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If only the Mexican land
barons and European
homesteaders who built the
Castro district could see it
-- and the price of its real
estate -- today. What was
once dairy farms and dirt
roads is now one of the
city's most vibrant and
cohesive communities,
saturated with stylish shops
and bars so popular that
patrons spill out onto the
street. Irish, German, and
Scandinavian immigrants came
to the outskirts of San
Francisco in search of cheap
land, which became bona fide
suburbs after 1887 when the
Market Street Cable Railway
linked Eureka Valley, as it
was then called, with the
rest of the city. Thanks to
these homesteaders, who
built large, handsome
Victorian houses for their
large families, today's
residents have someplace to
pour their money, and the
vast majority of the
neighborhood's classic homes
have been lovingly and
artfully restored. Gay Pride
Eureka Valley remained a
quiet, working-class
neighborhood until the
postwar era, when large
numbers of people started
fleeing the city for the
"suburbs." Finally, in the
1960s and '70s, gay men
began buying the charming
old Victorians at relatively
low prices
($20,000-$40,000), and the
neighborhood was soon named
for its busiest
thoroughfare, Castro Street.
The activism of the '60s and
'70s forged a community with
sizable political and
economic power, and when the
historic Twin Peaks bar at
Market and Castro streets
was built with
floor-to-ceiling windows,
most took it as a sign that
Castro residents were secure
in their gay identity. There
were, however, tense and
sometimes violent clashes
with the police, and the
assassination in 1978 of
openly gay San Francisco
Supervisor Milk ButtonHarvey
Milk was a turning point in
the community's history.
Milk's death and the impact
of AIDS brought the
community together and made
activists of almost
everyone; the Castro became
not just open but
celebratory about its
thriving gay and lesbian
population.
Today, the Castro's queer
identity is itself a tourist
attraction, beckoning
throngs of pilgrims and
revelers from all over the
world. Since the
introduction of the F Market
street car, shuttling
unsuspecting Midwestern
families down from
Fisherman's Wharf, denizens
have been lamenting the
demise and dilution of the
gayest spot on earth. Yet
the unabated proliferation
of shops selling, ahem,
adult accessories sporting
neon signs touting "Lube 4
Less" tips off even the most
untrained eye to the deeply
entrenched community here.
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