| What makes it historical? |
The Castro was designed by Timothy Pfleuger and built by the Nasser brothers in 1922! It is one of the last 1920s movie palaces still in operation in the USA, designed to look like a Mexican cathedral on the outside and house 1400 people inside! But that’s not what makes this theatre famous!
The Castro Theatre is the centerpiece in one of the earliest and certainly most famous gay communities in the country! During the 1960s, as people began leaving San Francisco for the suburbs, lots of gay men began buying up the old Victorian buildings here, creating something revolutionary: a whole community where they didn’t have to hide! “The Castro” as it became known, served as the prototype for LGBT communities across the country!
It was here in the 1970s that camera salesman, Harvey Milk, the “Mayor of Castro Street,” got his start in politics, becoming the first openly gay elected official in California and a martyr for the gay rights movement! It was here that activists gained steam in the 1980s for AIDS research, the kind of political momentum that made San Francisco the first city in the nation to give a marriage license to a same-sex couple! |
