Castro Audio Tour with AIDS Quilt Creator Debuts

The audio tour begins in front of the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, where listeners learn why naming the public school in San Francisco's Castro district after a gay icon was such a "radical idea" for Cleve Jones, a longtime resident of the neighborhood.

"I came to San Francisco in the 1970s when people were trying to ban gay people as teachers," recalls Jones, 60, a gay man who created the AIDS Memorial Quilt and today is a labor organizer.

Over the course of the next 90 minutes, Jones provides a roaming personal reflection on the events of the late 1970s and early 1980s that had a lasting impact on not just himself but the city's LGBT community. Stops include the apartment off the hidden Vulcan stairs where Jones once lived, Pink Triangle Park, businesses Hot Cookie and gay bar the Mix, and the GLBT Historical Society's museum.

Along the way Jones runs into neighbors, including celebrated gay author Armistead Maupin, and Terry Asten Bennett, whose family has long owned Cliff's Variety store on Castro Street.

Earlier this year Jones recorded the audio for the tour after being approached by Detour, a company launched last year by the founder of Groupon. Debuting Thursday, it is the company's 10th walking tour focused on a San Francisco neighborhood that users of the Apple Store app can download for $4.99.

"The concept appealed to me right away. I thought it was genius," said Jones, who had back surgery in February and thus has yet to take the completed version of the tour. "The project was a little bit more intense than I was expecting. I didn't realize it would involve so much."

Jones walked the route of the tour several times with Detour staff and spent a day in a studio being interviewed by Marianne McCune, a former reporter for public radio shows who was hired by the startup last year after moving to San Francisco.

"I thought it was going to be a broad history like Cruisin' the Castro. They had a totally different plan of action," said Jones, referring to the longtime operator of LGBT history tours of the neighborhood.

The May 21 launch of Jones' tour is timed to coincide with the annual commemoration of Harvey Milk Day this Friday, May 22. The day of special significance in California celebrates Milk, whose November 1977 election to a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors marked the first time an out LGBT person won elective office in the city and state.

Archival audio recordings of Milk are interspersed into the narration provided by Jones, who was a campaign organizer for Milk and later worked for him at City Hall as an aide. Also included are snippets of then-Supervisor Dianne Feinstein announcing to the news media the morning of November 27, 1978 that Milk and then-Mayor George Moscone had been killed by Dan White, who days before had resigned his supervisor seat.

"I jumped in a taxi to get to City Hall. I was yelling, 'Harvey, where are you?' Then I see Dianne holding her hand out and there was blood on her hand," recalls Jones. "I could see Harvey's feet."

At a later stop on the tour, inside the restaurant Harvey's where a photo of Jones and Milk hangs on the wall, Jones describes the rioting that occurred the night of May 21, 1979 after a jury convicted White on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

"Dan White's trial was a farce," says Jones.

Outraged gay residents erupted in anger outside City Hall, where police cars were set on fire. In retaliation, police raided the Elephant Walk, a gay bar where Harvey's now sits at the corner of 18th and Castro streets, and began beating up patrons. But rather than retreat, gay residents of the neighborhood fought back.

Their message, recalls Jones, was "we won't be acquiescent sissies taking your abuse anymore."

The tour wraps up in front of 2362 Market Street, where in 1987 the offices for the AIDS quilt were housed. Now the site of Catch restaurant, a section of the quilt hangs from the ceiling in the entranceway.

"It changed the way America looked at AIDS and changed the way America looked at gay people," recounts Jones, who has long lived with HIV.

To learn more about Detour and its tours of the city, visit https://www.detour.com