Posted on 02/02/2016 3:48:28 PM PST by nickcarraway
Residents of San Francisco's historically gay Castro district are worried that the gay scene is changing, and traditional LGBT institutions are rapidly disappearing
When Cleve Jones, a longtime gay activist who led the creation of the Aids Memorial Quilt, went to his local gay bar in the Castro district, he saw something that shocked him.
"The tech bros had taken over The Mix. They commanded the pool table and the patio. These big, loud, butch guys. It was scary," he said. "I'm not heterophobic, but I don't want to go to a gay bar and buy some guy a drink and have him smirk and tell me he's straight. They can go anywhere. We can't."
Residents of San Francisco's historically gay Castro district are worried that it's changing, as speculators come in to flip the few remaining ramshackle old Victorians and the old-timer gay bars shutter. In a recent small survey, 77% of people who have lived in the neighborhood for 10 or more years identified as gay, while only 55% of those who moved in the past year did.
When an iconic building was on the market earlier this year, it was between two potential tenants: a gay strip club and a SoulCycle. The SoulCycle won. This winter, The Gangway, the oldest gay bar in town, is closing down.
"When you lose the geographic concentration, you lose a lot," Jones said. "We lose the cultural vitality, the political power - you also lose the specialized social services."
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
That must be why they are called pickle sniffers.
That is always the case. It is the normal that makes the abnormal uncomfortable, because they know they are abnormal.
That’s so gay.
In other words, YES, he IS a hate-filled homosexual wimp scared of what - even in San Francisco - are "normal" males everywhere else.
And he votes democrat.
homofascist straight haters.
Is “tech bro” a new term that I’m supposed to learn, like “metrosexual” a few years ago? Does it have a specific meaning as some sort of subculture?
There's truth in that message. The stereotype of SF is that it's all gay, it isn't, and confined to a couple neighborhoods out of a couple dozen. And lots of gays have left over the last 20 years. That happened to the black population, went from 16 percent down to 5 percent, and now it's happening to the gays. They're in Seattle, Denver, Austin and other cities, but fewer in SF.
The Tenderloin district used to be all dope addicts and winos with porno theaters, got transformed when asian families moved in. The Mission district used to be latino, and now the techies and Chinese are changing it. I had some business last week with a sandblasting shop in Hunters Point, it used to be an all black area, but I saw lots of Chinese there. The gays have finally left SF and are not a majority by any means.
Plus they're getting beat up in the Mission and SOMA where they used to hang out at bars. Now they're being edged out in their home districts in the Castro and Noe Valley neighborhoods.
“I’m not heterophobic, but . . . “
But what, bigot?
Such a shame, SF is wasted on turds.
Oh yeah. There was one named the Purple Pickle - I swear I am not making that up. “Yeah, I was having a few beers at the Purple Pickle last night,” said no straight man ever.
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In 1965, I was sitting in a bar called tha “Purple Crackle” in East Cape Girardeau, Illinois when a man walked in, drew a pistol and shot the man sitting next to me.
I’ve avoided places with the word “purple” in their name ever since.
That day’s a-comin, when Muslims meet their supporting PC Crowd. FemiNazis and Homos meet Ragheads and Sharia.
So there is/was such a place. I know a guy that claims to have...well, firebombed the place, or one with the same name, in the 70’s or 80’s.
Clock Bar at the Westin St. Francis hotel is the conservative culture spot in San Francisco. That luxury hotel has been the Republican zone since the 1950s.
Don’t come dressed like a schnook or they’ll courteously turn you away pretty doggone fast.
You sure you weren't just a little excited, Cleve?
Anytime people complain that their neighborhood is being taken over I wonder how they felt when they were the ones taking over from the previous residents.
I’m sure that they didn’t give a damn.
It happens.
That’s life.
.
The same thing happened in the Capital Hill neighborhood in Seattle. Amazon opened a new HQ there and a lot of their workers want to live in town. The gay community went all high and right because their favorite restaurants and bars were getting all straightened out.
I guess the neighborhood just fagged out.
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