Talk:The Castro, San Francisco, California

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of the San Francisco Bay Area WikiProject, a collaborative effort to build a more detailed guide on Wikipedia's coverage of San Francisco and the Bay Area. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.

This article is part of WikiProject California, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page to join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject LGBT studies, which tries to ensure comprehensive and factual coverage of all LGBT related issues on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, visit the project page.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class.

[edit] Needs Revert

Someone Vandalized this page from my computer it needs reverting. I tried to do it but there was an edit conflict. I hope this means someone else is already on it 65.125.163.221 07:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] origin of name

i have just removed two conflicting attributions, one to Joaquin Ysidro Castro and the other to José Castro. my brief googling was not able to ascertain which is correct. i assume the district was named for the street and the street for one of these historical figures. still, attention from someone with better sources would be appreciated. Aaronbrick 02:32, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a concern regarding the emphasis placed, in this article, on real estate agent Paul Langley. As a historian who specializes in urban and LGBTQ history and who is involved in an ongoing research project about the Castro, I can safely say that the historical interpretation advanced here - that Langley's "active promotion of the neighborhood as a gay center and his many community activities in support of building a gay community there contributed greatly to its success as a gay neighborhood" - is not a viewpoint that can be found in any of the sundry published academic studies that are devoted, in whole or in part, to explaining the origins of the Castro district. Certainly real estate agents played a role in the area's transformation, and a role that deserves to be given proper weight and an accurate rendering. But Langley was not the only such real estate agent. In fact, to suggest that he was sufficiently more important than the others so as to warrant being mentioned by name, seems to me a highly tendentious interpretation, i.e., one that does not belong in a reference work. I invite replies and further discussion. --SRisk1979

I moved to San Franciso in 1980 and what historical information I have was taught me by a mentor friend of mine who moved to the Castro around 1960. Broadly, there was a Beatnik movement in the in the 1950's in the Northbeach neighborhood. Thereafter in the 60's the Hippie movement began, which was centered in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, and was typified by "free love" which in turn spawned the gay movement. As the Gay Movement split as a separate culture, gays began to move into the Castro neighborhood in the 60's, just over the Buena Vista hill. Prior to that time the area to the north of Castro Street was predominately Irish, and to the south was Scandinavian. The area was a run-down neighborhood with dilapidated houses and metal bars on the shop windows of the Castro. The gays began to purchase the old Victorian homes and restored them which kicked off the Victorian "Painted Lady" restoration movement. A new gay identity emerged which brought people out of the closet and normalized gay behavior. There is an interesting documentary, The Cockettes, which shows original footage of the period of San Francisco and Gay culture, and features Divine, John Waters, Peter Mintun, and others. Other notable benchmarks in gay history in and around the Castro are the Death of Harvey Milk, and although a New York action, Stonewall had a major impact on the culture in San Francisco. Sexual freedom reigned until the late 80's when AIDS came to town. At that point Gay Pride redefined itself and gay neighborhoods spread throughout the major cities in the US. It was no longer necessary to come to San Francisco (or New York) to be gay, and The Castro neighborhood blended into the multi-cultural/ multi-ethnic tapestry which makes San Francisco one of the best cities on the planet. Mokiach 06:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to…) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. RickK 06:58, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Does anyone know what flag that is?

Does anybody know what flag held by the guy on bike is, the blue-black-white one with a heart?

That's the Leather Pride flag. it mean's he has leather pride, as well as interest in a leather fetish. you can see those all over my home town of San Francisco.Stevo D