No More Halloween in the Castro /Halloween à Castro, c'est fini
Remember this party?
Vous vous souvenez de cette party?
Well, as you can see in this article Halloween in the Castro is now a thing of the past.
Eh bien, d'après le Chronicle, il n'y aura plus d'Halloween à Castro, c'est fini.
Last year, the party ended badly with 9 shootings and a few injured people. Fortunately nobody died, but maybe that was the wake-up call the City needed to end the festivities, I don't know.
L'an dernier, la party avait mal tourné et s'était terminée avec 9 coups de feus. Fort heureusement, personne n'est mort, mais peut-être que l'incident a servi de "réveil" à la ville qui a décidé depuis de mettre une fin aux festivités, je ne sais pas.
I personally view it as the "end of an era," but not everybody feels that way. If you are curious to see how other people in Bay Area reacted, be sure to also check the comments section under the article. I warn you, there are many comments.
Pour moi, cette décision représente la "fin d'une époque" mais apparemment, tout le monde ne le voit pas comme ça. Si vous êtes curieux de savoir ce qu'en pensent les gens du coin, allez jetter un coup d'oeil les commentaires sur l'article en question. Je vous avertis, il y en a beaucoup, et bien sûr, ils sont tous en Anglais.
UPDATE: I don't know if this link will continue to work in the next few days, but Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, just made a surprise appearance on Sarah and NoName and explained a little bit his position about terminating the Castro party. His position, in a nutshell, is that the party has just grown much too large for the Castro neighborhood, and the City just does not have the resources to oversee 2 major events in one night because in the Mayor's opinion, even if you take the partysome place else, the crowd will still continue to flock to the Castro. Anyway, if you click on this link you might be able to see a short video of it, at least it's online right now. TF
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I did a search for additional photographs of the Halloween party in the Castro. Here is a few I really liked from flickr account holder Dave Golden.
Labels: Castro, Halloween, San Francisco
posted by Tomate Farcie at 7:15 PM
4 Comments:
I may be wrong but I feel that the whole city of San Francisco has changed a lot: the city and the people, and not necessarily for the best. When I first visited your city (just before the .com era, when housing was still affordable), I was charmed by the peaceful atmosphere, by the freedom I was feeling, by the eclectic mix of people. Since, I go back to SF on a regular basis (for work or for fun), and after only less than a decade, I’ve seen a lot of changes… I still enjoy very much the city, but I don’t quite feel that peaceful atmosphere anymore, and the population seems different, less diverse. I’ve been told that many artists reluctantly moved to LA because they couldn’t afford the rising cost of living. Again, that is just my humble perception of things and I might be wrong. I’m interested about your opinion about it, since you’re the one living in San Francisco. Tell me I’m wrong! ;-)
Anthony:
I completely agree with your comment. San Francisco is getting more and more expensive as we type right now (!) and all these cute little neighborhoods are gentrifying rapidly. But to be fair, I see the same thing happen in Paris, Vancouver... it's sad. Global warming and gentrification, uh.
In this particular case, they seem to say "let's close down the party to protect the gay community from the violent elements." I don't know if you've read the article but they also asked that businesses and restaurants in the Castro be shut down that night as well, and some, like Cafe de Flore, have already agreed.
???
It seemed to me, they could just try to monitor things a little better, maybe take the party some place else (like around the Ferry Building? Union Square?) and just have more security in place and be more watchful of the people getting in. We'll pay a few bucks to hang out and be safe. Just my opinion, of course. Of course, I don't know a thing about security crowd control, or maybe I'm just being unrealistic and times really are a-changin' like Dylan said, but still, I'm kind of sad about the City's decision.
Let's see what the other commenters will have to say about all this.
Hello, that luck that I know you. I wait for by my blog to you. To the right there is a button translator. Kisses from Uruguay.
Very sad. The same think happened in L.A. some years ago with L.A. Street Scene (I think it was called that). Between the gangs and the police, there was no space left for people to celebrate. I think both institutions hate equally to see people enjoying themselves in groups.
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