Beleaguered Castro seeks signs of hope amid vacancies

by John Ferrannini

January’s abrupt closure of Harvey’s – the restaurant and bar named for the slain supervisor Harvey Milk, also known as the “Mayor of Castro Street” – lit a fire under mounting anxieties that San Francisco’s storied Castro LGBTQ neighborhood is in decline.

The apprehension had been growing for years, fueled by the rising number of vacant storefronts and business closures, street conditions that have similarly outraged San Franciscans across the city, and the ongoing effects of the COVID pandemic.

“I know people who don’t go to the Castro,” Cleve Jones, a longtime gay activist who was a former aide to Milk and was a co-founder of both the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, told the Bay Area Reporter. “They don’t want to go – gay and straight – they don’t want to see what you’ll see on Castro Street. The last time I went out in the Castro, I walked three blocks. I saw rats. I saw unconscious people sprawled on the sidewalk who’d soiled themselves. I saw a fight.”

And Jones isn’t alone. Rafael Mandelman, a gay man who holds the job Milk once held representing the Castro on the city’s Board of

Flore at

Supervisors, agreed that the neighborhood is in need of renewal.

“There’s still a lot that’s great about the neighborhood – businesses, it’s a draw for queer people, it has gay bars, some great res- taurants – but I would have to agree with Cleve: it’s not nearly as vibrant as when I was coming out 20-30 years ago and that’s a loss not only for the neighborhood but for all who are connected to the Castro.”