Castro District | |
---|---|
Nickname: The Castro | |
Coordinates: 37°45′39″N122°26′06″W / 37.76083°N 122.43500°W | |
Country | United States |
State | California |
City-county | San Francisco |
Named for | José Castro |
Government | |
• Supervisor | Rafael Mandelman |
• Assemblymember | Matt Haney (D) [1] |
• State Senator | Scott Wiener (D) [1] |
• U. S. Rep. | Nancy Pelosi (D) [2] |
Area | |
• Total | 1.36 km2 (0.526 sq mi) |
• Land | 1.36 km2 (0.526 sq mi) |
Population | |
• Total | 12,064 |
• Density | 8,900/km2 (23,000/sq mi) |
Time zone | UTC-8 (PST) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-7 (PDT) |
ZIP codes | 94110, 94114 |
Area codes | 415/628 |
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. [3] [4] 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 (LGBTQ) activism and events in the world.
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 LGBTQ 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.
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. [5] 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.
In 1891, Alfred E. Clarke built his mansion at the corner of Douglass and Caselli Avenue at 250 Douglass which is commonly referenced as the Caselli Mansion. It survived the 1906 earthquake and fire which destroyed a large portion of San Francisco.
During the California Gold Rush and in its aftermath, a substantial Finnish population settled in San Francisco. [6] [7] Finnish Club No. 1 was established in the Castro District of San Francisco in 1882. Soon after, two "Finnish Halls" were erected nearby. One was located at the corner of 24th Street and Hoffman Street. The other hall was located on Flint Street, on the "Rocky Hill" above Castro, an area densely populated by Finns at the time, consequently nicknamed "Finn Town".
In 1899, the First Finnish Lutheran Church was founded on 50 Belcher Street, in what then was considered part of the Eureka Valley district of San Francisco, but what is located on the outskirts of what today is best known as the Castro District. Next to it, on September 17, 1905, the cornerstone was laid for the Danish St. Ansgar Church at 152 Church Street, between Market Street and Duboce Avenue. [8] In 1964, St. Ansgar merged with First Finnish Lutheran Church. The name for the united church, St. Francis Lutheran Church, was derived from San Francisco.
Before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, nearly all the children attending the McKinley School (now McKinley Elementary School) at 1025 14th Street (at Castro) were Finnish. Following the earthquake, a large number of Finns from San Francisco and elsewhere moved to Berkeley, where a Finnish community had been established already before the earthquake. [9] The brick and wood frame of the St. Francis Lutheran Church building survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and then was used for several months as an infirmary. Following the earthquake, the same year, Finns founded the Lutheran Church of the Cross in Berkeley, at University Avenue, where the Lutheran congregation still operates today. [10]
In c. 1910, a bathhouse called Finnila's Finnish Baths began serving customers in the Castro District, at 9 Douglass Street. Its opening as an official business serving the general public took place in 1913. In 1919, the business moved to 4032 17th Street, a half block west from the busy Castro Street. In 1932, the business moved again, now to 2284 Market Street. In 1986, after having been stationed in the Castro District for over seven decades, the business moved the final time, now to 465 Taraval Street in the San Francisco's Sunset District, where it continued as Finnila's Health Club, serving women only. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] Despite public outcry and attempts to prevent the closing of the popular Finnila's Market Street bathhouse, the old bathhouse building was demolished by Alfred Finnila soon after the farewell party held in the end of December 1985. Today, the Finnila family owns the new Market & Noe Center building at the location of the old bathhouse, in the corner of Market and Noe Streets. [11]
From 1910 on, the Castro District of San Francisco and some of the surrounding areas were known by the term Little Scandinavia, because of the large number of the residents in the area originating from Finnish, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish ancestry.
The 1943 novel Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes focused on a Norwegian family living in the area in the 1910s. Forbes' book served as the inspiration for John Van Druten's 1944 play I Remember Mama . The play was adapted to a Broadway theater production in 1944; to a movie in 1948; to a one-hour Lux Radio Theatre presentation on August 30, 1948; [20] to a CBS Mama television series running from 1949 until 1957; and to a Broadway musical in 1979. [21] Mama's Bank Account reflected a (then) Eureka Valley neighborhood, where for generations Norwegians worshiped at the Norwegian Lutheran Church at 19th and Dolores streets, and met for fraternal, social events, and Saturday night dances at Dovre Hall, 3543 18th Street, now the Women's Building.
The Cove on Castro used to be called The Norse Cove at the time. The Scandinavian Seamen's Mission operated for a long time on 15th Street, off Market Street, just around the corner from the Swedish-American Hall, which remains in the district. In the 1920s – during prohibition – the downstairs of the Swedish-American Hall served as a speak-easy, one of many in the area. "Unlicensed saloons" were known as speak-easies, according to an 1889 newspaper. [22] They were "so called because of the practice of speaking quietly about such a place in public, or when inside it, so as not to alert the police or neighbors". [23]
Scandinavian-style "half-timber" construction can still be seen in some of the buildings along Market Street, between Castro and Church Streets. A restaurant called Scandinavian Deli operated for decades on Market Street, between Noe and Sanchez Streets, almost directly across the street from Finnila's.
Receiving an influx of Irish, Italian and other immigrants in the 1930s, the Castro gradually became an ethnically mixed working-class neighborhood, and it remained so until the mid-1960s. There was originally a cable car line with large double-ended cable cars that ran along Castro Street from Market Street to 29th St., until the tracks were dismantled in 1941 and the cable car line was replaced by the 24 MUNI bus. The Castro is at the end of the straight portion of the Market Street thoroughfare, and a mostly residential area follows Market Street as it curves and rises up and around the Twin Peaks mountains.
The U.S. military discharged thousands of gay servicemen from the Pacific theatre in San Francisco during World War II (early 1940s) because of their sexuality. Many settled in the Bay Area, San Francisco and Sausalito. [24] [25] In San Francisco, an established gay community had begun in numerous areas including Polk Street (which used to be regarded as the city's gay center from the 1950s to the early 1980s [26] ), the Tenderloin and South of Market. The 1950s saw large numbers of families moving out of the Castro to the suburbs in what became known as the "White flight", leaving open large pockets of real estate and creating appealing locations for gay purchasers. The Missouri Mule first opened in 1935 by Norwegian Immigrant Hans K Lund and would find its place in San Francisco's history becoming a proud icon of the LGBTQ community following its reopening in 1963. [27]
The Castro's age as a gay mecca began during the late 1960s with the Summer of Love in the neighboring Haight-Ashbury district in 1967. The two neighborhoods are separated by a steep hill, topped by Buena Vista Park. The hippie and free love movements had fostered communal living and free society ideas including the housing of large groups of people in hippie communes. Androgyny became popular with men even in full beards as gay hippie men began to move into the area. The 1967 gathering brought tens of thousands of middle-class youth from all over the United States to the Haight, which saw its own exodus when well-organized individuals and collectives started to view the Castro as an oasis from the massive influx. Many of the hippies had no way to support themselves or places to shelter. The Haight became drug-ridden and violent, chasing off the gay population, who looked for a more stable area to live. [28]
The gay community created an upscale, fashionable urban center in the Castro District in the 1970s. [29] Many San Francisco gays also moved there in the years around 1970 from what was then the most prominent gay neighborhood, Polk Gulch, [26] because large Victorian houses were available at low rents or available for purchase for low down payments when their former middle-class owners had fled to the suburbs. [3]
By 1973, Harvey Milk, who would become the most famous resident of the neighborhood, opened a camera store, Castro Camera, 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 that exemplified butchness and masculinity of the working-class men in construction—tight denim jeans, black or sand combat boots, tight T-shirt or, often, an Izod crocodile 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.
The area was heavily impacted by the HIV/AIDS 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.
In 2019, San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Rafael Mandelman authored an ordinance to create the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District; the ordinance was passed unanimously. [30] [31]
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. [35]
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, formerly housing the Human Rights Campaign Action Center and Store, it now houses an LGBTQ+ arts 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. [36]
Harvey's was formerly the Elephant Walk, raided by police after the White Night Riots. [37] [38]
Twin Peaks Tavern, 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. [39]
The Hartford Street Zen Center is also located in the Castro, as well as the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, 100 Diamond Street. [40]
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), [41] and the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival.
An 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. [42] 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. [42] 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. [43] Each fact was required to be about the neighborhood or the surrounding Eureka Valley. [42] The facts are limited to 230 characters, and were installed in pairs along with a single graphic reminiscent of the historic Castro Theater. [42]
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. [46] 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. [47] 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, [48] 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.
Season 9 Episode 20, The Trouble with Trillions, of The Simpsons animated series features Fidel Castro learning about the area of Castro Street. [49]
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Noe Valley is a neighborhood in the central part of San Francisco, California. It is named for Don José de Jesús Noé, noted 19th-century Californio statesman and ranchero, who owned much of the area and served as mayor.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI), also called Order of Perpetual Indulgence (OPI), is a charitable, protest, and street performance movement that uses drag and religious imagery to satirize issues of sex, gender, and morality and fundraise for charity. In 1979, a small group of gay men in San Francisco began wearing the attire of Catholic nuns in visible situations using camp to promote various social and political causes in the Castro District.
Randy Shilts was an American journalist and author. After studying journalism at the University of Oregon, Shilts began working as a reporter for both The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as for San Francisco Bay Area television stations. In the 1980s, he was noted for being the first openly gay reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Eureka Valley is a neighborhood in San Francisco, primarily a quiet residential neighborhood but boasting one of the most visited sub-neighborhoods in the city, The Castro.
The Castro Street Fair is a San Francisco LGBT street festival and fair usually held on the first Sunday in October in the Castro neighborhood, the main gay neighborhood and social center in the city. The fair features multiples stages with live entertainment, DJs, food vendors, community-group stalls as well as a curated artisan alley with dozens of Northern California artists. Due to community pressure the fair restructured the organization and partnered with local charities to collect gate donations and partner with groups at the beverages booths to raise money for those charities.
Mark Leno is an American politician who served consecutively in both houses of the California State Legislature from 2002 to 2016. A Democrat, he represented the 11th Senate district, which includes San Francisco and portions of San Mateo County, from 2012 to 2016. Until the 2010 redistricting came into effect, he represented the 3rd Senate district (2008–2012). Prior to being elected to the State Senate in 2008, Leno served in the California State Assembly, representing the 13th district.
Based in San Francisco, California, the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club is a chapter of the Stonewall Democrats, named after LGBT politician and activist Harvey Milk. Believing that the existing Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club would never support him in his political aspirations, Milk co-founded the political club under the name "San Francisco Gay Democratic Club" in the wake of his unsuccessful 1976 campaign for the California State Assembly. Joining Milk in forming the club were a number of the city's activists, including Harry Britt, Dick Pabich, Jim Rivaldo, and first club president Chris Perry.
The San Francisco Bay Times, the first LGBTQ newspaper founded jointly by gay men and women, launched in 1978 and remains one of the largest and oldest LGBTQ newspapers in Northern California. The business includes the 24/7 live-streaming Castro Street Cam that streams Harvey Milk Plaza and the Castro live to the world, serving as an emotional lifeline to LGBTQ people elsewhere, including internationally, who seek connection due to isolation in their regions. It also includes the LGBTQ news and events service "Betty's List," as well as "Harvey's List" and the "Bay Times List."
The GLBT Historical Society maintains an extensive collection of archival materials, artifacts and graphic arts relating to the history of LGBTQ people in the United States, with a focus on the LGBT communities of San Francisco and Northern California.
Polk Street is a street in San Francisco, California, that travels northward from Market Street to Beach Street and is one of the main thoroughfares of the Polk Gulch neighborhood traversing through the Tenderloin, Nob Hill, and Russian Hill neighborhoods. The street takes its name from former U.S. President James K. Polk.
Halloween in the Castro was an annual Halloween celebration held in The Castro district of San Francisco, first held in the 1940s as a neighborhood costume contest. By the late 1970s, it had shifted from a children's event to a gay pride celebration that continued to grow into a massive annual street party in the 2000s.
The Pink Triangle Park is a triangle-shaped mini-park located in the Castro District of San Francisco, California. The park is less than 4,000 square feet (370 m2) and faces Market Street with 17th Street to its back. The park sits directly above the Castro Street Station of Muni Metro, across from Harvey Milk Plaza. It is the first permanent, free-standing memorial in America dedicated to the thousands of persecuted homosexuals in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust of World War II.
Saint Francis Lutheran Church was built in 1905 and is located at 152 Church Street, between Market Street and Duboce Street in San Francisco, California. The church building has stained glass windows and Memorial Terrace outside.
Finnila's Finnish Baths—a.k.a. Finnila's—was a Finnish bathhouse and a health club in San Francisco, California. It served the general public from circa 1910 to September, 2000. Finnila's was located in the Castro District of San Francisco for its first 75 years.
Cliff's Variety Store and Hardware is a hardware, home goods, variety, and fabric store located in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco, California since 1936. It has been in business for over 75 years and predates the neighborhood, becoming the first widely recognized gay mecca starting in the 1960s. It is one of the oldest family-run stores in the city.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) community in San Francisco is one of the largest and most prominent LGBT communities in the United States, and is one of the most important in the history of American LGBT rights and activism alongside New York City. The city itself has been described as "the original 'gay-friendly city'". LGBT culture is also active within companies that are based in Silicon Valley, which is located within the southern San Francisco Bay Area.
Harvey Milk Plaza is a transit plaza at the Castro Muni Metro subway station commemorating Harvey Milk, in San Francisco's Castro District, in the U.S. state of California.
The Rainbow Honor Walk (RHW) is a walk of fame installation in San Francisco, California to honor notable lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals from around the world "who left a lasting mark on society." Its bronze plaques honor LGBTQ individuals who "made significant contributions in their fields". The plaques mark a walk located within the business district of the Castro neighborhood, which for decades has been the city's center of LGBTQ activism and culture.
The Castro Sweep was a police riot that occurred in the Castro District of San Francisco on the evening of October 6, 1989. The riot, by about 200 members of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), followed a protest held by ACT UP, a militant direct action group responding to the concerns of people with AIDS.