Harvey Milk Mural & Former Location of Harvey’s "Castro Camera" Store (575 Castro) – Harvey Milk (1930-1978), the first openly gay elected official of any large city in the U.S., lived and worked in the Castro neighborhood, and was instrumental in the rise of gays as a political force.

Originally from New York state, he spent his twenties as an investment banker on Wall Street and in his thirties as an assistant director in the New York city theatre community. In 1972, Harvey moved to San Francisco where he was free to indulge his hippie sensibilities and live openly as a gay man. He and his lover, Scott Smith, opened Castro Camera shop, which soon became the hub of Harvey’s community activism.

Living in the apartment above his store, the outgoing and witty Harvey quickly became friends with local merchants, his customers and neighbors. Harvey spent so much time talking to area residents and trying to solve their problems that his jesting, self-proclaimed title as the unofficial “Mayor of Castro Street” soon became reality. When he discovered that the local merchant association wouldn’t let in gay members, Harvey organized the rival Castro Village Association, which sponsored the first Castro Street Fair in 1974, drawing 5000 attendees. He also helped found a political club for gay Democrats.

Frustrated by city bureaucracy, the pony-tailed, openly-gay Harvey ran for S.F.’s Board of Supervisors in 1973, using Castro Camera as his campaign headquarters. He lost the election but kept campaigning in the Castro, telling the community they needed gays in office and that the struggle for gay rights is "the fight to preserve your democracy." Cutting off his ponytail, he ran again for supervisor in 1975 and for state assembly in 1976, losing both elections but gaining followers.

His tenacious community organizing, Castro voter registration drives, and coalition building finally paid off in 1977 when he was elected to the S.F. Board of Supervisors, the first openly gay candidate to be endorsed by local firefighters, construction workers and Teamsters. The celebration at Castro Camera on election night was jubilant, blocking the sidewalk and flowing out into the street. Barely a year later, Harvey’s political career as an advocate for human rights was cut short by an assassin’s bullet.