Tag Archives: The Castro

Doug Murphy, 41, the owner of the venerable Castro gay bar Moby Dick, died of the H1N1 (swine flu) virus while visiting Palm Springs on Friday. Last month Murphy and his business partner opened another Castro bar, the Blackbird, to positive reviews.

Led by a drag queen, the Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu hula troupe last weekend performed a “hit n run” piece at the corner of Castro and Market in San Francisco. The music is History Repeating by the Propellerheads featuring Shirley Bassey. (Tipped by JMG reader Leif)

An SF City Hall insider tipped me earlier tonight that the SFPD was dropping off racks of barricades in the Castro in advance of an expected Thursday ruling on Prop 8 from the California Supreme Court. No confirmation at this point, but similar reports are coming in from San Diego. We’ll know around midday when the Court posts its list …

A small outbreak of tuberculosis has been traced back to Castro-area gay bars, where a bartender was apparently infected by a patron. SF’s public health department is screening bar employees all over the Castro. San Francisco health officials have traced several cases of tuberculosis to patrons of Castro gay bars, with one of the people infected a bartender in the …

The Catholic League (famously dissed by Kathy Griffin as “one guy with a computer”) has issued a reaction to yesterday’s defacing of a Catholic church in the Castro. Part of the blame for the latest attack goes to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Both Newsom and the Board have shown nothing but contempt …

This photo embiggens nicely.

In the former location for Harvey Milk’s camera shop is the gift store Given, above which is a painting of Milk looking out his apartment window.

The woman hit on the head with her Bible in last Friday’s melee in the Castro went on Bill O’Reilly last night to claim that her group doesn’t seek the conversions of gays. This is, of course, an utter lie. So much for the 9th Commandment.

Under the title The Elijah-Jezebel Showdown, wingnut anti-gay preacher Lou Engle has posted a lengthy diatribe/sermon about Friday night’s incident in the Castro. Engle is the architect of the massive anti-gay rally at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium. (The clips were sent to me by a straight Mormon woman who says she’s left her church in outrage over their assault on …

On Friday night, police in riot gear had to rush to the Castro District to protect a group of Christianists seeking to convert gays. In San Francisco’s Castro District, people on both sides of the same-sex marriage controversy confronted each other on Friday night, as police tried to keep the peace. Proposition 8 passed in a close vote and eliminated …

Last night at the Castro Theater I attended the “People’s Premiere” of Milk, the Harvey Milk biopic by Gus Van Zant that opens nationwide on November 26th, the day before the 30th anniversary of Milk’s assassination. My longtime buddy Robert Cameron is the VP of Brand Marketing for Levi Strauss, the presenting sponsor of this premiere, and he was kind …

Gus Van Zant’s Harvey Milk biopic premiered to a star-studded audience at San Francisco’s Castro Theater last night. For red carpets pics, visit Towleroad. Anybody see it yet?

Residents of the Castro are getting annoyed with the increasing number of tour buses bringing gawking tourists in to see homos in their native habitat. In the last three months, large tour buses have begun to park in the area on Thursday and Sunday afternoons, opening their doors and sending hundreds of tourists out to gawk and snap photos of …

Via JMG reader Greg, here’s a shot of a furry would-be groom at last night’s impromptu party in the Castro. From all accounts, it was quite a thrilling night to be out on the street with our people. I wonder how many folks didn’t make it to work this morning?

This is totally worth a trip to San Francisco. From Matthew S. Bajko in the Bay Area Reporter: The Castro is set to receive a makeover next month – Hollywood style – as the creative team behind the biopic on the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to office in the U.S., recasts the gay neighborhood …

San Francisco’s campaign to end the Castro Halloween party was surprisingly effective. “People are behaving well. We’re happy,” Neville Gittens, a police spokesman, said late Wednesday evening. “All of the city’s planning and notification is paying off.” By midnight, city workers had taken away the metal police barricades that had lined parts of Castro and Market streets and the crowds …

Springboarding off tomorrow’s closure of the Castro for Halloween (thanks to violence spawned by the annual invasion of het-thugs), today the New York Times riffs on the topic of gayborhoods, asking if “gay enclaves” around the nation are not only doomed, but even necessary in today’s increasingly accepting world. (The post below this one to the contrary.) These are wrenching …