Do We Need The Castro?

[+ purplekow]

The fact is the vast majority of gay people do not live in gay enclaves but that does not mean that such areas are not valuable and needed. Perhaps if you have a partner and six children you may feel that the people living in such neighborhoods are marginalized, as the last sentence states. However these neighborhoods serve not only the monogamous family oriented fathers of six, but also gay people who are just coming out who need a place to gather and feel a part of a community and businesses catering to gay clientele which are not welcomed into other communities.

To paraphrase the theme from Cheers

 

Making it gay way in the world today takes everything you got;

Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot;

Wouldn't you like to get away;

Sometimes you want to go;

Where everybody else is gay;

And they're awfully glad you came;

You want to be where you can see;

Troubles are all the same;

You want to be where everyone else is gay.

[AdamSmith]

>urban

>revitalization is bringing new residents at the same time some

>gays are settling in other parts of cities or the suburbs

 

This is the rest of the story, no? Gay-led settlement of new areas that will likewise benefit and, likely, eventually become homogenized (heterogenized?) in their own turn. Then on to the next ramparts.

[raulgmanzo]

Lucky writes:

Apparently the trend continues as straights move into previously gay ghettos. My question is "Do we need gay neighborhoods anymore?" Personally, I don't think so...

 

Well I think it is analogous to almost any enclave ethnic or otherwise.

Ghettos as neighborhoods where a group is forced to live, as in the classic definition of ghetto would be wrong. But a neighborhood with atributes that make it a voluntary community of like minded people can be a good thing. I think it helps make the city a more interesting place. And certain cultural things seem only able to happen with a critical mass, or density of community.

 

In some ways big cities themselves not just certain neighborhoods are ghettos for all kinds of us gay and otherwise unusual folk.

 

I like the idea of a city or society being a fluid mosaic rather than a homogenous melting pot. But I'm crazy for cultural variety.

 

Raul

[Guest zipperzone]

>San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau chief Joe

>D'Alessandro, who lives in the Castro with his gay partner and

>their six children, said he thinks gay enclaves marginalize

>the people who live there. He said the gay community in his

>previous home of Portland, Ore., a city without a historically

>gay neighborhood, is a model because gay and lesbian residents

>comfortably live in the mainstream.

>

>"They do not live in a ghetto," D'Alessandro said, "and I

>think they're stronger because of it."

 

Is this the same Joe D'Alessandro who was a star in Andy Warhol movies? God was he hot.

 

A gay partner and SIX children? Who would have ever thought it?

[Rod Hagen]

>My question is "Do we need gay

>neighborhoods anymore?" Personally, I don't think so...

 

 

I don't think fellowship is about need. Certainly it's helpful for younger guys to have a place to be exposed. And it's fun for the rest of us.

 

Apart from the easier access to drugs, given the peaceful settings, freedom of expression, and (until the last few years) affordable housing, I've never understood what the downside of Gay Ghettos is. Can someone explain?

[RockHard]

"I don't think fellowship is about need."

 

Yet certain gay men need to feel (sexual) fellowship the moment they open the door to their home.

 

"I've never understood what the downside of Gay Ghettos is."

 

The level of narcissism typically on display in gay "ghettos" is discomforting for many people, straight and gay alike. As a gay parent, I chose to expose my child to what I view is a more modest, a more diverse community.

 

Gay "ghetto" men typically think cruising 24/7 is acceptable public behavior, and they all too often wear their sexual hunger on their faces. It's not a pretty sight and, maybe because porn is ubiquitous, many gay men are oblivious to their wagging tongues and their desperate-for-sex expressions.

 

Of course I'm generalizing but I specifically chose not to live near Christopher Street in the 80's and not to move to Chelsea in the 90's due to the reasons I stated. Gay men can build beautiful homes and gentrify any neighborhood but a specific "gay ghetto" neighborhood, defined by hyper-testosterone residents, will never be a pretty place for me to live.

[+ Lucky]

Given that you quote my remark, Rod, I would elaborate by saying that the Castro and like neighborhoods were once important to me. One could go there and find like interests, information, and entertainment. My need for that kind of resource no longer exists, (the development of the internet being one explanation) but, in phrasing the topic, I was only speaking for myself while wondering what others thought.

[+ Charlie]

The downside of any ghetto, gay or otherwise, is the lack of variety in human intercourse. I certainly want to live in a neighborhood that is "gay friendly," but that is not the same as a ghetto.

[Rod Hagen]

>The level of narcissism typically on display in gay "ghettos"

>is discomforting for many people, straight and gay alike. As a

>gay parent, I chose to expose my child to what I view is a

>more modest, a more diverse community.

 

Sometimes Monkeys fling shit, but they also do some darling tricks that make an occasional suburban-outing to the zoo worth the risk of minor disgust. After all, the admission is free, so bring the kids!

 

http://www.RodHagen.com

310.360.9890

Fun, Fit, Friendly Fucker in West Hollywood.

-Rod Hagen

[+ Lucky]

There have been posts before about the stroller influx in New York's Chelsea neighborhood as well as San Francisco's Castro district. Apparently the trend continues as straights move into previously gay ghettos. My question is "Do we need gay neighborhoods anymore?" Personally, I don't think so...

 

 

 

S.F.'s Castro district faces an identity crisis

As straights move in, some fear loss of the area's character

Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer

 

Sunday, February 25, 2007

 

To walk down San Francisco's Castro Street -- where men casually embrace on sidewalks in the shadow of an enormous rainbow flag -- the neighborhood's status as "gay Mecca" seems obvious.

 

But up and down the enclave that has been a symbol of gay culture for more than three decades, heterosexuals are moving in. They have come to enjoy some of the same amenities that have attracted the neighborhood's many gay and lesbian residents: charming houses, convenient public transportation, safe streets and nice weather.

 

The integration of gay and straight is increasingly evident not only in the Castro District but across North America, from Chicago to New York City to Toronto, where urban revitalization is bringing new residents at the same time some gays are settling in other parts of cities or the suburbs -- such as the East Bay.

 

But some gay and lesbian residents of the Castro are worried that the culture and history of their world-famous neighborhood could be lost in the process, and they have started a campaign to preserve its character. The city, meanwhile, is spending $100,000 on a plan aimed at keeping the area's gay identity intact.

 

Heterosexuals "are welcome as long as they understand this is our community," said Adam Light, a leader in the Castro Coalition, a group formed eight months ago to address the shifts in the neighborhood in recent years.

 

In San Francisco, the line between the Castro and nearby Noe Valley has blurred, said Aldo Congi, a San Francisco native and vice president of McGuire Real Estate who has sold property in the city since 1979. In the 1970s, the gay revolution in the Castro was shocking to straight people, including him.

 

"There used to be demarcation, where straight families would want to be in Noe and gay families or couples in the Castro," Congi said. "I think it's much more integrated now. I don't think there's any question about that."

 

While evidence of the change is largely anecdotal, estimates based on census data from 2000 and 2005 show that San Francisco and other major cities in the United States are losing gay and lesbian couples, while Oakland, Berkeley and San Jose gained couples, according to a UCLA demographer.

 

The Castro's gay and lesbian residents need to be actively involved in neighborhood planning if they want to see the area maintain its identity, said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, chair of the School of Public Affairs and Urban Planning at UCLA.

 

"It's very difficult to stop change," she said. "But you can try to direct it in ways that you like as opposed to ways that you hate."

 

San Francisco's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community also is helped by its storied history. Thousands of gays and lesbians came to the city at the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement in the late 1960s, settling first in the Haight, where they fixed up Victorian homes. In the 1970s and '80s, many of them moved over the hill to the Castro, where there was less crime.

 

"I think the only gay neighborhood that is going to survive is the Castro," said Don Reuter, a New York writer who has spent the past seven months documenting the status of gay enclaves in 12 U.S. cities. "In every city this is going on. We're unraveling. Our gay neighborhoods are unraveling," he said.

 

In Chicago, the core gay neighborhood has moved farther from the urban center as real estate prices have risen. Most gay and lesbian people who own homes now live on the northern edge of the city, said filmmaker Ron Pajak, who is documenting the history of the city's gay community.

 

A district of gay nightclubs in southern Washington, D.C., is being demolished to make room for a new stadium. And in Toronto, high-rise condos are replacing parking lots in the Gay Village, and more heterosexuals are moving into the neighborhood.

 

"You can't tell people where to live, and people are making all sorts of decisions," said Kyle Raye, Toronto's first openly gay city councilman who has represented the Gay Village area since 1991. "The lines are blurred; even the police love working (during gay pride events). There are significant social changes that have occurred."

 

Still, gay and lesbian residents in San Francisco are trying to draw lines around the Castro. Last week, the city began taking bids from consultants to create a plan to guide development of at least nine major properties and vacant lots on Market Street.

 

Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represents the area and is leading the city planning process, sees the effort as a "community visioning process" that will include the creation of smaller units of affordable housing for young people and the elderly.

 

"I think we can do things in the next four to five years that will sustain us for the next 40," Dufty said.

 

He also wants development that will create spaces for community institutions such as Theater Rhinoceros, which bills itself as the city's "queer theater," and organizations that assist people who have HIV and AIDS. But his biggest goal is to create a permanent home in the neighborhood for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society's archives, along with a museum.

 

"People from around the world go to the Castro, and there is precious little they can access to know our history," he said.

 

That history was not a factor when Rachel Beckert and her husband decided to move their family to a flat on Eureka Street in the heart of the Castro three years ago.

 

"The only thing that meant anything to me was the area would be nice," said Beckert on a recent day, as she watched her son and daughter ramble through the playground at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center a block from the center of the Castro Street shopping district. Eureka Valley is the historic name for the neighborhood that once had many Irish and German residents, some of whom still live there.

 

Beckert's brother, sister-in-law and their children moved into the flat below them. They picked the neighborhood for its location, safety and proximity to shopping -- attributes that attract many.

 

At first, Beckert wondered if her family's presence would provoke a backlash from gay and lesbian residents, but she says they have been friendly. She rejects suggestions that families like hers should live in other neighborhoods.

 

"You could also say this neighborhood used to be full of families," she said, adding that neighbors on both sides of her building lived in the Castro before it became a gay enclave.

 

The blocks surrounding the recreation center and the Beckerts' home have the highest concentration of gay and lesbian residents in the Castro -- as high as 95 percent, according to an estimate based on 2000 census data by Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at the UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute, which tracks demographic data of gays and lesbians. According to the estimate, the proportion of gay and lesbian residents ranges from about 80 percent to 30 percent elsewhere in the area.

 

Using census data to look at population shifts over time is more difficult. Between 2000 and 2005, same-sex couples in San Francisco declined by about 5 percent, Gates estimates. The rate was 2 1/2 times that of heterosexual couples.

 

The trend is also apparent in Philadelphia, Washington, New York, Houston, Detroit and Austin, Texas, according to the estimate. The population of same-sex couples in Oakland, Berkeley and San Jose, meanwhile, appeared to increase during the period -- San Jose by 34 percent, Oakland by 14 percent and Berkeley by 8 percent.

 

Along Castro Street, merchants are seeing another trend: high turnover among shops as business owners struggle to afford rents that are among the highest in the city.

 

"We need to find and attract new businesses to the neighborhood," said Paul Moffett, president of the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro. "They may not be gay-owned, but the bottom line is we want a vibrant, successful and healthy business community. Whether gay, Chinese, African American or owned by women, it doesn't matter."

 

Perhaps the central question expressed in community forums about the future of the Castro is whether gays and lesbians should assimilate into mainstream culture as they gain acceptance -- or maintain a separate place.

 

"Having a specific neighborhood politicians can point to, can go to and shake hands or kiss lesbian babies, has really solidified the gay vote, our political muscle," said longtime community activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca at a forum in November.

 

He said places that are free from anti-gay violence and discrimination are important refuges. But other people believe anti-gay sentiment will fade over time.

 

San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau chief Joe D'Alessandro, who lives in the Castro with his gay partner and their six children, said he thinks gay enclaves marginalize the people who live there. He said the gay community in his previous home of Portland, Ore., a city without a historically gay neighborhood, is a model because gay and lesbian residents comfortably live in the mainstream.

 

"They do not live in a ghetto," D'Alessandro said, "and I think they're stronger because of it."

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[bigjake8]

There's so much wasted space in this city people need to spread out. Most of the streets in SF are lifeless after 8PM. It's like a ghost town. Mabe if SF'rs got out of their cars and walked around a little the neighborhoods outside of the Castro would be a little nicer.

[raulgmanzo]

--- bigjake8 wrote:

> Mabe if SF'rs got out of their cars and walked around a little the

> neighborhoods outside of the Castro would be a little nicer.

 

Wow bigjake8 a man after my own heart.

 

Neighborhoods that are walkable and dense with human interaction seem generally more diverse and accepting no matter what the demographics.

So along with perhaps less need for gay enclaves as a place of exile there would also be more of the good things about a gay neighborhood and less of the bad about a gay ghetto.

 

Plus think how fit everybody would be!

Raul

[+ deej]

>Plus think how fit everybody would be!

 

You obviously haven't seen the average poster around here. ;-)

 

You're fun to be around, though. I hope you'll stay!

[Rick Munroe]

>The level of narcissism typically on display in gay "ghettos"

>is discomforting for many people, straight and gay alike.

 

Gee, I wonder if I should stop making Derek carry around a mirror for me when I saunter down 8th Ave., just like Morris Day and Jerome in Purple Rain.

 

http://myspace-270.vo.llnwd.net/00660/07/29/660969270_m.jpg

 

>Gay "ghetto" men typically think cruising 24/7 is acceptable

>public behavior, and they all too often wear their sexual

>hunger on their faces.

 

I know; can you imagine straight men doing that to women on the street...ogling them, whistling at them and shouting out lewd propositions? That is just never done. :o

 

>many gay men are oblivious to

>their wagging tongues and their desperate-for-sex

>expressions.

 

I'm not oblivious to it but I didn't know I was being that obvious. I thought for sure that my butt hugging, low cut jeans were a distraction to my desperate-for-sex expression. :+

[Lookin]

> Most of the streets in SF are lifeless after 8PM. It's like a ghost town.

 

Bigjake8, here's a link to a couple dozen San Francisco neighborhoods that have an active night life, and lots of people walking around after dark:

 

http://www.sfgate.com/traveler/guide/sf/neighborhoods/

 

I'm not sure what all you're into, but drop me an email if you like, and I'll bet we can find a neighborhood you'll enjoy. And we'll walk. ;-)

 

 

http://www.sfgate.com/traveler/guide/sf/maps/sf-overview.gif

[+ deej]

Hey Lookin', how accurate is that map?

[Lookin]

You mean is The Castro in the middle of everything? Yup! ;-)

 

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/San_Francisco_Landsat7_%28Lg%29.jpg

[+ purplekow]

>

>

>>many gay men are oblivious to

>>their wagging tongues and their desperate-for-sex

>>expressions.

>

>I'm not oblivious to it but I didn't know I was being that

>obvious. I thought for sure that my butt hugging, low cut

>jeans were a distraction to my desperate-for-sex expression.

>:+

 

 

While those jeans do indeed focus any sane man's attention firmly on your monument, it does create that desparate-for-sex expression in all who view it. So you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. So, I suggest you forget about wearing those jeans and the world will be a better place. (Thanks Dusty Springfield)

[Rick Munroe]

>So, I suggest you

>forget about wearing those jeans

 

And walk down the street in just my sneakers, T-shirt and a smile? Sounds good to me but can I at least wait until spring? :o

 

>and the world will be a

>better place. (Thanks Dusty Springfield)

 

Think of your fellow man

Lend him a helping hand

Put a little tongue in my hole

You see it's getting late

So, while I masturbate

Put a little tongue in my hole

And the load will be a bigger load

And the load will be a bigger load

For you, for me

Just edge it and see

 

(OK, it's really past my bedtime)

[RockHard]

Contrary to Rick Munroe's defensive tone, I see no reason for defending anyone's decision to live in a gay ghetto. Certainly not all gay men who live in gay ghettos are the type of gay man I described earlier. But majority rules.

 

I don't wish any gay ghetto extinction and I have nothing against anyone who chooses to live in one. I'm a firm believer in to each his own. Rod Hagen posed a valid question and I thought I would offer an honest reply.

 

Gay men live all over San Francisco and San Francisco, like NYC, offers many fine neighborhood choices for gay men. I think choice is a good thing.

 

>Gay "ghetto" men typically think cruising 24/7 is acceptable

>public behavior, and they all too often wear their sexual

>hunger on their faces.

 

"I know; can you imagine straight men doing that to women on the street...ogling them, whistling at them and shouting out lewd propositions? That is just never done."

 

What a bizarre analogy from Rick Munroe.

 

I never said there weren't self-indulgent, tacky assholes among straight men who possess dick for brains. Does anyone here aspire to be such a man? I also don't know any women who desire to live in the center of a (NYC) construction site, surrounded by such men. And I don't know of a neighborhood where such men claim it's their "community." Maybe that's what some refer to in NY as "Bensonhurst." :-) I've never been there.

[+ deej]

Heh! Yeah, I knew that already.

 

But neighborhoods blend, and I think they don't sharply divide as well as that very graphic map you first posted.

 

Or maybe the map makes things look bigger than they are (just like a rearview mirror)?

 

The last hotel I was in marketed itself as "Union Square", but guys in the neighborhood declared it decidedly Market district. I walked two blocks to tour the Raging Stallion studios, which they said was SOMA. And I could walk two blocks and see the big rainbow flag at Market/Mission.

 

Is the world really that small?

[Lookin]

> Is the world really that small?

 

Any hotel within a mile of Union Square will bill itself as a Union Square hotel and tack $50 on to the room price. Raging Stallion Studios is about a twenty minute walk from Union Square. Did you stay at the Flamingo?

 

If you head west on Market Street for a couple of miles, you be standing under the big Rainbow Flag at Castro Street. You could probably see it from two miles away. Although sometimes they hang rainbow flags all along Market Street.

 

Makes a guy feel at home.

[+ deej]

Wow!

 

I did stay at the Flamingo once or twice but it was when Raging Stallion was still located at the house on Mary street. (I will NEVER let them forget that!)

 

The new studio is more roomy and HOLY CRAP do they have great space to do what they do!

 

I think my best memory of SF is that everything is uphill. It doesn't matter where you start. You'll have to go uphill to get anywhere.

[+ glutes]

Maybe opportunists need the Castro...

 

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Police are cautioning gay men in the Castro District, especially middle-aged men, to be wary of strangers in the bars and clubs.

 

In a recent case of theft, police said a victim told them someone may have drugged his drink, went home with him and tried to steal his computer.

 

San Francisco Police Sgt. Chuck Limbert said the victim reported that the guy asked him for the passwords to his computer and the victim refused to give him that information and he was then struck.

 

That same weekend, another man reported someone tried to steal his wallet.

"It's scary," said Gregory Brouse, a San Francisco resident. "It's the talk of the bars."

 

Police said this could be the tip of the iceberg and that many similar robberies could be going unreported -- the victims could be too embarrassed to step forward.

The victims are often middle-aged and the suspects are much younger men.

 

"I don't think it's a team or a specific individual," Limbert said. "I think it is a crime of opportunity."

 

Older, lonely men are susceptible to picking up younger guys, Brouse said. "They buy a few drinks, go home, it's a sad, sad thing," he added.

 

Bartenders said they are keeping an eye out.

 

Derek Phillips, a bartender, said he looks for weird behavior. "You just kind of know when something is up," Phillips said.

 

Nightclubs are now texting one another about suspicious people or any problems and put signs up cautioning customers to be aware, police said.

 

"I'm a frequent bar patron so if this is going on, I'm frightened," said Rashid Ullah, a San Francisco resident.

 

But police said there's no reason to be fearful, just be cautious.

 

Police suggest that if someone does decide to go home with someone they don't know, ask to see that person's driver's license, write down the number and text it to a friend.

 

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/rash-crime-targeted-middle-aged-gay-men-hits-castr/nLWRf/

[+ purplekow]

What a shock to see a thread I started brought back, especially when I have no recollection of starting the thread or what the impetus to start the thread was. I do like my Gay Cheers Theme take off.

As for the reason it was restarted, men in bars, getting drunk and taking a rapscallion home and waking up short cash or property. None of this is really news or new. As the sergeant on Hill Street Blues used to warn: "Let's be careful out there."