Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
172
Walking Tour 3: The Castro & The Mission
Start:
Castro station (Castro and Market streets; BART and Muni; the F streetcar
stops 1 block east)
End:
Church Street station (Church and Market sts.; BART, Muni, F streetcar)
Time
: About an hour, not including shopping and restaurant stops
Best time:
Business hours, Monday through Saturday
Worst time:
There is no worst time, but evenings are slightly less preferable because
Mission Dolores will be closed and Mission Street will feel less safe.
Through the first half of the 20th century, Eureka Valley was an average, blue-col-
lar neighborhood typical of countless other San Francisco areas. But in the 1960s,
when the Haight was overtaken by hippies and partiers, Eureka Valley's residents
got spooked. Rather than battle the tide that they thought was headed their way,
they sold out and headed for the suburbs, as so many working-class families were
doing across America. Seizing the moment, within in about 2 years some 20,000
members of the gay population were able to buy homes here for cheap, creating an
enclave of their own. And a new district, now called the Castro after its main thor-
oughfare, was born. Today, young gay people from around the world come to San
Francisco to visit the place they consider to be a crucible for modern gay culture.
On this walk, I'll take you on a stroll through the heart of the Castro, past the
mission that was the first permanent settlement in modern San Francisco, and
into the eclectic Latin-inflected Mission District. By the end, you'll have a firm
feeling for what everyday life is like for two very different types of permanent resi-
dents of the city.
1
Harvey Milk Plaza
As you come up out of the Muni sta-
tion, you'll be in Harvey Milk Plaza. It's
not much of a public space—really just
a roadside bricked area and a stairway
that leads into the station. But in this
case, it's the thought that counts—Milk
was honored because of his importance
to gay rights.
No retelling of the Castro's his-
tory—indeed, no retelling of San
Francisco's history—would be complete
without the name Harvey Milk. Milk, a
born Long Islander, spent his early years
as a buttoned-up financial-industry
man in Manhattan before finding him-
self swept up in the promise of social
change that the late 1960s introduced
to American culture. He moved to San
Francisco and, with his partner, opened
a camera shop on Castro Street. Before
long, this charismatic, cocky, and
visionary man got into politics, and,
after several attempts, he finally won a
seat on the city's powerful Board of
Supervisors—the first openly gay man
to serve such a large population. He
successfully worked to implement sev-
eral changes that raised the ire of the
city's more traditional, working-class
types. Seeing one of their own rise to
power was inspiring to the long-down-
trodden gay population. Watching him
effect changes that made San Francisco
more equal for all its residents gave
them hope for the future. Just a decade
earlier, gay folks were being arrested
simply for hanging out at bars together,
