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The Castro in San Francisco

Wednesday, 12 October 2022 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika
Category/Kategorie: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  10 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post The Castro District, commonly referred to as the Castro, is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco. The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States. Having transformed from a working-class neighborhood through the 1960s and 1970s, the Castro remains one of the most prominent symbols of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activism and events in the world. Castro Street was named after José Castro (1808–1860), a Californian leader of Mexican opposition to U.S. rule in California in the 19th century, and alcalde of Alta California from 1835 to 1836. The neighborhood known as the Castro, in the district of Eureka Valley, was created in 1887 when the Market Street Railway Company built a line linking Eureka Valley to downtown.

San Francisco’s gay village is mostly concentrated in the business district that is located on Castro Street from Market Street to 19th Street. It extends down Market Street toward Church Street 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 Corona Heights, 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, which originates a few blocks north at the intersection of Divisadero and Waller Streets, runs south through Noe Valley, crossing the 24th Street business district and ending as a continuous street a few blocks farther south as it moves toward the Glen Park neighborhood. It reappears in several discontinuous sections before ultimately terminating at Chenery Street, in the heart of Glen Park.

One of the more notable features of the neighborhood is Castro Theatre, a movie palace built in 1922 and one of San Francisco’s premier movie houses. 18th and Castro is a major intersection in the Castro, where many historic events, marches, and protests have taken and continue to take place. A major cultural destination in the neighborhood is the GLBT History Museum, which opened for previews on December 10, 2010, at 4127 18th St. The grand opening of the museum took place on the evening of January 13, 2011. The first full-scale, stand-alone museum of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history in the United States (and only the second in the world after the Schwules Museum in Berlin), the GLBT History Museum is a project of the GLBT Historical Society. The F Market heritage streetcar line turnaround at Market and 17th-streets where the Jane Warner city parklet sits. Across Castro street is the Harvey Milk Plaza in honor of its most famous resident with its iconic giant flag pole with an oversized rainbow flag, symbol of the LGBT community. Below street level is the main entrance to the Castro Street Station, a Muni Metro subway station and a multitiered park. Milk’s camera store and campaign headquarters which were at 575 Castro has a memorial plaque and mural on the inside of the store, now housing the Human Rights Campaign Action Center and Store. There is a smaller mural above the sidewalk on the building showing Milk looking down on the street fondly. Across Market Street from Harvey Milk Plaza, and slightly up the hill, is the Pink Triangle Park – 17th Street at Market, a city park and monument named after the pink triangles forcibly worn by gay prisoners persecuted by the Nazis during World War II. Harvey’s was formerly the Elephant Walk, raided by police after the White Night Riots. Twin Peaks, the first gay bar in the city, and possibly in the United States, with plate glass windows to fully visibly expose patrons to the public, is located at the intersection of Market and Castro. The Hartford Street Zen Center is also located in the Castro, as well as the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, 100 Diamond Street. Special events, parades and street fairs that are held in the Castro include the Castro Street Fair, the Dyke March, the famed Halloween in the Castro (which was discontinued in 2007 due to street violence), Pink Saturday (discontinued in the Castro in 2016), and the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. A LGBTQ Walk of Fame, the Rainbow Honor Walk, was installed in August 2014 with an inaugural twenty sidewalk bronze plaques representing past LGBTQ icons in their field who continue to serve as inspirations. The walk was originally planned to coincide with the business district of the Castro and eventually include 500 bronze plaques. The main business section of Castro Street from Market to 19th Street was under reconstruction and repaving in 2014 to address a number of neighborhood concerns. The area has heavy vehicular traffic, as well as many visitors. As part of the work, the sidewalks were widened and new trees were planted. Additionally, 20 historical cement etchings covering from the inception to the area being settled to the 2010s sweeping gay marriage movement victories were installed in September 2014.

A separate sidewalk installation, the Castro Street History Walk (CSHW), is a series of twenty historical fact plaques about the neighborhood—ten from pre-1776 to the 1960s before the Castro became known as a gay neighborhood, and ten “significant events associated with the queer community in the Castro”—contained within the 400 and 500 blocks of the street between 19th and Market streets. They were installed at the same time as the inaugural twenty RHW plaques. The CSHW goes in chronological order starting at Harvey Milk Plaza at Market Street, up to 19th Street, and returning on the opposite side of Castro Street. The $10,000 CSHW was paid for by the Castro Business District (CBD) which “convened a group of local residents and historians to work with Nicholas Perry, a planner and urban designer at the San Francisco Planning Department who worked on the sidewalk-widening project and lives in the Castro” to develop the facts. Each fact was required to be about the neighborhood or the surrounding Eureka Valley. The facts are limited to 230 characters, and were installed in pairs along with a single graphic reminiscent of the historic Castro Theater.

San Francisco has a large and thriving tourist economy due to ethnic and cultural communities such as Chinatown, North Beach, Haight-Ashbury and the Castro. The Castro is a site of economic success that brings in capital all year round with many events catered to the gay community along with everyday business. The Castro is a “thriving marketplace for all things gay” meaning the area caters to people who identify with LGBT culture and other associated meanings to the word gay. There are cafes, the Castro Theater, and many businesses that cater to or openly welcome LGBT consumers. These establishments make the Castro an area of high spending and lead to high tourist traffic. In addition to the city’s locals, people travel to visit the shops and restaurants as well as the events that take place, such as the Castro Street Fair. Events such as the fair drum up business for the community and bring in people from all over the nation who visit solely for the atmosphere the Castro provides. People who do not necessarily feel comfortable expressing themselves in their own community have the freedom to travel to places such as the Castro to escape the alienation and feel accepted. There is a sense of belonging and acceptance that is promoted throughout the district to accommodate non-heteronormative people that many LGBT travelers are attracted to. The Golden Gate Business Association (GGBA) was created in 1974 to help promote the Castro as a place for tourists, but also San Francisco and LGBT businesses as a whole. The GGBA sought to gain local political power and hoped to achieve their gains through an increase in gay tourism, and the association formed the San Francisco Gay Tourism and Visitor’s Bureau in 1983. The LGBT tourism industry drives and benefits the economy due to the constant influx of consumers.

Read more on The Castro Theatre, Wikivoyage The Castro and Wikipedia Castro District (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Johns Hopkins University & Medicine - Coronavirus Resource Center - Global Passport Power Rank - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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