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The Castro

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The Castro, located in the center of San Francisco, is where we've lived since 1996. In the summer of 1998, on the weekend of the Gay Pride Parade, we purchased a home in Corona Heights, on the hill to the north, overlooking the Castro.

The Castro, best known as San Francisco's gay neighborhood, is a vibrant neighborhood. It has well-tended homes, nice cars, good restaurants, trendy shops, and a cast of characters that is never dull: the well-dressed and obsessively-groomed professionals, the leather boys, dykes on bikes, flamboyant personalities of several genders, the lipstick lesbians, the black and white crowd at The Pendulum, and of course, the breeders.

The Castro, visually identified with the landmark Castro Theater (at left), is above all a safe neighborhood with a passionate residents who rock to a throbbing beat around the clock. (Vibrant, passionate, throbbing, beat: double entendre or editorial coincidence? Perhaps a cigar is sometimes just a cigar. Did I do it again?)

More than another excuse for chain store excess, and more meat to it than just a penis-centric neighborhood, the Castro straddles the hard issues that face an opressed minority in a rather hostile world.

It's a celebration of diversity, both sexual (gay, lesbian, transexual, straight, celibate, and other points on the Kinsey Scale) and otherwise. It's not a perfect neighborhood: sometimes the oppressed can be the most oppressive themselves, but all in all, it's a pretty functional bunch (in a pretty disfunctional world). It's visually a diverse neighborhood, with a style that reminds me of Manhattan's Greenwich Village. It's a fun place to be.

There's a lot more that belongs here, and as time permits I'll add.

Right now I'm overwhelmed with the process of closing on a house, and it's a small wonder that I can upload anything.

Please bear with me, and if you have some cycles to spare, please volunteer some of them.

A detailed accounting of the contents of this weblet is available.