Possibly no other San Francisco neighborhood is as closely connected to a community as the Castro is to its inhabitants. Serving not only as a place to live, but a place of identification, the area gives multiple meanings to the word “home.”

When psychology graduate student Mike Day, 24, first came to the city from Southern California, he found a sense of comfort in the Castro.

“Once I saw the gay flags, I knew I was home,” Day said.

While some see the Castro as the stereotypical version of a homosexual community, it serves an invaluable purpose to the many people who identify with the neighborhood, which is ultimately like all the rest.

Originally known as Eureka Valley, the area was home to many Irish and Scandinavian families who left the neighborhood for the suburbs in the 1960s. As a result of the hippie culture, an influx of young people made their way to San Francisco via Haight and Ashbury.

According to Max Kirkeberg, SF State professor of geography and human environmental studies, it was first assumed that Haight Street would become the gay neighborhood, but the majority of the people left for the smaller, more commercialized, and affordable Castro street.

Kirkeberg moved to San Francisco in 1965 and witnessed the boom of the Castro firsthand.

“I watched as it became a gay mecca in the 70s, which was fun for me, because I was a part of it,” said Kirkeberg, who gives walking tours of the various neighborhoods, including the Castro.

For some of the younger people who were not a part of the Castro in its heyday, it is often harder to identify with a place where middle-aged homosexual white men are the majority.

SF State theater sophomore Bradley Zeledon, 19, acknowledges the history and importance of the Castro, but cannot help but see it as a tourist spot.

“It’s like going to Disneyland, like a rite of passage,” said Zeledon, who fears that outsiders might take advantage of the community, and feed their preexisting stereotypes of homosexuals.

“[The Castro] should be respected and not treated as a commodity, or as another stop on the tour of San Francisco,” Zeledon said. “There is a huge danger in [the neighborhood] buying into our own image and turning into what people from Texas think of us – the partying, fairies who have sex all the time.”

Rainbow flags line the streets and rainbow stickers are positioned in the windows of the many businesses that make up the commercial area. The theme throughout the neighborhood is pride – pride for the people of the neighborhood, their history and those who have fallen in their name.

Positioned near the Castro Muni entrance is Harvey Milk Plaza, which honors the man who is accredited with furthering the notion of Castro being a gay community in the 1970s. He pioneered gay rights as an activist and ultimately as the first openly gay man elected to a political office when he became a member on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Understanding that his stance on homosexuality was controversial at the time, Milk had a will prepared and once said, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let the bullet destroy every closet door.”

Two bullets did enter his brain on Nov. 27, 1978. At the age of 48, he was shot and killed, along with Mayor George Moscone, by former supervisor Daniel White in City Hall.

Continuing in Milk’s legacy is current member of the Board of Supervisors for District 9, Tom Ammiano. The openly gay politician and activist believes in the integrity of the neighborhood, but also acknowledges there is still some work to be done.

“I would say that in many ways it’s a more open place, but there is still a long way to go,” Ammiano said.

The Castro has long been seen as the heart of gay culture, and many outsiders assume that a neighborhood accepting of the homosexual community would be void of racism. However, a 10-month investigation involving Badlands bar proved otherwise.

Bar patrons had been discriminating against African American men and women. The findings exposed the truth – that the Castro is just like any other place, and has its imperfections and problems.

“The Castro is still in many ways separated by socioeconomic status, subtle classism, sexism, and racism,” said Cecilia Chung, deputy director of the transgender law center.

Although the Bay Area is known for its primarily liberal views, many homosexual people feel safest and most at home in the Castro, where they can hold hands with their partners.

Internationally known for its gay history, involvement and culture, the Castro continues to be not only a homosexual neighborhood, but a cultural one as well.

“The Castro represents a historical watershed for the worldwide gay community, and houses much [of] our movement’s institutional memory,” Ammiano said.