“Diversity wise, interacting and family life and all, it’s great. It’s really a mixture of people which is what San Francisco should be.” -Larry, Cliff’s Variety (pictured, right)

“Look at all the art and photography from the 70’s, it’s just always been that way.” -Sam, Rossi’s Deli

“I have seen a lot of changes. It’s not even that it’s less gay of a neighborhood, it’s just, it’s more white. Which is, I mean, it is how it is. But there’s still plenty of communities that exist, maybe not in the Castro specifically but elsewhere.” -Syd, Levi’s

“It’s the Castro, we can go ahead and get away with more things.” -Will, Knobs (pictured, left)

“We get a lot of locals in this little shop and most of them care quite deeply about the Castro and what’s going on with it.” -Sam, Swirl

“The Castro is a neighborhood that I think is seen as very queer and often is geared towards not necessarily every part of the queer community in terms of it being more geared toward like white gay men…and I think that in the book store we try to expand that sense of the Castro.” -Jyoti, Dog Eared Books (pictured, right)

“To some people it kind of feels like its losing its identity but right now socio-economically, things are stacked against it remaining what it used to be and if it’s going to continue to survive its gonna have to adapt.” -Don, Rock Hard (pictured, left)

“Gender wise obviously there’s not as many women as other places, I think that’s what I notice the most.” -Jamal, Castro Fountain (pictured, right)

“I am a queer woman so it’s really fun to be in the Castro, it’s a safe space. Diversity wise, it definitely has a male dominated feel to it, especially of Caucasian decent. But I’ve noticed in the past couple months that there have been more young people so like its bringing in more cultures from more youth’s perspective, so that’s really cool and exciting.” -Vanessa, Hot Cookie (pictured, left)

“We’ve been here for 31 years so I pretty much grew up here. The neighborhood has changed a lot over the years, I mean before it was mostly the LGBTQ community, it was a safe haven so it was way more impacted until it got more accepted across the U.S. and so after that happened a lot of families started moving in and people were moving out so it got pretty mixed.” -Dalia, Castro Coffee Company (pictured, right)

“I feel like as far as maybe the gay bar scenes it’s more geared toward gay men and I feel like a lot of the events are just not as diverse as somewhere like South of Market.” -Bryce, Outfit

“Then of course 18th and Castro was considered the crossroads of the gay world because no matter where you lived in the world you came to the Castro if you were gay.” -Tim, Brand Antiques

It’s my favorite neighborhood.” -Diana, Clobba

“Not only is it predominately white males, but it’s very affluent white males. And strong presence of families.” -Paul, Cliff’s Variety