News :: History

LGBT History Month: LDS ancestry database to add same-sex families

LGBT History Month: LDS ancestry database to add same-sex families

  • by Cynthia Laird
  • Oct 3, 2018

LGBTs interested in family history received interesting news in June: beginning next year, the world's largest genealogy organization, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will release a redesigned website that will include same-sex families.

LGBT History Month: Archive documents late SF mayor Moscone's close LGBT ties

LGBT History Month: Archive documents late SF mayor Moscone's close LGBT ties

  • by Matthew S. Bajko
  • Oct 3, 2018

In June 1977 an irate San Francisco resident mailed off a letter to then-mayor George Moscone. The focus of his ire was the planned Pride celebration at the end of the month.

Advertising: Show us your Pride

Advertising: Show us your Pride

  • by Advertising Department
  • Jun 11, 2018

Show us your pride and advertise in our annual San Francisco Pride edition. Space reservations will be due at 12noon on Friday, June 15 with ad materials due June 18, Monday, at 5pm.

Inside Pride, the official magazine of San Francisco Pride 2018

Inside Pride, the official magazine of San Francisco Pride 2018

  • by Advertising Department
  • May 14, 2018

Since 2016, the Bay Area Reporter has worked with VIA Media and SF Pride to produce the official magazine of San Francisco Pride, INSIDE PRIDE.

North Beach highlights its LGBT history

North Beach highlights its LGBT history

  • by Matthew S. Bajko
  • Feb 21, 2018

For several months in 1984 Sean Martinfield served as the master of ceremonies at the famed Finocchio's female impersonators cabaret in North Beach.

CA Panel Backs Historic Listing for Women's Building

CA Panel Backs Historic Listing for Women's Building

  • by Matthew S. Bajko
  • Feb 14, 2018

A state panel is supporting the San Francisco Women's Building's request to become a national historic site.

North Beach CBD to unveil LGBT historic plaques

North Beach CBD to unveil LGBT historic plaques

  • by Matthew S. Bajko
  • Feb 1, 2018

Sidewalk markers at the site of three historic LGBT businesses that once operated in North Beach will be unveiled at a ceremony in mid-February.

BARchive :: Purple Reign

BARchive :: Purple Reign

  • by Michael lanagan
  • May 7, 2017

In a few short years North Beach was ground zero for a host of talented musicians, comics and poets not associated with the Beats. The Purple Onion was central to that world.

BARchive :: The Original Breakfast Club

BARchive :: The Original Breakfast Club

  • by Michael Flanagan
  • Apr 2, 2017

There are rare bars that are popular in one generation and come back a second time. Even rarer is one which has three lives. The 181 Club was such a bar. It lasted from the 1950s to the 1990s and left its mark on three generations.

BARchive: The Golden Age of Hustlers

BARchive: The Golden Age of Hustlers

  • by Michael Flanagan
  • Feb 26, 2017

Male prostitution is probably as old as the city itself. Edward Prime-Stevenson wrote in 1908 that soldiers in the Presidio were for rent during the Spanish-American War. It is certainly as old as the homophile organizations.

BARchive :: Celebrating Sweet Lips

BARchive :: Celebrating Sweet Lips

  • by Michael Flanagan
  • Mar 27, 2016

Richard "Sweet Lips" Walters wrote a column in the Bay Area Reporter from April 1, 1971 till June 24, 2010. first called "Sweet lips Sez" and eventually shortened to "Sweet Lips." Somewhere along the way it became much more.

BARchive :: The Rose & Josie's - Two Well-Loved Venues Remembered

BARchive :: The Rose & Josie's - Two Well-Loved Venues Remembered

  • by Michael Flanagan
  • Nov 1, 2015

Shortly after having moved to San Francisco in the early 1980s, I was introduced to the concept of gay stand-up comedy (as it was called then).

BARchive :: The Lily Street Fair

BARchive :: The Lily Street Fair

  • by Michael Flanagan
  • Apr 12, 2015

The Lily Street Fair, which existed in San Francisco from 1981 to 1990, was part block party and part potluck, with a good dose of Easter bonnets and Easter parade thrown in to add zest.

BARchive :: Once Upon a Time in Oaktown

BARchive :: Once Upon a Time in Oaktown

  • by Michael Flanagan
  • Mar 15, 2015

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, or so the old adage would have us believe. There is a worse fate, however: To be forgotten and fade into obscurity.