The Castro

The Castro District, more well 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 18th Street on both sides of Castro from Church Street to Eureka Street. The greater Castro includes the surrounding residential areas. It is bordered by the Mission District, Noe Valley, Twin Peaks, and Haight-Ashbury. It may be considered to include Duboce Triangle and Dolores Heights, which both have a strong gay presence.

Castro Street itself runs south through Noe Valley, crossing the 24th Street business district, and terminating a few blocks farther in the Glen Park neighborhood.

History

Stores on Castro Street near the intersection with 18th. 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.

The neighborhood now known as the Castro was born 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 (Finela's) bathhouse 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 in the area. And the Swedish-American Hall 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. Mama's Bank Account, a novel by Kathryn Forbes (it was made into the movie I Remember Mama with Irene Dunne in 1948), portrays life in the Castro among Norwegian immigrants circa 1910.

The Castro became a working-class Irish neighborhood in the 1930s and remained so until the mid-1960s.

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. Recent movements have sought to rename the district "The Squat and Gobble" after the iconic cafe of said name, renowned for its hot crepes with drizzled chocolate fudge, located at 16th and Market St.

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 Street Clone", which was a mode of dress in vogue with the gay population at the time, and which gave rise to the nickname "Clone Canyon" for the stretch of Castro Street between 18th Street and Market Street. There were numerous famous watering holes in the area, contributing to the nightlife, including the Corner Grocery Bar, the Norse Cove, the Pendulum, and the Elephant Walk. A typical 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.

The area was hit hard by the AIDS/HIV crisis of the 1980s. Beginning in the 1980s, 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

Special events

Castro Street Fair

The Castro Street Fair is one of the largest of the City of San Francisco Street Fairs. These Fairs run, roughly, from Spring to Fall. The Fair takes place on the afternoon of the first Sunday in October and is the last of the Street Fairs. The large turn-out makes it one of the three largest of the annual Gay events in San Francisco-- Pride, Castro Street Fair and Halloween.

Halloween

The Castro really comes alive the Friday and Saturday before Halloween. Everyone in the Bay Area travels to The Castro to "scene and be scene". Every TV, TS, TG , Drag Queen and Drag Queen dons the their finest finery to stroll through the neighborhood. During the past few years, (2004-2006) their has been a some street violence (including a few stapping) and San Francisco City has flooded the area with SFPD and placed a curfew on the area.

Pink Saturday

Pink Saturday is San Francisco's largest underground party on the Saturday night before (Gay) Pride Day (San Francisco Pride) in San Francisco's Castro District attracting more than half a million people and coinciding with the annual Dyke March. The event usually has the air of a wild party but is rarely as out of control as the Castro Halloween party has infamously been and is generally free of the hate crimes that seem to go hand in hand with Halloween in the Castro - widely seen as the gay mecca of the west if not the world.

The famous "Castro Cross" where Castro Street and 18th street intersect has been and continues to be ground-zero for queer activists and causes of a wide range and is also a busy commercial district with gay-themed bars and shops plus services. The Pink Saturday party has been compared to a giant house party for the LGBT community of all ages and has nurtured not only queer-identified street artists but also the original Dyke March which used to start in the middle of the event as a protest by gay, lesbian and bisexual women against the homogenized gay men's "Castro clone" mentality and misogyny.

The event organizers started off rough and disbanded but the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro (MUMC) seized control of the event and hired the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Inc. to act as gate keepers collecting donations to pay for the event in the early 1990's.

With the leadership from SF Pride's president Deborah Oakley-Melvin and the Sisters' Sister Kitty Catalyst the two organizations took over the event in the mid-90's with SF Pride giving full control to the Sisters in 1998.

The Sisters being worldwide and very outspoken activists now served as hostesses and organizers of the huge event and served as role models how to run a street party as a proper and indulgent event without excessive corporate sponsorships as is the norm for most gay pride events and with an all-volunteer crew.

The Pink Saturday concept has been picked up in smaller forms as tourists from around the world witness the joy in simply having fun together in a safe and welcoming environment which is all too rare for queer, gay and same-gender loving people and exporting that concept to their cities.

The Sisters gate collection monies after expenses are routinely given to non-profit groups as part of their Community Grants funding a wide variety of mostly queer-identified projects including the giant pink triangle installed atop San Francisco's Twin Peaks for Pride weekend, the Pink Triangle Park and the Rainbow Flags fund.

Demographics

In November 2000, the Noe Valley Voice reported the following statistics for city District 8, which includes Noe Valley, Diamond Heights, Glen Park, Twin Peaks, Corona Heights, Duboce/Reverse Triangle, and Castro/Dolores Heights. The paper cited a 1999 poll of registered voters by David Binder Research, a prominent local polling agency.

White: 81%
Age 30-49: 54%
Male: 58%
Heterosexual: 59% (89% city-wide)
Rent housing: 55%
College graduate: 71%
Democrat: 72%
Republican: 12%
Religious affiliation: 56%
Not religious: 40%

References

Demographics: "AND NOW FOR THE RUMORS BEHIND THE NEWS" by Mazook. Noe Valley Voice, November 2000. [1]
Demographics, see also: "District 8: Under the rainbow" by Betsey Culp. San Francisco Call, 25 September 2000. [2]

External links

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