On November 27, 1978, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were gunned down by fellow Supervisor Dan White. This occurred during the same week as the Jonestown Massacre, where hundreds of people, mostly Bay Area residents, died in a tragic mass murder-suicide. San Francisco was reeling with shock, sadness and anger - no more so than within the gay community, which lost its first true public leader, Harvey Milk.
The events of that week were before my time. Like many people in my generation, Harvey Milk was someone I knew little to nothing about.
However, the first time I saw the documentary on Harvey Milk, it stunned and moved me - nothing more so than the moments shown in the video above. Despite its profound sadness, San Francisco's reaction to this tragedy was, perhaps, one of the most poignant and beautiful human moments in the City's recent history. The silent procession of tens of thousands of people down Market Street the night of the assassinations started in the Castro but grew and grew as people from all over the City joined the march as it made its way to the Civic Center. Gay and Straight, young and old, of all colors and ethnicities - people silently and peacefully came together to honor the lives of Milk and Moscone. All this, for a gay political leader and a gay-friendly Mayor in era when most of American still saw being gay as a sin, if not a crime.
Before Harvey Milk died, he said:
"If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."
Since 2005, I've been slowly kicking my own closet door open after a few failed attempts to creak it open when I was much younger. As I've learnt more about Harvey Milk and the times he lived in, I've become increasingly grateful for what he fought for and what he represents. It's because of Harvey Milk and other people from his era that I no longer need to hide or feel shame over who I am. I wish I knew his story sooner, it might have helped me get through some rough times when I was a teen.
So when I found out that Gus Van Sant was filming a movie on Milk's life, right here, in the very place where it played out, I was excited. When I found out they wanted extras to recreate marches...especially this Candlelight March, I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of.
Helping recreate the marches, but especially the silent beauty of the Candlelight March, was important to me...and it had nothing to do with the chance to get some face time on a major Hollywood film. The marches gave me a chance to connect with the history of a community that I was once so deeply afraid to associate with out of fear. It gave me a chance to feel proud, and in my own way, give a silent thanks to those who came before.
The recreated march, on Friday February 8, was nothing like the real one, I'm sure. But it was still an amazing moment. I managed to wrangle a few friends into coming along and we gathered with thousands of other volunteers. The original march extended miles, this one was still impressive - a solid block of people taking up the east bound lanes of four blocks of Market Street starting at Van Ness.
Once filming started, and everyone had lit their candles...the street went silent. People got teary eyed. Every so often a wave would ripple through the crowd as people raised their candles into the air. It wasn't too hard to imagine how people must have felt on the actual night, 30 years ago. I know I felt something pretty special.
Hopefully, Gus Van Sant will do a good job telling this story - and our efforts to recreate some of its key moments will translate well to the silver screen. Hopefully, the movie will be a way for the general public to learn more about Milk and all he did and stood for.
At the very least, it gave me a memory of my first year in San Francisco that I'll always remember.
Another long time between updates. Life has been busy, in a good way. Living in San Francisco still rocks. At least once a day there's something I see or do that makes me feel so lucky to call this city home. I'm usually carrying my camera around in my bag everyday. Never know when I'll be out doing a site visit on the waterfront for work, if there will be an amazing sunset that I see on my way home, or if there'll be some movie I'll be an extra in... ;)So, on to the photos:
Between some pretty intense January storms, we had a beautiful set of days. On January 13 my friend Ian and I walked from Noe Valley, to the Castro, up to Corona Heights and down into the Lower Haight. Here's a view of USF from Corona Heights with the Marine Headlands on the horizon. The View of Downtown San Francisco from Corona Heights. Here's a view of the Mission. The green in the middle is Dolores Park, I live a few blocks to the left of the park.
On the day of the Primary Election, my primary mode of transit to work, the J-Church Metro Line, had a big stall so I got off on Market and Church and walked to work. Every intersection had people holding signs for Obama or Clinton. It was pretty exciting. Hillary had some slick signs.But the grassroots nature of Obama's campaign won over San Francisco.
One of my main projects is working as the Lead Urban Designer on a new Public Realm Plan for Fisherman's Wharf. Had an early morning meeting at the Cannery one day and got a nice shadow shot of the sign.
Like many San Franciscans and Bay Area natives, I always kind of felt that Fisherman's Wharf didn't offer much to non-tourists. But the more time I spend there, the more amazed I am by what a great little piece of the City it is - if only for its amazing setting. The Hyde Street Pier is a hidden gem - you can walk out on the pier and see all the historic boats - including this old auto ferry from the pre-bridge era when the Pier was *part* of Highway 101 (notice the sign).
From the Hyde Street Pier you can get a cool view of Downtown's skyline.
And I nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge too!
The restored marquee of the Castro Theatre marquee - looking pretty for its Hollywood debut.
The past month Gus Van Sant has been filming a new movie starring Sean Penn on the life of Harvey Milk - the first openly gay person to be elected to a major political office. Milk was the unofficial "Mayor of Castro Street" in the 1970s and was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1978. His life was tragically cut short when he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by fellow Supervisor, Dan White.
If the film is as good as the effort the crew put in turning Castro Street back to the way it looked in the 1970s, then we're in for something good. On Monday, February 4, they asked the community to help them recreate a few major marches that occurred in the mid 1970s. In exchange, we got a free screening of the Oscar-winning documentary on Milk, complete with speeches by various directors, James Franco, Emile Hirsch (both in the upcoming movie), friends of Milk who are still kickin, and a performance by the Gay Men's Chorus. I couldn't get any friends to come with me and almost didn't go, luckily I bit the bullet and went alone. It was awesome.
The film crew set up lights and cameras on the roofs of the Castro Street buildings where they took shots of the crowd (numbering in the thousands) that gathered in 70s outfits to recreate two marches. One was lead by Milk (played by Penn) and the other by friend and fellow activist Cleve Jones (played by Into the Wild's Emile Hirsch) You can see some of the era-appropriate signs that were floating around in the crowd, likely held by the paid extras. Towards the end of the night's filming, I got hungry and tired and was hanging out toward the back of the crowd outside the filming area eating a pizza. Then one of the directors popped up and told everyone to gather around for a special surprise. Carrie Fisher then popped out of the Muni Station to thank us all for being there by giving a parody of her Obi Won Kenobi speech from Star Wars....went something along the lines of "Help Me, Gay Men...."
With that odd end to the evening, I called it a night and walked home. I'm going to write a separate post to talk about the next night of filming for ease of navigation!
