SF North Beach early gay (1254)

From the center of North Beach looking towards downtown. As the Beat and Bohemian enclave of San Francisco in the 1950's and 60's, North Beach was the first neighborhood where gays and lesbians found that they could have a sense of safety, with comparatively less police harassment than they experienced in other areas. When I first started exploring San Francisco as a gay person in the mid 1970's, North Beach was still an area of comfort and commerce for gays, though the Polk neighborhood had become the center of gay life in the city and the Castro neighborhood was just beginning to be considered by gays. A good history of gays in North Beach is at the following link: foundsf.org/index.php?title=Before_the_Castro:_North_Beach,_a_Gay_Mecca