It Happened Here First, Folks

Because of the literature and films about the 1969 Stonewall riot in New York City, it is commonly believed that was the spark which ignited a social and political movement of gay and lesbian liberation.  San Francisco had its own Stonewall riot, but a whole three years earlier. 

When the Castro District was still a sleepy  working-class neighborhood, the center (be that as it was) of the LGBTQ+ community (before it was even called that) was the Tenderloin District.  And in its day, the heart of the neighborhood was Gene Compton's Cafeteria.  

One of the few historical recognitions for Gene Compton’s Cafeteria

One night in August of 1966, a group of trans women found themselves harassed by the cops while they were inside Compton's Cafeteria.  Tired of being continually harassed and arrested for trumped up charges like, “obstructing the sidewalk,” one of them allegedly threw a cup of coffee in one of the officer’s face.  It escalated from there, lasting all night, resulting in overturned tables, and even a destroyed a police car. 

What followed were many arrests and historical obscurity.

In fact, the Compton Cafe riot never even would have been remembered if it wasn't for the diligence of trans historian Dr,  Susan Stryker.  Because of her dedication to uncovering what was not even a footnote in history yet it is at least now remembered by the city, serious LGBTQ+ scholars, those who love history, and now you.

Ever since Woodrow Wilson’s attempt to create an international body of the world’s countries with the League of Nations, it wasn’t until the end of WWII was there a concerted effort to keep the planet from descending into WW III.  Simply put, this was the catalyst for the creation of the United Nations.  While at the Yalta conference with FDR, Stalin, and Churchill, Secretary of State Edward Stettinius said he dreamed that San Francisco was the place to cement a lasting peace after WWII.

UN Plaza, named for the founding of the United Nations.

Over several days in April 1945, 50 nations convened at the War Memorial Opera House to sign the charter establishing the United Nations, with the idea that San Francisco would be its new headquarters.  There were even artist renderings drawn up for a proposed UN headquarters on top of Twin Peaks.  Then why is it now in New York and not San Francisco? As the saying goes, “No matter what they tell you, the real answer is about money.”  The US government weighed the variables and their options, then decided New York City would make a better location.

Oh, and also John D. Rockerfeller made a generous land donation along the East River.  That sealed the deal.  For an all too-brief period of time, San Francisco was the first home of the United Nations.

The invention of television is often associated with its introduction at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, and later live broadcasts from the Big Apple in the late 1940s.  Yet the Boob Tube, the Idiot Box, or the thing my mom told me to turn off when I was a kid was invented here.

Throughout the 1920s, and with a $25,000 grant from Crocker Bank (remember them), Philo T. Farnsworth got to work in his North Beach laboratory on Green Street and began tinkering.  After a period of time his financial backers felt they had allocated too much without seeing the results of their investment.  And one day in September of 1927, the investors showed up at the lab, demanding to see what progress had been made.  

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.  They witnessed an image of a dollar sign transmitted from one room to another, and with that and simply put, Television was born.  Soon the word got out and everyone from radio pioneers Guglielmo Marconi and Lee De Forest to silent movie stars Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks Sr. (the Oprah and Harrison Ford of their day), traveled all the way up from Hollywood to marvel at this new, yet-to-be, phenomenon.  Because of the depression of the 1930s and WWII. It would be another 20 years before Television became the thing every household must have, but the first TV broadcast happened right here in San Francisco.