They’re all very different now, freshly painted, fancy new kitchens, refinished floors, and hugely expensive rents paid by a new wave of techies and the development community that preys on them—all that is except the apartment we’ve lived in now for more than 20 years, taking full advantage of San Francisco’s rent control laws—while they last. The apartments I’ve lived in since 1989 have all had one very San Francisco thing in common, not one of them could I have afforded to live in alone on the salary I earned practicing my chosen profession.

Since 1989 I’ve lived in only four apartments. For 10 of those years though (the 2000s) we owned a cabin in Cazadero two hours north of The City. The cabin was an introverts weekend retreat from city life, a perfect place to recharge the batteries, but we always knew it was not sustainable over the long term even if it hadn’t fallen victim to the housing bubble and 2008 crash that decimated home values everywhere in California—except San Francisco—but The Russian River is another place for another entry.

I drove down to SF from Eugene on Pink Saturday 1989 in a 1975 Dodge Coronet the color of baby poop that overheated twice coming over the mountains. Crossing either of SF’s great bridges takes on a very different emotional vibe depending on the car one is driving, from awe at the beauty of the place and marvel at the engineering achievement, to sweaty dread at the prospect of a break down. That night when I arrived in The Castro it seemed like I’d moved to a truly magical place—a gay nightclub that you can live in. A giant mirror ball hung over the crowd at 18th and Castro. I was moving in with an architect friend from school who lived right in the thick of The Castro. (We put “The” in front of neighborhoods here the way LA puts “The” in front of freeways—maybe that says it all.)

It was supposed to be a temporary situation. I slept on a fold out couch in one of those typically unidentifiable rooms that just keep going and going in a straight line, none of them and all of them being used as bedrooms at one point or another. I always suspected the real reason for being welcomed (tolerated) into this situation by someone that I wasn’t that close to in school, was the perceived connection that I might facilitate between my new roommate and the woman who was her real romantic interest and my best buddy back at the UO. Nevertheless I was lucky that my first home in SF was in The Castro, especially at that time in its history. Ravaged by disease and death, but somehow a stronger community for it, trying anything and everything to defend itself—the ACTUP years—a mere shutter click in the longer history of the place that has not really endured. The sidewalks have recently been widened to relieve the crush of weekend crowds and to make room for double-wide strollers. Naked guys and soccer moms coexisting—for now.

1989 was a big year for the city and The Castro. Few remember the significance of October 6th for example. “I came to the Castro to meet my boyfriend and all I got was his bloody T-shirt,” that was a popular T-shirt slogan shortly after that night when the SFPD, in retaliation from a long day of protests aimed at the federal government’s inaction on AIDS, “swept” through The Castro with Billy Clubs swinging. It’s the night I learned why AIDS activists outfit of choice was a heavy leather biker jacket. The cops had had enough of being embarrassed by a bunch of pretty well organized amateur activists, and resorted to some 60s style intimidation. It didn’t work, and later when Police Chief Frank Jorden thought he could saunter into the neighborhood to apologize, he was roughed up and lost his shoe. That loafer became a prized symbol carried atop a pole at future protests until it was burned one night in a heady celebration. He went on to become a really bad one-term mayor.

One very good reason that October 6th was so easily forgotten came just 11 days later in the form of the Loma Prieta Earthquake. My office was on the second floor of an old wood frame warehouse building on Folsom. I watched actual waves about a foot high roll across the floor, flipping over furniture as they came. A coworker bolted for the door, and thinking that he knew the rules, I followed. The hallway was like an old-school funhouse ride and we tumbled down the stairs and out into the street just as the tinkle of falling glass went silent. After a quick dash upstairs to get my shoes, I set out for home. It was a long walk up Market Street through glass and brick and terracotta, and it was unusually hot. One new 5-story glass façade near Civic Center had all of its fire sprinklers going off inside, and was thereafter referred to as the washing machine—by me at least. The giant SF Mart building had shed so much terracotta and glass that the sidewalk was impassable. Scaffolding later covered this building for two decades. Now it’s the home of Twitter. I can’t help wonder how many residents of SOMA lofts and workers for new web-based companies in converted warehouses have any idea what the land under them did in 1989. That night The Castro was a warm and safe place. In the dark, Walgreens gave away batteries and water, and small crowds gathered around cars to listen to the unbelievable news about the Bay Bridge, the burning Marina and the Cypress Freeway on the only working communication devices of the day, car radios. The apartment on 20th and Diamond is on solid bedrock. Not even a crooked picture gave any indication of the destruction elsewhere.

Sitting on Church Street at brunch just now I found myself listening intently to the 30-something’s conversation at the next table. I do that. By appearance alone you could only describe the two women and one man as major geeks—the new ruling class in this town. I am actually quite curious to understand their perspective, their motivations for being here, world view—anything really. All I know for sure is that they didn’t come here (by way of Ithaca, turns out they all went to the same school but didn’t know it) for anything like what I came here for—to be myself, free and open surrounded by others like me. I know it sounds terribly old fashioned now that we can all have our relationships legally recognized by the state, but I have never thought that’s what Stonewall was about, and I don’t think it’s much of an achievement. Frankly I wish we’d been able to make their world more like ours rather than just fitting into a heteronormative (gotta love that word) model.

What were the three nerds discussing? What else—rents—oh and all kinds of technical jargon that turned out to be 100% about video games (if that’s what they’re even called these days). It’s their day.