We received a very interesting email in our inbox from an early gay rights activist and photographer named Jerry Pritikin. Jerry described his early life in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s and shared some fantastic photos.
Read what he shared below and check out the photos to get a glimpse of life in the Castro back then. You can also read his blog which he describes as a time capsule of of his life where he often writes about the good times he had while living in San Francisco.
I arrived in San Francisco at the tail-end of the beatnik era in 1960. It was a wonderful small town. Cable cars cost 15 cents and you could get a Sunday Brunch consisting of Eggs Benedict and a Bloody Mary at the Golden Cask on Haight Street for 75 cents.
Back then, the gay neighborhood was centered around Polk Street.I first visited the Castro in 1961, when a friend bought a house on 18th Street for just $9,000! I moved between the Castro and the Haight to start the 1970s.
I rented a 2 bedroom house at 108 Alpine Terrace that had a front and back-yard, an in-law apartment, and 2 garages for $250 a month. I rented the in-law apartment to a student for one hundred dollars and the garages for $25 each. A one ounce lid [container] of pot cost $7 bucks. Needless to say, times have changed!
I left San Francisco in the late 1980s and returned to my hometown of Chicago. I have not been back since 1995. I was one of those gay pioneers who enjoyed 23 of the greatest years of my life on the real streets of San Francisco, and had a camera for a companion. I was a freelance photographer and publicist that specialized in gay clients and businesses at a time it was not yet fashionable to be openly gay. I was involved in the early San Francisco Gay Rights movement and played in the Gay Community Softball League, the first gay sponsored league in the country.
In the early 1970s, I talked the owner of Georgeanna Bakery shop at 420 Castro (now Marcello's Pizza) in to allowing me to display my photographs in their windows. A short time later, a camera shop opened at 575 Castro Street and I began to buy my film and get my photos developed there, and became friends with the owner Harvey Milk and his lover Scott Smith. I thought your readers might enjoy a few of my early photographs.
Cheers, Jerry Pritikin
1st Castro Street Fair. "Note there are no booths or sponsored exhibits."
Bus stop -18th near Castro (1974). "Note the look on the older resident of the area and the need of a garbage can!"
Sidewalk Castro near 14th St. There is no God~Just Theater (1974)
Harvey Milk camera shop film envelope.
Sunday on Church Street (1974). "I used to display my images at Georgeanna Bakery Shop (Now Marcellos) at 420 Castro when that number was not the smoking kind!"
A selfie at the first Castro St. Fair.
Stop sign at Beaver and Castro. "In the early '70s it was the third most stolen street sign after Haight, and Ashbury."
