Love Letters to Castro
posted May 06, 2009 8:06AM
An immense rainbow flag flies over the intersection of Market and Castro Street, the heart of SF’s renowned gay pride. Here, the hardware store sells feather boas, the bars are tongue-and-cheek (Moby Dick, Men’s Room) and the Castro Theater draws people from all over the city to line up for excellent film festivals.
Share what you adore about where you live. Submit a “love letter” to the Castro below for a chance to be published in the Neighborhoods section of an upcoming issue.
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submit102 posted 11:03 PM Jul. 21st
I lived in the Castro for almost a year before leaving to move in with my boyfriend. But I didn't go far. I live in Noe Valley now, a more family orientated neighborhood, I suppose, with more places to buy coffee and danish, and less places to buy buttplugs. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but that's just my own personal perspective. Convenience is in the eye of the beholder....
I love both neighborhoods, but barely a day goes by without me tripping down the hill to shop on Castro St at Cliffs (the best and most fun hardware store in town) and to take a class at Yoga Tree on 18th St.
Mostly I fly below the radar in the Castro. I get few winks and catcalls, very little attention, but when I DO get attention from the boys I know it's because I'm looking fine that day. There is no greater compliment as a woman than to be given fashion props by loud, proud, smiling gay men as they congregate outside their favorite haunts. Seeing happy couples holding hands and kissing in the streets brings warmth to my heart. DO NOT GET A ROOM, FELLAS!
I might not live in the Castro anymore, but I certainly appreciate it and love it. Bless you, San Francisco, for being a city where we all can thrive and dance and BE and grow and live and love each other.
zoebrock posted 12:23 PM Jun. 9th
Each day I leave my house in the morning before eight and walk down the same slope on Castro street. My neighborhood is still luxuriating under a sleep blanket. My neighbors resist the morning rush. Alcohol fumes linger around the intersection with 18th street from the night before. And when I stumble into Spike’s for coffee, eyes are still red. San Francisco starts moving to a new day, and nowhere as languidly as in the Castro.
Daytime is a necessary though brief interlude to the evening Castro scene. Young and older bodies have to take a break and replenish. Their hearts are out at night searching for the beautiful men, who are coquettishly coiffed, clad in skinny jeans, and smelling of Versace or Dolce and Gabbana. All these beautiful creatures are hunting for love in a city which has granted them the right to hold hands and to be proud, but not yet to marry.
The Castro is full of the pride, the lights, and the heat. Its moods rise in swells outside the Badlands, on the balcony of the Metro bar, and in the crammed space of the Men’s Room. Its hunger gets satisfied at Harvey’s restaurant after midnight. But its anguish for love is insatiable. And so is mine for the Castro.
travelwell posted 07:19 PM Jun. 4th
When you live in the Castro, you realize that it's not so much a neighborhood of gay people as it is of gay men. Yes, there are some women strolling hand in hand and the stray dyke art gallery proudly displaying exhibit after exhibit of hairy-vagina photos in its windows. But walk into Peet's on Market on any weekday morning and you'll see that a full 90 percent of the patrons are gay guys. Likewise Gold's Gym, Books Inc., 2223 Market and Bagdad Cafe--and these aren't gay bars on Castro or 18th Street, they're everyday neighborhood hangouts. The Castro is a man's world. As a woman, it sometimes feels like I'm visiting from another planet--one whose goods and natives hold no appeal for these locals. Yes, it's nice to walk down the street without cat calls. Yes, it's a relief to not have to worry about what I look like at the gym. And yes, the Castro is safe, and diverse, and imminently walkable. It's also hauntingly beautiful, an eclectic patch of rare San Francisco flatland lined with giant palms stretching down Market, leading off to the iconic bustling strip of Castro itself with its neon theatre sign glowing like a beacon, and above it all, Sutro Tower looming ominously as fog crawls down over Twin Peaks, bathing its lower half in a ghostly cloud.
But I still feel like a stranger here. And it's only been recently that I realized how valuable that is. Straight, white, female ... I am the minority here. I didn't come to San Francisco to live like the majority. I could do that in Oklahoma. I live in the most progressive square mile on earth and for that, I am proud. That's why that huge, wind-whipped, seven-colored flag on the corner of Castro and Market flies for me too.
Ruby Jane posted 02:10 PM May. 19th