SOMA: Night clubs, leather joints, industrial condos. Upper is very different from Lower tour buses drop people off in the Upper and Lower has locals bars and a good mish-mash of shops. The Haight (Upper & Lower): Once hippie-land, The Haight is now all designer shoe stores and gentrification. Want to go hiking from your front door? Great! N.B. A real mix of hipsters, old-time residents, upscale restaurants and hole in the wall bbq joints. Western Addition (recently called NOPA by real estate types): Definitely a difficult ‘hood to define these days. Pacific Heights AKA “Pac Whites”: Unless you have an incredibly large trust fund and you’re 70, you’re most likely not ever going to live/go here. Think tourists, strippers and old Italian restaurants. (If an apartment ad says TenderNob - that is not a place.) It’s also home to Little Saigon and some good bars and is looking to promote local tourism about the city’s history with historic renovations and a booming art scene in the area.
Tenderloin/Nob: In general, Tenderloin is one of the city’s more unsafe neighborhoods and has a reputation as a hot-spot for violent crime, drugs and liquor stores. Nob Hill Russian Hill/Telegraph Hill: Like the Marina, with fewer solo cups and more strollers. The Marina: If you’re blond, hetero and really into French manicures and boys who party like they are still in college but work in Finance now, this is your jam. The Castro: Are you a white, gay male between the ages of 30 and 90? You live here. Did you used to be a hipster Missionite? Do you have a kid now? Boom. Now it’s a mix of Latino families, down & outs, hipsters, queers and the young gentry. Used to be cheap until the techies started actually buying places here. The Mission: The place to live if you’re queer, arty, a hipster, into ethnic food, live music, dive bars or are in a tech company and want to live near the cool kids. Good bars, dim-sum everywhere, Green Apple Used Books, and did I mention dim sum? Up and coming in terms of people who want to live in the Mission but can’t find an apartment are moving out here. The Richmond: On the opposite side of the park from The Sunset.
Nobody will visit you if you live here, but you may have a chance of actually finding an illegal in-law unit to rent. While in many cities the first question a stranger asks you may be “So what do you do?” here you will be asked, “So where do you live?” In the interest of steering you in the right direction, we’re here to offer a rundown of The Hoods of San Francisco:
Let us know which ones we missed!īe warned - for a tiny-ass city we have a lot of neighborhoods and – don’t even question it – you’re defined by where you live here. Why? Because San Francisco is so friggin’ gay sometimes that if we included every spot of “LGBT” interest we’d have have to write up every restaurant, shop, pop-up, park, back alley and service in the whole damn town! So, we apologize in advance for not including your favorite. Go Mustangs! and the other spent her teen years in the Castro’s gay clubs), but we definitely don’t pretend to be experts and if the comments sections of other queer guides are any indication, we will have left your favorite joint out. The authors of this guide are die hard San Franscicans (one went to Lincoln High School. What makes it one of the best cities in the world, besides its natural beauty (guys, I’m serious, sometimes I catch a glimpse of the bay, and find myself breathless) is its diversity. San Francisco is held on such a pedestal for us gays and while it’s true that the numbers of gays here are vast (something like 1 in 3 people are homos!) it’s easy to forget that it’s also just a big city with all kinds of people living in it. Here is the guide of guides for the city of cities. The 200 Best Lesbian, Bisexual & Queer Movies Of All TimeĬlick here for other queer girl city guides.LGBTQ Television Guide: What To Watch Now.