As San Francisco Prepares to Celebrate Its 50Th Pride, David Hudson Suggests There’S No Better Time to Visit
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Travel Bay watch As San Francisco prepares to celebrate its 50th Pride, David Hudson suggests there’s no better time to visit 84 FEBRUARY 2020 FEBRUARY 2020 85 Travel t’s a cool autumn evening in San Francisco Castro Street, and the store has since been The impact of the tech industry is and I’m following a drag queen around taken over by the LGBTQ organisation Human something many people talk about in San Ithe Union Square district, listening to Rights Campaign, which sells t-shirts and Francisco. Apple, Uber, Lyft, and Salesforce are notorious tales of the infamous Zodiac Killer other merchandise to raise funds. just four of many companies that have their and Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple cult. The vintage Castro Theatre still screens headquarters in or near the city. Although this Mary Vice is leading an evening ghost-walk movies, while popular local bars include Twin has brought an economic boost, it’s changing tour for Wild SF Walking Tours. Standing in the Peaks which, when it turned gay in 1972, was the the landscape immeasurably. lobby of the imposing Westin St Francis Hotel, first such venue to boast big windows looking A 10-minute walk from the Castro brings you the suitably goth-looking Mary tells our small out on to the street: a bold move at a time when to the Mission. This area reminds me slightly of group about an aspiring actress who died most queer spaces were hidden away. Shoreditch in London: formerly economically under suspicious circumstances attending a Patrick Batt moved to San Francisco 39 disadvantaged but now becoming gentrified. party with silent-film legend Fatty Arbuckle in years ago and has been running his vintage Preppy tech types with money are moving in 1921, and about the ghosts rumoured to haunt porn store, Auto Erotica, in The Castro for the and those without are being forced out of this this grand old establishment. past 23 years. traditionally Latinx area. The district is a hot That San Francisco has more than its fair “Thanks to the tech industry there are spot for street art, and many of the murals share of murder stories is not surprising. The many more people,” he says when I ask him along Clarion Alley have a political edge, directly city has acted as a magnet for drifters, the what changes he’s witnessed. “And those commentating on how the area is changing. displaced, and those who simply felt different, people, at least from my perspective, have The Mission itself remains a mixture for decades. This has famously included little interest in San Francisco or its history. of cheap eats and grunge. Homelessness millions of LGBTQ people. “They want to live in the Castro because it’s is apparent in San Francisco, and this is PRIDE OF PLACE: “I found a community here really quickly,” centrally located to get to and from work, but particularly true around Dolores Mission This crossroad in the Castro has Mary replies when I ask what brought her they’re not interested in, and do not support, Park. By contrast, head three blocks east of often been called here from Philadelphia four years ago. “At the the neighbourhood.” Mission Street to Valencia Street and the vibe the gayest four corners on Earth time, I didn’t know where I was going to end Patrick believes the Castro will remain the notably shifts upmarket. Among the small art up. I was checking out different places on the heart of gay life in the city, but in the same galleries, check out the bizarre Paxton Gate, West Coast but I fell in love with the scene way that Soho in New York and Boystown in a store crammed with stuffed animals and WELL-BUILT: The Peace here. It was interesting and inviting. I felt you Chicago have changed, the neighbourhood is other oddities inspired “by the garden and Pagoda in Japantown could get away with everything.” evolving. With the advance of gay rights, gay natural sciences”. Her story is not uncommon. Frisco earned culture no longer has to be under ground. For a different neighbourhood experience, a reputation as somewhere you could “get He adds: “With gay marriage, people can head to Japantown. Japanese people have been away with everything” in the 1960s and 1970s, live and be wherever they want, so they don’t settling here since after the 1906 earthquake. although its image as a gay nirvana took a necessarily need gay ghettos any more.” The district covered some 36 blocks before blow in the Eighties with the arrival of the Aids WWII and was expanding but the attack on epidemic. At the same time, other cities began Pearl Harbor in 1941 changed all that. The US to develop gaybourhoods of their own. “I fell in love with the scene government interned Japanese people during I’m visiting San Fran for a glimpse of what here. I felt you could get the war and turned many of their homes and it offers international visitors, but also with away with eveerything” businesses into social housing, but Japantown one question at the forefront of my mind: is it survived — albeit in a smaller form — after the still the mythical gay mecca of years past? conflict ended in 1945. SAN FRAN FAN: Like any metropolis, San Francisco — the city David Hudson You’ll still find dozens of Japanese by the bay — boasts distinct neighbourhoods. businesses and cultural centres, while sushi For gay people, the obvious one is the Castro. and ramen lovers will be spoilt for choice by The most concentrated gay village in the whole the wealth of cuisine on offer. of the US, rainbow flags hang on the lampposts Like other neighbourhoods, Japantown is and a giant one flutters over the subway station. likely to prevail but residents are wary that big The Castro covers a four-block district business may further encroach on this Asian around the rainbow cross-walks at 18th and enclave. There are two Japan Centre shopping Castro Streets. There are plenty of LGBTQ-run malls that are currently legally obliged to host businesses. It was, and remains for some, a Japanese-themed businesses. However, those glimpse of a queer utopia: where LGBTQ life, obligations expire in 2021 and some residents for once, is not in the minority. fear that more homogenous high-street brands For a true sense of the area’s history, visit will move in. the GLBT Historical Society Museum. Staff are But what about the city’s really touristy stuff? happy to talk to tourists. The most famous attraction has to be Alcatraz. LIGHTS, CAMERA ACTION: The Castro One of the city’s most famous residents I have to admit, I had little prior interest in Theatre opened was Harvey Milk, who was shot by a fellow visiting the former prison, but it turns out to be on its present site in 1922 politician. Milk ran a camera shop at 575 one of my highlights. > 86 FEBRUARY 2020 FEBRUARY 2020 87 Travel BE SURE TO WEAR A FLOWER IN YOUR HAIR: Golden Gate Park. Right, from top: Auto Erotica, the GLBT history museum and taxidermy shop Paxton Gate About a mile off the coast, The Rock is clearly with the names of those lost to the illness. It’s visible from San Francisco and is woven into a sobering and moving experience. the city’s DNA, despite closing as a high-security Like Patrick, Tom Burtch is a long-term federal penitentiary in 1963. San Francisco resident. He began visiting Once you leave the ferry, climb the hill to the city from Wisconsin in 1973 and moved the one-time jail-house and take the audio permanently in 1985, searching for sexual tour. Listen to former inmates and prison liberation. Now 70 and working as a volunteer officers recount the history, taking you into at the GLBT Historical Museum, he says it still the cells of those imprisoned there — inmates offers something unique, even if the cost of included Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and living has spiralled. Birdman Robert Stroud. “I sing with the Gay Men’s Chorus and The entire Bay Area — one of San Fran’s we’ve just had a number of members say they many nicknames is Bay City — boasts its own can’t afford to make it here any more. It’s the micro-climate, and on the day I visit, the economics more than the actual change in island is wrapped in thick fog, making the the gayness of San Francisco that’s had am Where to stay visit all the more eerie and ghostly. impact,” he says. When you arrive back from Alcatraz, it’s “More gay presence in society in general The Kimpton Buchanan a short walk from the ferry terminal to Pier has possibly made San Francisco a little less The Buchanan, at 1800 Sutter Street, in 39, which is crammed with souvenir stores, “special” in terms of what it has to offer the Japantown, close to posh Pacific Heights boutiques and other businesses looking for community, and [Mayor] Dianne Feinstein and overlooking Peace Plaza, reopened your tourist dollars. It’s worth visiting for the closing the bathhouses, in that early knee-jerk in early 2019 having had a makeover city’s very noisy sea lions. reaction in the early days of Aids, did a lot (check out the chandelier in the lobby, These “sea-lebrities”, which live off the to make San Francisco a less wild and crazy made up of 3,100 whisky bottles).