Halloween in San Francisco 2007
Each year, the Castro has an amazing Halloween celebration -- unsponsored, spontaneious, wild and festive, the Castro tradition has been going on for years and years. Everyone fills the streets with elaborate costumes, house parties congregate in windows and fire escapes, and everyone parties late into the night. And every year, they threaten to shut the whole party down.
Well, this year, the finally did it. Rows of cops on the street, bars forced to shut down for the night, and 16th St. BART closed was all it took, apparently. Didn't help that Halloween was on a Wednesday this year, but damn I expected my city to put in a little more effort.
It especially sucked cuz me, Patrick and Yelp-Celebrity-Ed put so much effort into our costumes this year.
The mood was a mix of festive and glum. Like, people were walking around in costume, but everyone was pissed at the massive police presence and the fact that they can actually take away our holiday. Since Halloween is now considered a secular non-nationality-specific holiday, they feel like they can actively discourage it. Like, they could never take away St. Patrick's day, Christmas, or whatever, no matter how much it got out of hand.
Luckily, there were some other people that still tried. Cute costumes I saw include 2 people dressed as the golden gate bridge (one tower each, connected by a cord) and the big group of elder gays dressed as the cast of Amadeus (I wonder how you coordinate that one -- "everyone, send me your suit and breeches size and I'll talk to the costume shop!"?)
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