The Castro, San Francisco
We planned to go and see a movie and wanted to see ‘Milk’ with Sean Penn, which opened on Wednesday, but it is not in local movie theaters yet. It is playing in San Francisco though so, on the spur of the moment, we decided to go up to the city. It was playing in several locations up there but we picked The Castro Theater on Castro Street – the very place which is featured heavily in the film.
For those of you who have never heard of the main character – Harvey Milk – (and I certainly hadn’t heard of him until I came to live in California), I will enlighten you. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the USA. He, along with Mayor George Moscone, were assassinated by another elected official named Dan White in 1978. It was a very sad and painful time for San Francisco. The Castro is the center of the gay movement in San Francisco.
The first showing was at 10 a.m. and we arrived in Castro Street at 9.30. Already there was a line outside the theater and it took us ages to find a parking place. We bought tickets for the later performance at 1 p.m. and decided to explore the neighborhood. First of all though we found somewhere for breakfast.
After breakfast, we returned to Collingwood Street where we’d parked the car to get Tom’s camera. From there we continued up the hill and turned left on 20th. No two houses look the same and most of them are really pretty. Two smaller houses had gardens instead of the usual flight of stairs up to the front door and these gardens had flowers in them. The first of them had several different types of roses and one of them smelt gorgeous.
At the junction with Castro Street, we turned left and walked down the hill. Here we were still walking past residential houses. One on the other side of the road particularly caught my attention as it was painted a lovely shade of navy with the windows painted white. Opposite though was a semi detached in need of a little care and attention but they had one endearing feature – each had three front doors.
The shops started when we crossed 19th. The very first one was the Buffalo Whole Food and Grain Company and was a grocery store with brightly colored fresh fruit on display outside. I don’t intend to list every shop but I will mention those which caught my eye. I did go into Pro Plus – which is mini post office and sells stationery – to buy a small notebook because I’d left mine at home. Now at last I could start writing notes. On this block is Luna where Tom and I had breakfast earlier. One interesting shop further along, called Whatever, had an eye catching window display of retro toys, especially super heroes like Superman, Wonder Women, Hulk and the Flesh Eating Zombies, to name but a few.
As this is The Castro, there are a lot of shops displaying sexually explicit items and clothing. It all adds to the charm of the place.
Dolma, which sells Himalayan gifts and handicrafts, confused me a bit. I thought the window display contained sweets. What confused me were some smooth pebbles in a basket which looked like candy to me at first glance and in the basket nearby were some orange packages which looked just like a brand of nougat I’m fond off. On closer inspection they turned out to be incense! Under One Roof had a marvelous display of brightly colored fish, jelly fish and sea horses suspended from the ceiling.
Between 18th Street and Market the only shops which made me stop and look in were A. G. Farrari – fine Italian grocer since 1919 and Louie’s barber shop.
I waited at the end of Castro Street for Tom to catch me up and looked around. Market Street was bustling
and an old green trolley squealed round 17th onto Market. Behind me the huge rainbow flag fluttered in the breeze. I noticed the gas station across the street was selling gas from $1.87 a gallon, To think that two months ago it was selling for over $4 a gallon. It was fun to watch everybody walking by. This is really a nice neighborhood and it is a pleasure to walk around it. I don’t feel threatened at all.
When Tom caught up with me and taken a few photos, we crossed over and walked down the other side of Castro Street. On the corner is Twin Peaks which is a cocktail bar. Here it is only 11.10 and already the place is crowded. Further down is The Bead Store with some beautiful beaded model statues in the window. Next door but one is Castro Cheesery. Even though I pressed my face to the window and glanced in the door I could see no sign of any cheese for sale. There was lots of coffee though.
Then we came to the Castro Theater. This is a wonderful building built in 1922 and still going strong. It fits in so well with the area with its huge highly decorated awning and it’s enormous neon sign. It is the last remaining single screen movie theater in San Francisco and proud of it. More about the inside later though.
Moving on we come to Slides. This is a small burger bar but it is special to me. Way back in 1998, Tom brought my daughter Virginia and me here on the very first occasion we met him. He had taken us to Tiberon earlier where we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant on a patio overlooking the bay and then back to San Francisco where he took us to the Wave Organ, along the Embarcadero and the Financial District and ending up at this burger bar in The Castro. Lots of memories.
Further down was Cliffs Variety Store, selling toys, keys, locks and, from the look of it, far more besides. This was the original Castro Theater from 1910 and had just 600 seats. The newer Castro Theater has three times that.
On the corner of 18th Street is the recently opened GLBT Historical Society, with a special Harvey Milk exhibition entitled ‘Passionate History’ being shown.
Crossing 18th, the first building is the Bank of America. By the ATM machines they have erected a large Christmas tree with big red decorations. Further along is Hearth Real Estate. On offer was a two bedroom, two bathroom condo in The Castro for $975,000.
Now we come to one of the most interesting shops on Castro Street. It is an up market gift shop called Given. The shop itself is OK but the main attraction is that this building was where Harvey Milk had his camera shop. It was called Castro Camera back in the 70′s and Milk lived upstairs. It was bought by the makers of ‘Milk’ and fitted out to look just as it did back then and a lot of the film was shot there. Afterwards it was sold again and Given was born. On the window sill outside, a shrine has been created with lighted candles and roses.
I haven’t mentioned any of the many bars, cocktail lounges and restaurants that abound here. There is certainly a lot of choice when it comes to places to eat and drink.
At 11.45 we made our way back to the Castro Theater to line up for the 1 p.m. film. We were quite close to the front of the queue. For half an hour we waited in the warm sun for the doors to open. We spent the time people watching and it was a very pleasant half an hour. There was no assigned seating so the nearer the front of the line, the better choice of seat there would be.
The doors opened at 12.15 and we started to shuffle in, around the wooden kiosk out the front where the tickets are sold and through the door with tiled frieze above. Inside there is a wonderful lobby with two grand staircases, one on each side. Walking into the main theater was like stepping back in time. This was like going back in time to the cinemas I remembered from my youth. The red plush curtains in front, the murals on the walls, the organ in front of the stage, all brought back memories.
By the time the film started there was not an empty seat in the theater. Talking about seats, we were expecting there to be not a lot of leg room but we were surprised to find that there was plenty of room. The audience was very mixed and there was a lot of cheerful chatter going on around.
Both Tom and I really enjoyed the film. It was an amazing experience to see this particular film in this location. A lot of the action on screen took place in The Castro, in it was right outside the door. Sean Penn did a wonderful portrayal of Harvey Milk. He deserves an Oscar.
We really enjoyed our day in The Castro. The weather was glorious and the neighborhood was vibrant. The cherry on the cake though was to go to the Castro Theater to see ‘Milk’.
Related posts:
- Luna, Castro Street, San Francisco
- San Francisco, Fillmore District
- Tyger’s Coffee House, Glen Park, San Francisco
- San Francisco – Ferry Plaza Farmers Market
- The Embarcadero, San Francisco
December 07 2008 01:19 pm | Neighborhoods
Gerard Koskovich on 08 Dec 2008 at 8:32 pm #
Thanks for mentioning the temporary museum just launched by the GLBT Historical Society in the Castro. Although the Castro gallery is indeed new — the official opening isn’t until Dec. 18, although we’re now open for preview visits — the Historical Society itself isn’t new: The institution was founded in 1985. The Historical Society’s permanent space housing two dedicated galleries and the institution’s extensive archival collections is located at 657 Mission St., Suite 300, in San Francisco’s downtown museum district. The galleries there will reopen in January with two new shows — and the Castro gallery will remain open through 2009. For more information: http://www.glbthistory.org.