Preserving Queer Culture in District 8Tommi Avicolli Meccabyline‚ Oct. 19‚ 2006“Affordable housing” has emerged as a key issue in the District 8 race for supervisor, and it’s appropriate that it has. But I believe there’s an even more crucial issue: the survival of the Castro as a center of queer culture. No one can deny that the world’s most infamous queer ghetto has changed a lot since Harvey Milk called it home. Back then, it was undeniably a place where queers gathered from all over the country. They were refugees from the American Dream. The Castro afforded them a place to let their hair, and their pants, down. When the realtors and landlords realized how the former Irish/American neighborhood had been transformed, they wanted a piece of the action. Rents skyrocketed. Many people were pushed out. Harvey lost his camera store and the apartment he occupied above it when his rent shot from $400 to $1,200/mo. |