Gay Enclaves Face Prospect of Being Passé

[alcibiades_mystery]

Source: New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 24 — This Halloween, the Glindas, gladiators and harem boys of the Castro — along with untold numbers who plan to dress up as Senator Larry E. Craig, this year’s camp celebrity — will be celebrating behind closed doors. The city’s most popular Halloween party, in America’s largest gay neighborhood, is canceled.

The once-exuberant street party, a symbol of sexual liberation since 1979 has in recent years become a Nightmare on Castro Street, drawing as many as 200,000 people, many of them costumeless outsiders, and there has been talk of moving it outside the district because of increasing violence. Last year, nine people were wounded when a gunman opened fire at the celebration.

For many in the Castro District, the cancellation is a blow that strikes at the heart of neighborhood identity, and it has brought soul-searching that goes beyond concerns about crime.

These are wrenching times for San Francisco’s historic gay village, with population shifts, booming development, and a waning sense of belonging that is also being felt in gay enclaves across the nation, from Key West, Fla., to West Hollywood, as they struggle to maintain cultural relevance in the face of gentrification.

There has been a notable shift of gravity from the Castro, with young gay men and lesbians fanning out into less-expensive neighborhoods like Mission Dolores and the Outer Sunset, and farther away to Marin and Alameda Counties, “mirroring national trends where you are seeing same-sex couples becoming less urban, even as the population become slightly more urban,” said Gary J. Gates, a demographer and senior research fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/us/30gay.html

[aquart]

1. IOW, fewer gays feel afraid of living outside sanctuary areas.

Uh...that's good news, right?

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. I posted this story without evaluation

There's good news and bad news in it, I guess.

Just a news story about current events.

[GodlessBiker]

3. It's happening in NYC, too. Gay people fix things up and make an area hip, then others move in.

Hell's Kitchen, not Chelsea, is now the place to be.

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. Hell's Kitchen, now "Clinton"

Gowanus, now "Boerum Hill."

Hey New York! Where'd you go to, my New York?

[GodlessBiker]

5. Some call it North Chelsea.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. I liked Hell's Kitchen

:-)

[GodlessBiker]

8. Me, too. It's hot.

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. I liked the dive bars, and the obvious kids of Westies

I liked the faint hint of danger. Now there are frame stores and wine bars. Better living, maybe, but much less flavor.

[ronnykmarshall]

13. Very true.

My best friend lives in the Upper West Side and don't even go Chelsea anymore. It's all about Hell's Kitchen now.

[Freddie Stubbs]

15. And the locals scream 'gentrification!'

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. I don't know if you've ever lived in an area that was subsequently

gentrified.

In some ways it's quite wonderful: new stuff and maybe safer, and nice restaurants and bars and whatnot.

In other ways, it still hurts. You have a longing for the past, warts and all, and something just felt more raw and real about it. That's if you can afford to hang around. Many of your former neighbors cannot, and they're gone, vanished into the ether: part of your neighborhood is dead, gone. Neighborhoods are organisms in a city. And it's a bit melancholy to see them go. It's likely an illusion, some of it, but many illusions are at the same time real, felt.

Yes, there are a lot of things that are better about the "new" New York (where it has taken hold), but I miss a lot about the old New York, too. My New York, shitty New York, tough New York. Romanticizing? Probably. But still.

[aquart]

20. Not to mention your landlord hoping you'll drop dead.

Always a nasty side effect of gentrification. Sometimes they do just that little wee bit more than hope.

[Chovexani]

21. You hit the nail on the head

Being a Goth kid, the East Village was my stomping ground. It was where eccentrics of all sorts gathered--the Goths, the Punks, Witches (back when being a Witch was still revolutionary and not about "we're just like you" BS) and occultists, artists, bohemians, queers. People who were about free expression and living without the artificial BS boundaries society imposed on us.

I remember in high school, hanging out in front of St. Marks Comics in full Goth regalia with my friends, and the Japanese tourists that would ask politely to take pictures of us. We were genuine New York weirdoes they just had to show the folks back home. :rofl: I remember taking newly out acquaintances to the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Clearview when I was Magenta and my friend was Eddie. I remember chasing the fundies who harrassed people outside the Witch shop on E. 9th St in four inch platforms and very nearly catching them.

And then the Gap opened on the corner of St. Marks and 2nd Ave. And Coney Island High closed. That was the beginning of the end. The metaphysical crystal store closed. The last time I was on St. Marks, that once magical, freaky stretch of street between 2nd and 3rd, a pretentious yuppie restaurant replaced Religious Sex, the most awesome Goth boutique in the city. It broke my heart.

I moved to Phoenix two years later, and I'm homesick as hell, but I think the city I knew and loved is gone.

[NuttyFluffers]

22. you have no idea how sad i was revisiting NYC's Time Square this year...

last time i saw the city was 1984-85, the heydey of gritty New York, when crack and greed ruled and it was obvious 'the man' was holding you down. it was painful looking at the poverty, but there was something also more palatable than the safe pablum of today's Time Square. new TIme Square is like Las Vegas + Disneyland did a stripmall extravaganza in the heart of downtown. it made my heart sick; where were my crackheads and X-rated theaters? something about a neon Olive Garden, Applebees, M&M, and MTV store just kills something in my jaded nihilistic soul...

i asked myself if i could live in Manhattan now and something in me just couldn't get excited anymore. something about the hardcore-ness died. but odd enough i was enamored with Philadelphia. weird, huh? maybe i need to give NYC another go and step out of the bubble of touristy Manhattan.

[Chovexani]

26. That's the best description of Neo Times Square I've heard yet

It's almost a parody of itself now. Of course now you've got million dollar luxury condos on The Bowery.

Manhattan just plain sucks now, and now the priced-out gentrifying hipsters're trying to turn my beloved Brooklyn into Manhattan Jr. No thanks.

Is there no place safe from yuppie scum? :(

[JeanGrey]

24. I lived in a very rough area in Atlanta that has since been

"gentrified" or so they say. I can tell you I don't long for the old days at all! I hated it then. It was frightening and awful. I really loved having 10 locks on my door and hearing gunshots in the street. No thanks.

[Chovexani]

16. My favorite girl bar got priced out of the area

Meow Mix, a real dive of a bar down around Houston St...we used to have our Xena Nights there. They couldn't afford the increasing rent. :(

I knew it was over for the Village when, the last night I took part in the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Clearview, the owner came out to tell us to keep it down because the neighbors were complaining about the noise.

[Terran]

6. Things do change...

The Castro was a quiet middle class neighborhood before it became the main gathering place for gay men. If people are leaving, well, it's because a whole generation has come and gone since the Elephant Walk opened it doors. I haven't lived in SF since 1994, but I suspect there are still other places where my tribe gathers...South of Market, maybe? I miss the Lone Star. Is Polk Street still there? Polk as Gay Mecca was fading away even when I lived there. I miss the old days, but yes, if people feel comfortable moving to the burbs, then that IS a good thing. I felt comfortable moving 2000 miles to rural Missouri, so surely gay people can handle Oakland and Concord.

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. I lived off Hyde on Post in the late 90's

We referred to Polk Street as the "low rent Castro." The drag queens coming in and out of the Motherlode (which was then located on the corner of Larkin and Post) were decidely substandard compared to those in the Castro, and the old men in the bars on Polk were just sad, tricks for runaways and grifters. It was depressing.

[MrScorpio]

11. There's also another side

That as gays are accepted more and more in general society, there's less of a need to maintain enclaves.

[JeanGrey]

25. And that is great! I live in Georgia, an extremely red state in a

very red county. Our subdivison is definitely the Atlanta "burbs" and we have about 45 houses. Out of that many, we have five mexican families (legals) two of which are black/mexican and white/mexican, 9 black families, three lesbian families that I know of for sure and one more I suspect, and at least three gay men households. My group, whities that are straight, are still the majority but not that huge. I think we have a VERY diversified group for this state and county.

I know that discrimination still exists but it is disappearing, slowly but surely. Now you won't find a gay bar here, but you won't find one of those in many areas outside of the city. To me it just isn't a big problem anymore.

Our best friends are a Mexican family across the street, they work harder than horses. The leave every morning at dawn and don't come home until 10 at night. We've played cards with them and done social things. What is interesting is they are about as upset over illegal immigration as anyone I've seen.

[ronnykmarshall]

12. This is so ironic.

I lived in the Castro for years and then moved to West Hollywood.

Now, we are moving out of West Hollywood to Silver Lake.

The Castro was once my heart and soul, but it's changed so much.

If you would have told me in 1987 that I would one day be living in Silver Lake (Los Angeles) I would have laughed in your face.

[AngryAmish]

14. In Chicago it has changed from one gay neighborhood to several gayish places

It used to be Boys Town. Now gay folks have moved to lots of other places. Cheaper, slower pace of life. Andersonville, Hyde Park, Evanston, Oak Park, and lots of other places I don't know about.
Hell, half my building is gay and I'm in deepest darkest Uptown.

It may just be the crowd I run around in but it seems people want a nice place and good value for the money. Boys Town is mostly rentals, a few houses and smallish condos. Much better deals in other parts of town.

Of all the bars I hang out in (and I hang out in some pretty dive-y places there isn't one that isn't gay friendly. Except maybe the Time-Out Tap. But that is a postman's bar, and they are crazy.

[Chovexani]

17. The Village Halloween Parade in NY is a joke now too

It's less the LGBT and the eccentric folks getting their freak on and more about gawking muggles. The last time I went was three years ago, my best friend Brian (the most fabulous drag queen I know) and I were Afro-dite and Eros (he wore a giant blonde afro wig and a white catsuit, and I wore a white pimp suit and carried a bow and heart arrows).

It was crowded and there was a marked increase in the frat boy contingent making crude slurs. It was so depressing.

I'm homesick after I moved to AZ but the city I grew up in and love is gone, I think. :(

[bliss_eternal]

18. That is sad.

It pisses me off to hear that the frat types would go there. They can go anywhere they want to, but they want to infiltrate lgbt halloween to gawk and be assholes. How very classy of them. :eyes:

Your costumes sound very cool!

[NuttyFluffers]

23. yup, "gawking muggles" is right. we call it "bridge & tunnel crowd."

they can't afford the $ for a costume (one cannot imagine the immensity of their beer budget) so they buy their cheap 40s, sit on the side and get all aggro on anything that's fuckable -- unless it threatens their dainty masculinity.

as i've routinely said, major holidays are when the amateurs come out to party. at one point "the gay cooties" of the castro fended off a good chunk of these asswipes, making it a relatively safe and very fun place to experiment and be. now, they ain't so afraid, but still apt to pick a fight. they need to just get their own party going, something kindred to their soul, y'know, like some sports arena with free spiked bats and beer.