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Stein, a film producer, describes, “to plant a rainbow flag in a neighborhood and stake a claim to it as their turf, where they could own businesses, buy property, elect their own officials, and walk down the street as a gay or lesbian person 24 hours a day.”(3) Dangers certainly existed – youth gangs attacked and threatened gay men, and police occasionally raided private gay establishments or arrested gay men on the streets.(4) However, despite these dangers, gay men could still be openly out throughout parts of the city, which allowed them to live a much freer and more open lifestyle in the Castro than they were able to in rural or small-town America. Gay men opened bathhouses, leather bars, and sex clubs in the South of Market neighborhood, repurposing industrial spaces with cheap rents.(2) These neighborhoods permitted gay men, as Peter L. Shops with gay owners, gay bars, and places of gay socialization lined the streets. The Castro and other gay San Francisco neighborhoods also provided a certain spatial freedom. While Milk’s assassination cut his life and political influence short, gay San Franciscans organized political clubs, lobby groups, and other methods of applying political pressure within the city to define and protect gay rights. The Castro elected one of the nation’s first openly gay officials in 1978 when they chose Harvey Milk, a Castro resident, for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The Castro became one of the nation’s most distinctive and visible gay neighborhoods and a hub of sexual activism and politics. San Francisco attracted gay men and others with non-normative sexualities after World War II, but especially in the 1960s and 1970s as it became known as a city open to people who identified as gay.(1) Gay men and women grouped together, creating gay neighborhoods – places where they could seek safety in numbers, live an openly gay lifestyle, buy homes, and launch their own businesses. Today, the SF LGBT Center is the only non-profit in San Francisco serving all members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. This landmark event breathed new life into the physical space and created financial sustainability. In April 2017, the center inaugurated a state-of-the-art building-a $10.3 million remodel. The SF LGBT Center, first opened in 2002, seen here in mid-2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.