Many of San Francisco’s neighborhoods have such a distinctive character and flavor that the City sometimes feels like a collection of villages.

The first gay bars in the City cropped up in the old Barbary Coast neighborhood that spans North Beach and the Downtown Financial District, and in the Tenderloin. But by the 50s and 60s, the South of Market (SOMA) area was developing a community of leather bars and bathhouses, while more affluent gays stayed in the Polk, and poorer and more flamboyant gays hung out in the Tenderloin.

By the late 1960s, hippie gays had jumped from the Polk and the Haight over to the Castro, which remains today the City’s most dominant gayborhood.

Read more details about the gay history for each of these San Francisco neighborhoods.

• The Castro
• Haight-Ashbury
• North Beach
• The Polk
• South of Market (SOMA)
• Other Neighborhoods: Chinatown, The Tenderloin, Western Addition