Castro Camera & Harvey Milk Residence

From 1973 to 1978, the storefront at 575 Castro Street was Castro Camera — Harvey Milk's shop, his campaign headquarters for all four runs at public office, and, in the flat upstairs from 1975, his home. The fourth campaign worked: in 1977 Milk won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. Castro Camera was never really about cameras. It functioned as the neighborhood's town hall: Milk revived the Castro Village Association of local merchants here and launched the first Castro Street Fair in 1974, building the political machine that turned a neighborhood into a movement. Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated at City Hall on November 27, 1978. Every year on that date, a candlelight march sets out from this storefront — the same route the original spontaneous march took that night. The building, an 1894 Victorian, was designated San Francisco City Landmark #227 in 2000. A metal plaque set into the sidewalk out front carries Milk's rallying cry: "You gotta give 'em hope!" What you see today: the storefront houses Queer Arts Featured, a gallery and event space for queer artists that opened in 2022 (the Human Rights Campaign store occupied it before that). The interior is a shop, not a museum — the pilgrimage is the sidewalk plaque, the facade, and the block itself, with Harvey Milk Plaza and the giant rainbow flag two minutes away.