A Gay Gui to the Castro - bars, culture & history - Travel Gay

Contents:

• 5 HISTORIC SAN FRANCIS GAY BARS WE WISH STILL EXISTED
• BEHOLD: A MAP OF SAN FRANCIS'S LOST GAY BARS
• SF GAY HISTORY
• SAN FRANCIS’S OLST GAY BAR TO CLOSE S DOORS
• A GAY GUI TO THE CASTRO
• THE GAY TRAVELER’S GUI TO SAN FRANCIS
• BEFORE THE CASTRO, POLK GULCH WAS SAN FRANCIS'S GAYBORHOOD
• THE BT GAY BARS SAN FRANCIS
• HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY

5 HISTORIC SAN FRANCIS GAY BARS WE WISH STILL EXISTED

After several proment bars San Francis started shutterg -- victims of Manhunt and Grdr and time -- I started mappg a cy's worth of shuttered gay bars. Focch's (1936), 506 Broadway:The drag show at Focch's was more of a tourist draw than an hont-to-goodns gay club, but helped brg gay culture -- and drag culture -- to the mastream spotlight.

I951, after two years of police harassment, owner Sol Stouman took the police to the California Supreme Court, and argued that a bar uld not be shut down jt bee gay men ngregated there. He prevailed, providg stenance to the growg homophile Handle Bar (1960), California and Hy:Until 1960, most gay bars were expected to pay brib to police officers for 'protectn' om raids. But 1960, the "gay-ola" sndal exposg such brib beme a media sensatn, and began a discsn about the rights of gays to equal protectns unr the Q (1962), Polk St.

:In rponse to police harassment, San Francis bar owners formed the Tavern Guild -- the first gay bs associatn the Uned Stat -- at the Suzy-Q bar on Polk Street.

BEHOLD: A MAP OF SAN FRANCIS'S LOST GAY BARS

Members set up a phone-tree to warn each other of impendg raids, set up relief funds and raised money for homophile groups like the Dghters of Bilis, the Mattache Society and the Not? One of the first mastream discsns of S&M, the article tablished San Francis the mds of middle Ameri (and lns of gay men) as a place of sexual diversy and tolerance.

:The Stud helped cubate San Francis's gay hippie movement -- even Janis Jopl would e when she was town -- and provid an alternative to sweater queens and htlers. Wdows were smashed, police were fought off for hours and a muny showed s strength, providg a flashpot for gay and trans anizg on the Wt Coast: In 's wake a work of social, polil and LGBT-centric medil groups Hall (1971), 482 Castro:The origal Toad Hall -- a bar of the same name recently opened a nearby space -- is often creded wh lnchg the Castro as a gay district. One of the first bars to chew a jebox favor of a DJ, Toad Hall ma the sleepy Eureka Valley a statn for gay men on the weekends, and soon bs owners and homebuyers saw the potential for a real neighborhood where gays uld live Peaks Tavern (1972), 401 Castro:Prr to Tw Peaks, gay bars were secretive affairs wh eher black-out wdows or no wdows at all.

SF GAY HISTORY

As we s down this year to figure out where to dance the weekend away, let’s take a moment to remember the San Francis gay bars of yore — the foundatns on which our current venu were built, and the plac that went to battle wh the cy so future generatns wouldn’t have to. The cisg and htlg that had been happeng the streets for at least a started movg si when the first gay bars — the College Inn and the Pirat’ Cave —arrived 1933 wh the end of prohibn.

Dpe beg a relative lateer to the downtown gay scene (which was nicknamed “the Meat Rack, ” cintally), the Silver Rail was a notor dive om day one.

SAN FRANCIS’S OLST GAY BAR TO CLOSE S DOORS

In 1952, a man named Jimmie Taranto succsfully extorted money om the bar manager exchange for not reportg the rampant homosexual activy takg place the jot. When Geist and Kissger first opened the bar, they hired artist Mike Caffee to make them a versn of Michaelangelo’s famo sculpture, transformed to a gay biker.

A GAY GUI TO THE CASTRO

Once scribed by Allen Gsberg as the “greatt gay bar Ameri, ” the Black Cat Café started life 1933 as a hangout for bohemians, jt doors away om where the Transameri Pyramid currently stands. Gsberg once mented: “It was totally open … Everybody went there, heterosexual and homosexual … All the gay screamg queens would e, the heterosexual gray flannel su typ, longshoremen. ” When Stouman had his liquor license fely revoked 1949 bee “persons of known homosexual tennci patronized said premis and ed said premis as a meetg place, ” Stouman fought back — all the way to California’s Supreme Court.

A number of people were arrted [at the Black Cat], some for vagrancy and some bee they ‘monstrated homosexual actns, ’ but there was no showg that any of those arrted were nvicted.

THE GAY TRAVELER’S GUI TO SAN FRANCIS

There was no evince of any illegal or immoral nduct on the premis … The patronage of a public rtrant and bar by homosexuals … whout proof of the missn of illegal or immoral acts on the premis … is not sufficient to show a vlatn. What was, until 2018, San Francis’s olst ntuoly survivg gay bar had ma through Prohibn, anti-LGBTQ+ legislatn and the AIDs crisis — an astonishg n that end unceremonly after a simple liquor license transfer.

(The bar was equipped wh a history wall, historic gay ephemera and an entryway that paid tribute to 1969’s Friday of the Purple Hand prott.

BEFORE THE CASTRO, POLK GULCH WAS SAN FRANCIS'S GAYBORHOOD

Last month we brought you a roundup of ads om funct gay bath ho town, and about a year ago we showed you a semi-current map of the dozen gay bars that rema the Castro.

But back the days before the ter and Grdr, there were two or three tim more bars for the homosexual set sttered around town than there are now. Well, filmmaker and gay historian (and GayPornBlog-ger — lk NSFW) Mike Stabile has done a solid and created a Google map verg any and every historic gay and lbian bar he uld fd an addrs for.

THE BT GAY BARS SAN FRANCIS

Two gay bars have closed already this year, Marlena's and Kok (formerly My Place), and both are beg mixed bars the future, jt the tert of foot traffic. See the map below, and as Stabile wr for the Pop-Up Mm of Queer History, the hand-drawn ads and matchbooks om this other era of gay bar culture reflects two generatns of gay men existg San Francis the 1970s.

" As source material, he ed ads om vtage gay magaz like Vector and After Dark, and there's also a PDF list that's been kept on the webse of the Cch Saloon, last revised 1996, that has some 700 bar nam on , most of them wh addrs. After s of standg at the foreont of gay culture, ntu to be globally regnised as one of the most progrsive and LGBTQ+ iendly ci the world.

HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY

Durg World War 1, the US Navy began dischargg known homosexual and black soldiers port ci, known as the “blue discharge” practice. As alhol was illegal until 1933, bars were already nng a risk, and was no more illegal to allow gay and lbian patrons to enter. Mona’s, the first lbian bar San Francis, opened on Unn Street 1934, while nightclubs wh drag shows attracted both gay and straight dienc.

From 1942 to 1943, ary patrols known as the San Francis Moral Drive targeted and raid the gay bars of San Francis, claimg to be protectg servicemen om homosexuals.

However, by the end of the 1940s, the gay bar scene was growg and queer bars beme not only a safe space for gay and lbian people, but also a statn for visors to the cy, who watched performanc and mgled wh the lols. Many beat poets, cludg those who were openly gay such as Allen Gsberg, me to San Francis due to the more permissive environment and aligned themselv wh LGBTQ+ groups. The Dghters of Bilis, found 1955, was the first lbian-centred anisatn the USA, while the Mattache Society, one of the earlit gay rights anizatns the USA, beme headquartered San Francis 1956.