Sam Finds Comfortable Landing Spot in St. Louis

The process to landmark a number of historic sites in the city’s LGBTQ Castro district and nearby neighborhoods is set to begin this month, kicking off a deadline for city planning staff to bring the designations to the Board of Supervisors for final approval. Once recognized, the properties will nearly double the number of local landmarks related to LGBTQ history.

The supervisors’ Land Use and Transportation Committee unanimously voted Monday, October 6, to approve moving the landmark designations forward with a positive recommendation to the full board, which should vote on the matter at its October 21 meeting. Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the current board president, is sponsoring a total of 16 properties to recognize as city landmarks, with some located in Noe Valley, the Mission, or Cole Valley.

Seven directly correspond to the LGBTQ community, such as the former home of the late Bay Area Reporter founder Bob Ross at 4200 20th Street and the inaugural site of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation at 514-20 Castro Street. The historic former site of LGBTQ synagogue Sha’ar Zahav (1983-1998) at 220 Danvers Street and the LGBTQ-friendly Most Holy Redeemer Roman Catholic Church at 100-117 Diamond Street are also on the list.

The locations of several pioneering but now defunct LGBTQ businesses would also be recognized. They are the former site (1966-1989) of Maud’s lesbian bar at 929-41 Cole Street; the former site (1971-1977) of the Castro Rock Steam Baths at 582 Castro Street; and the former site (1974-1977) of the Full Moon Coffeehouse at 4416 18th Street.

If the resolutions are passed by the full board later this month, which is LGBTQ History Month, then the landmark requests will be sent to the city's Historic Preservation Commission for a vote before being sent back for a final vote by the supervisors. Due to a supervisor introducing the landmark legislation, the preservation oversight panel is required to make a decision within 90 days of being sent the proposals.

“It might take into 2026 conceivably,” Mandelman said of the approval timeline. “I am hoping it will not be too far into 2026.”

While Mandelman’s office has been working with the city’s planning department on landmarking the properties for some time now, he told the B.A.R. the need to offer them some protection from being torn down has been given more urgency due to the pending approval for an upzoning plan pushed by Mayor Daniel Lurie to see more family-friendly housing be built across the city. Unlike rent-controlled buildings offered some protections from being torn down, the sites eyed to be landmarked are at risk of demolition or development if not protected, noted Mandelman.

“These are buildings, I think they are either commercial or institutional buildings, not otherwise protected from demolition,” he said.

The facades of buildings deemed to be city landmarks are not to be altered. As for any development of the properties, such plans require greater scrutiny from planners and city oversight bodies.

“As planning worked on the family zoning, I have been concerned that the changes in state law and the increased capacity for development the city is trying to create through the family zoning were going to create conditions where we could see demolition of historic resources to make way for new housing development,” Mandelman said. “There is very little or no protection for historic resources unless they have been landmarked or designated as part of historic districts.”

While the Castro has an LGBTQ cultural district, there is no historical district covering the heart of the neighborhood centered around the intersection of 18th and Castro streets. Thus, the best way to ensure the preservation of individual properties in the area is via the city’s landmarking process.

“This was the first batch planning identified in District 8 being worthy of recognition as landmarks,” noted Mandelman, who co-hosted a meeting in the spring for the owners of the properties and community members to inform them of the plan to recognize the sites.

As the B.A.R. had noted at the time, 2348 Market Street that now houses the LGBTQ nightclub Beaux had also been considered for landmark status. It was where, in 1963, the first LGBTQ-identified bar opened in the Castro.

Known as Missouri Mule, it shuttered in 1973. The initial structure at the site has been altered over time, however, so Mandelman said he opted not to move forward landmarking the building.

“I love Beaux but not sure we need to protect that building,” he told the B.A.R. during an October 3 phone interview. “To me, it seemed to be in the category of historic preservation efforts that get mocked and ridiculed and undermine the cause. So, I took that off the list.”
 

The period of significance for his house is given as 1971-1979, though he lived there until the 1990s, when he moved to Clinton Park, gay B.A.R. publisher Michael Yamashita had noted in the spring. He said this week he is pleased to see the landmarking of the site is moving forward.

“I am glad he is being recognized and the house is being recognized for him,” said Yamashita. “There is not enough memory of him and all the things he did for the LGBTQ community during his time.”

As for 514-520 Castro Street, it was where in an upstairs two-bedroom flat local gay leaders launched the offices of the Kaposi’s Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, recalled co-founder Cleve Jones.

“What I do recall is that the phone company sent a technician to wire us up with a telephone line and, as they were leaving and going down the stairs, the phone began to ring,” said Jones, who had worked closely with Dr. Marcus Conant and others to launch the foundation. “It was such an eerie sort of moment, and of course, it never stopped ringing.”

When AIDS was discovered, the foundation rebranded its name and eventually moved out of the space. It currently has its Strut health clinic at 470 Castro Street and its headquarters are now located in the South of Market neighborhood at 940 Howard Street.

"We are glad to hear that the city of San Francisco may commemorate and honor the early history of San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the city’s response to HIV and AIDS by landmarking the site of our first office,” stated Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D., a gay man living with HIV who is CEO of SFAF. “More than 40 years ago, our community came together in crisis to respond with compassion and care to an emerging crisis. We look back in reverence with the dedication these early activists, leaders and heroes showed, and are proud to build on this legacy decades later as our organization and city make strides in reaching an end to the epidemic.” 

Just up the street at 582 Castro Street was the Castro Rock Steam Baths, which “became an exclusively gay bathhouse in the 1970s,” notes its landmark resolution. It was “open 24 hours, serving a diversity of queer male patrons of different ages and economic circumstances.”

The lesbian-owned Full Moon Coffeehouse opened at 4416 18th Street in 1974 just as the Castro was becoming an LGBTQ neighborhood. It is credited as being the city’s first women-only establishment and an important social center for San Francisco’s lesbian community, according to the landmark designation request.

It also highlights how the business “was unique as an early lesbian establishment, during a time when the Castro was largely dominated by gay men.”

Initially attracting European immigrants, Most Holy Redeemer beginning in the 1970s became a home for LGBTQ Roman Catholics who found a safe haven there from homophobia in other parts of the church. It also opened an AIDS hospice to care for its parishioners and others stricken by the disease.

One of the first LGBTQ Jewish groups on the West Coast, begun in 1977, Sha’ar Zahav was able to buy the former Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints located at 220 Danvers Street in the early 1980s. Due to the growth of its congregation, by 1998 it relocated to its current and more spacious location in a former funeral home at the corner of Dolores and 16th streets.

Also set to become city landmarks are St. Paul’s Church at 1660 Church Street (Roman Catholic), which was the exterior used for the film “Sister Act;” St. Matthew’s Church (Lutheran) at 3281 16th Street; and St. Nicholas Cathedral (Russian Orthodox) at 2005 15th Street. Two locations related to the city’s fire department – Hose Company No. 30, located at 1757 Waller Street and Engine Company No.13, at 1458 Valencia Street – are also on the list.

Three residential properties would also become landmarks due to their architectural significance, including 102 Guerrero Street, 361 San Jose Avenue, and the Chautauqua House located at 1451 Masonic Avenue. The latter, built in 1909, was where the American Indian Historical Society had its headquarters from 1967-1986.

As the landmark resolution notes, “1451 Masonic Avenue is significant for its association with the Red Power movement of the 1960s, as well as with the Costo family who played prominent roles in American Indian Civil Rights advocacy.”

The last structure on the list is the Bank of Italy Branch Building, located at 400-410 Castro Street at the intersection of Market Street. It sits at the entrance to Harvey Milk Plaza and the Castro Muni Station, considered to be the front door into the neighborhood.

As the landmark resolution highlights, “Amadeo Peter Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco in 1904 to serve immigrants other banks would not.” The Castro branch was built in 1922, with the business renamed as Bank of America circa 1930.

The bank departed the space in the 1990s, and a slew of commercial tenants have occupied it ever since. Currently, it houses a SoulCycle location.

There are currently 10 city landmarks related to LGBTQ history, including the rainbow flag installation at Harvey Milk Plaza, which was landmarked last fall.

In 2022, San Francisco officials landmarked the site of a trans and queer riot against police in 1966 at Gene Compton's Cafeteria, an all-night diner located in the Tenderloin. The landmark was specifically for the intersection of Turk and Taylor streets in front of the building at 101 Taylor Street in addition to the lower 11 feet of the facade extending north 52 feet from the corner of Turk Street and 40 feet west from the corner of Taylor Street to incorporate the exterior walls for the commercial space.

The Lyon-Martin House at 651 Duncan Street in Noe Valley was where deceased lesbian couple Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin had lived and hosted meetings of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first political and social organization for lesbians in the United States.

The Japanese YWCA/Issei Women's Building at 1830 Sutter Street is where the pioneering gay rights group the Mattachine Society hosted its first convention in May 1954. Gay bar locations the Eagle on 12th Street in South of Market, the Twin Peaks Tavern on Castro Street and the now-defunct Paper Doll in North Beach are also city landmarks.

The other LGBTQ landmarks are the Women’s Building on 18th Street, the former home to the AIDS Memorial Quilt on upper Market Street, and the late gay supervisor Harvey Milk's residence and former Castro Camera shop at 573 Castro Street.

Updated 10/6/25 with result of the land use committee vote.