(Photo by Erin Brethauer) Erin Brethauer/The Chronicle The weight of the scourge was borne by the men who settled in a 2-square-mile enclave in the heart of the city, the Castro. Since the first death of a man in 1981 who succumbed to a disease that did not yet have a name, AIDS has taken 20,000 lives in San Francisco, most of them gay men, most of them decades too soon.
Facebook Twitter Email The Castro Theatre's lights glow in the night on Tuesday, Octoin San Francisco, Calif.
