Today, Eureka Valley, the Castro district, is the center of San Francisco's
large gay and lesbian population, who constitute perhaps 16% of the city's
men and probably some slightly smaller fraction of women.
The area, like Noe Valley is hilly especially on north-south streets except
near the peaks where east-west streets are even hillier. The neighborhood
boundaries are approximately Douglas Street on the west, Church Street on
the east, Duboce Avenue on the north, and the crest of the hill at about 21st
Street that separates Eureka Valley from Noe Valley on the south. You
could say that the neighborhood boundaries are determined by the presence
of Rainbow Coalition flags which connote gay pride. When I asked a former
Castro resident who now lives near Lake Merced miles away from the Castro
if this weren't so, he said, "I fly my rainbow flag wherever
I please." I'm not gay, but on that point, we are in agreement.
The neighborhood is full of well kept Edwardian houses, mostly with white
or light colored exteriors and occasional light colored trim. The garish
colors seen in Noe Valley are rare. Or rarer. No Castroite would
admit to living in a drab neighborhood.
You get a physical picture of the area by walking over the hill from Noe
Valley on Castro Street. It's a bit of a trudge on the uphill portions
though.
Start here. Castro at 24th in Noe Valley.
(Many of the photos on this page
can be expanded to greater
resolution.)
Castro ends Liberty.
The things that Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms
don't know about San Francisco!
Edwardian houses just over the top of the hill (in the direction
I was walking) are fine examples of painted ladies of the neighborhood.
Edwardian ladies? No ungracious pun intended. What is not so obvious
is that the picture was taken on a steep grade, as is more apparent in the
picture following the next.
Castro Street houses
Downhill in the Castro
These valleys Eureka and neighboring Noe are really gulches.
The two next pictures show what I mean. (I think these were photographed
on another blazing blue sky day. According to my log, they were shot
in early July when normally the City is socked in by fog which only burns
off for a few hours in the afternoon if at all.) And have a look at
the SF
3-D topo map to get a larger picture of the neighborhood landform.
By the way, if you want to see a street map of the area, go here.
Either can also be accessed from buttons at the top.
A gulch to the north...
...and a gulch to the south.
Picture taken on Noe Street, a block east of Castro Street.
Goth. Say, kids, have you ever played
Godzilla-on-the-hill, or Goth? It's the perfect game for that long
cross-country road trip to the West Coast, and it's more fun than finding
out-of-state license plates. The object of Goth is be the first person
in your family to spot the Mt. Sutro Tower. Yes, everybody can play.
And everybody in San Francisco already does!
The object of this hike was to wind up in the Castro Street
business district at Castro and 18th. We've arrived.
18th and Castro looking east toward Mission High School
Where a mighty Wurlitzer comes out of the floor.
The Castro Theater, a San Francisco landmark
F Line (historic Market Street route
that runs from here to Fisherman's Wharf via Market and the Embarcadero) street
cars parked on 17th near Castro in front of Twin Peaks Tavern, a well known
gay hangout spot. Most of the cars are imported from other cities although
a few were originally used by MUNI. The term "street car"
is still used by some for MUNI Metro trains. They use the same letter
designations as the old street car routes.
The two pictures at right (beginning with the yellow house) were taken in
the small part of the Castro district lying north of Market Street south of
Duboce Avenue. The Queen Anne style tower on the yellow house was all
the rage in San Francisco about 1900. The picture below of the Harvey
Milk Center for Recreational Arts, while not as interesting architecturally
as the George Moscone Center downtown, refers to a grim period, namely how
both came to be named as memorials.
Harvey Milk (1930-1978) "Mayor of Castro Street" and said by everyone
who knew him to be a heck of a nice guy, was San Francisco's first openly
gay supervisor. He was opposed politically by Supervisor Dan White,
a conservative ex-policeman and fire fighter, and vocally anti-gay.
By November, 1978, White realized that his $9800 annual supervisor's salary
was inadequate for his family's needs and submitted his resignation from the
Board of Supervisors to Mayor George Moscone. The Police Officers Association
urged White to reconsider, which he did. Meanwhile, Milk convinced Moscone
that White's resignation from the board should stand, because it would result
in a reversal of its its 6-5 conservative majority. The mayor, a liberal,
had the authority to appoint a replacement supervisor. Moscone decided
against White's reinstatement based on his opinion that an elected official
who resigns from his job doesn't deserve to get it back without being reelected.
In a rage, White went to city hall on November 27 and shot Moscone and Milk
to death, and then turned himself in to police. His lawyers argued a
"Twinkie defense" claiming that his state of mind at the time of
the shootings was impaired by excess consumption of junk food. (At the
time, it was pointed out that he gave the lager lout a bad name.) He
was convicted on a lesser count of manslaughter the following May and sentenced
to 7 years. His light sentence sparked rioting. White was released
from prison in January, 1985, and after months of disillusionment committed
suicide at his residence in October by carbon monoxide poisoning. The
address of this occurrence in the Crocker Amazon district is well known to
tour group operators and cab drivers.
With the deaths of these two men, Supervisor Diane Feinstein, a native San
Franciscan, came into her own prominence, first serving as interim mayor,
an office to which she was later elected, and since 1992 as senior U.S. senator
from California. She holds the senior seat, with ten weeks seniority
over the other senator, Barbara Boxer, because her first senatorial term was
a two-year term in which she was elected to fill the remaining term of Pete
Wilson who earlier had resigned from the Senate after he won election as California
governor. As governor, he appointed John Seymour to replace him in the
Senate until the next election. Seymour and Feinstein both ran in the
election for the remaining two-year term, and Feinstein won. Under law
she was sworn into office immediately, rather than waiting until January to
begin her short term unlike Barbara Boxer who won a six-year term in the same
election.
