The Castro is a neighbourhood that turned a man's life into a map, and this short loop walks it — the camera shop, the crosswalks, the hill with the memorial, the houses painted like a held note.
Start where the Muni surfaces at Castro and 18th, on the rainbow crosswalks that mark the centre of it all. A few doors up is 575 Castro, the camera shop Harvey Milk ran and campaigned from before becoming, in 1977, the first openly gay man elected in California — and assassinated a year later. The story is everywhere here once you know to look. Up the block, the Castro Theatre's 1922 blade sign and Wurlitzer organ still anchor the strip; check the marquee before you assume the night's quiet.
Cut to Pink Triangle Park at Market and 17th, a memorial small enough to walk past, then climb a block toward Liberty Hill for the bright bay-windowed Victorians. End back at Harvey Milk Plaza, the giant rainbow flag overhead since 1997, the Muni waiting underneath.
