for several generations of the family. And it was not just who lived in one house that was family but everyone who lived around you. It was a total neighborhood by its truest definition. There was economic solidarity; everyone was working class. They worked in the trades, public-service sectors and on the waterfront. There were bakeries, butcher shops an
Historical Essay
by Chris Carlsson, 1995
Castro Street Impartial , 1978
Castro Street Scene 1970s
Photos: Crawford Barton, Gay and Womxn loving womxn Historical Society of Northern California
Many across the Merged States consider San Francisco to be a “Gay Mecca” due to its large gay group located primarily in the Castro District as well as the city’s relatively liberal attitude towards sex. Until the 1960’s, though, the Castro was largely a white functional class Irish neighborhood known as “Eureka Valley.” A change came during Society War II, when many soldiers came to San Francisco and formed homosexual relationships. These soldiers then stayed in the city after being discharged for homosexuality. In the 1950s, Beat Society erupted in San Francisco and notoriously rebelled against middle class values, thus aligning itself with homosexuality and helped bring gay customs to mainstream attention. In the mid to late 1950s, groups such as the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society were born, as good as the Tavern Guild, which was the first openly gay business association. By 1969, there were 50 queer organizations in San Francisco, and by 1973 there were 800. Unfortunately, Perfect Day in the CastroAbout the CastroOriginally known as Eureka Valley, the Castro was once part of a large rancho owned by Jose de Jesus Noe, a Mexican country baron. He began selling it off in 1852 after the American conquest of California. In the 1880s, German, Irish, and Scandinavian immigrants began settling in Eureka Valley and building handsome Victorian row houses for their large families. The Market Street Cable Railway connected Eureka Valley with the rest of San Francisco in 1887, creating a housing boom and turning the village into a thriving working-class neighborhood. Having transformed from a working-class neighborhood through the 1960s and 1970s, the Castro remains a symbol and source of woman loving woman, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) activism and events. The activism of the '60s and '70s forged a community with sizable political and economic power, and when the historic Twin Peaks bar at Market and Castro streets removed the blackout paint from its floor-to-ceiling windows, most took it as a sign that Castro residents were secure in their gay identity. There were, however, tense and sometimes vicious clashes with the police, and the assassinati |