As we mentioned last March, Halloween in the Castro as you knew it has been canceled. Boo. The City's official Halloween celebration will instead move to SOMA in the parking lot of AT&T Park. It seems this year's bash will "include an early evening, free gathering for kids and a more adult-friendly, paid event later in the evening, which will feature local musicians and artists." The Entertainment Commission, sigh, is also looking to put on......

Photo by kopicko_mike/Flickr Just in time for the legalization of homosexual marriage, and for those of you who don't feel like getting married anywhere near the grimy Civic Center, Heart of the Castro Wedding Chapel opened its door yesterday. Located in, well, the heart of the Castro at 18th Street and Hartford, they promise to get Party A and Party B hitched while celebrating you "as human beings, without judgment, without discrimination, and without......

What with Halloween colliding on a Friday this year -- fuuuuuck -- the city of San Francisco has wasted no time, so to speak, in attempting to look like it's trying to make the holiday a spooktacular event again. Laura Fraenza, 45, New Jersey native and ballet enthusiast who has worked with Bill Graham Presents and Cirque Du Soleil, was just hired as SF's new Events Coordinator. But that title is a bit broad;......

Our sources tell us that Halloween in the Castro as we knew it is now dead. Long live a dull and tedious San Francisco. Although supervisors promised us that Halloween in the Castro would return for 2008, it turns out that it will not make a spooktacular comeback; in fact, it won't return at all. The event is no more. Dead. It seems that the Entertainment Commission -- whose job, it seems, is to......

The weekend's coming up, and that means that Muni's got a long list of street closures and cancellations. And this week, the radical homosexual agenda is to blame: for several nights, streets around the Castro will be closed due to filming for the hilarious smash-hit romantic comedy Milk. In the film, Hilary Swank plays a cold-as-ice milkmaid who's sworn she'll never fall in love again. But when she unwillingly becomes the guardian of a......

Although most of us are giddy that Hollywood has come to our little town to film a moving picture show, others are less than gay about it. Namely, a few Castro merchants who have seen business drop since production began late last month. According to the BAR: "It has really impeded on my business. We are losing $400 to $500 a day," said Cecil Russell, the owner of Always Tan Skin and Body at......

Seeing as how castroshopper's Ray F. has some choice shots of the Castro's conversion to 1978, we thought we'd thrill you with a few more recent images of the world's most flowery neighborhood. Also, it seems to have gone through a big transformation -- bigger than we thought, in fact -- but many of the stores that are there today seem faithful to the stores' genres of yesteryear, at least according to Van Sant's......

Undergoing a procedure to erase 30 years from its face, the Castro neighborhood is going retro, circa 1978, for the filming of Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, which starts shooting this week. Already the Castro Theatre, right, and boutique shop Given, formerly Milk's camera store / campaign headquarters, are being renovated to get that '70s vibe. Rumor has it that Castro Street between 18th and 19th streets (i.e., the staphicenter) will be......

During our visit to this block of Collingwood, between 21st and 22nd Sts., we ask three residents which area neighborhood they most closely identify with. We get three different answers. 1: “Noe Valley – although I guess, technically, Noe Valley’s northern border is 22nd.” 2: (Shrug.) “I don’t know. Maybe the Castro? Eureka Valley? What is Eureka Valley? I suppose you can’t really call this a valley, since it’s up on a hill.” 3: “Do you live around here?” Not quite the consensus we’re hoping for. But surely we can all agree that the 400 block of Collingwood is San Francisco’s preeminent home of sidewalk birdhouses....

We'll do the partying and/or dying, so you don't have to. Homebound denizens of San Francisco, the Bay Area, and the world at large. Our editor, Brock, will be coming at you live from the Castro all night. We'll bring you live reportage of the costumes, "unsanctioned gaiety," Dachau-like police state, public urination, and/or absolutely nothing happening at all whatsoever. Stay tuned. 10:45 Update: That's it. We're done here, folks. If there's a shooting......

Well, well, well. According to Alix Rosenthal (Citizens for Halloween), ahem: Word has arrived from a credible source in city government. The City has rented 120 toilets to be placed in the Castro by 5pm today. It may not prevent all of the public urination, but it is certainly better than no toilets at all. We are thrilled that the City made the right decision, even though they could have done more to decrease......

So much to do, so much not to do. What's a girl to do? Well, here is just a smattering of what's going on tonight. (An aside, is there any reason to buy bags of fun-size candy anymore to hand out to costumed tykes? We haven't seen a trick-or-treater in ages. Sob.) -- Hellgate Halloween: Vice magazine (SF's no. 1 fan) is throwing a bash with a complimentary bar (!) and tunes by Chromeo......