Reviews for San Francisco's Castro District, California (Images of America Series)

The average rating for San Francisco's Castro District, California (Images of America Series) based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-02-13 00:00:00 Sonny Keophimane Images of America has really missed a wonderful PR opportunity by booking themselves as "Professional Scrab-booking, inc." I'm familiar with this series largely because there's so many of them in the Local History/Genealogy room of the library I work at. I've observed dozens of such books, but what made me rush to Amazon to grab a copy of this one was because Harvey Milk was on the cover, and this, in turn, lead me to discover that Images of America has several LGBTQ+ books for cities all over America. I'm sure this book will be a wonderful historical resource to researchers in the San Francisco areas, but for myself, this book mattered so much because it was a record of the LGBTQ+ population in America. I live in a town and county where such a book would not only be unheard, it just wouldn't be possible. Queer existence is something shoved into the back of the closet, or else simply not acknowledged and so the possibility of making such a book is unthinkable. But books like this matter because they are a record that Queer people were here, that they lived, and that their lives are a relevant and important part of the history of the United States. The Castro, like Stonewall, is a sort of mythic space to queer people all over the U.S., and a book like this affords the hope that not only is Queer life not only a possibility but that there might just be more books like this, documenting life and providing opportunities for people to write Local Histories of Gay people. This book gave me Hope, which is probably what Harvey would have liked to inspire in the first place.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-06-06 00:00:00 Chanelle Fetterman loved looking at what 100 years can do to a neighborhood. fun photos and facts, some of which include: --twin peaks (first gay (male) bar with windows) was lesbian owned from approx 1973-2003 --the palm trees that line market street in san francisco were planted in the late '90s -- "the gays and the grays": older women who had outlived their husbands and whose children had moved away, and young gay men whose parents where far away, Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Parish, circa 1980's --in 2003 the US supreme court reduced sodomy to the misdemeanor charge of "following too closely"