San Francisco has the Castro. Manhattan has Chelsea and the Village. Washington, D.C., has Dupont Circle. Fort Lauderdale has Wilton Manors. And, of course, San Diego has Hillcrest.

Each of these urban neighborhoods and many others like them have one thing in common: In the 35 years since the Stonewall riots, gays and lesbians have moved to them in great numbers, opened businesses, renovated homes and in general, made them their own.

“When you tell somebody you’re from Hillcrest today, you’re saying to them, ‘I’m gay,’” a longtime real estate broker told the Gay & Lesbian Times recently.

In that sense perhaps, the story of America’s Hillcrests is the story of the GLBT political movement in America. Inevitably, it’s also a story of the sometimes mixed blessings of gentrification. But most of all it is a story of people, of the enduring human search for community and of the distances people will travel and the sacrifices they’ll make in order to find it.

To prepare this story, the Gay & Lesbian Times talked with 12 men and women who know Hillcrest well. They range in age from 23 to 60. Eight own property in San Diego and four do not. One has lived in San Diego for 30 years, another for only two. We asked each the same series of questions in the hope that, via their answers, the history of Hillcrest would emerge.

“I moved here in 1974 from New Jersey to come out,” says Patrick, 60, a local real estate broker. “I had to move 3,000 miles from my parents just to go to a gay bar.”

“To get out of a small town in the South and to be able to express who I am,” says David, a 54-year-old high school teacher who moved to San Diego in 1981.

Fifty-two-year-old Karen, who also arrived in 1981, says she moved to San Diego after her job as an art teacher in central Illinois was eliminated due to budget cuts.

“Because my parents made me,” laughs 23-year-old Luis, a student who moved here 10 years ago at the age of 13.

“Essentially to come out,” says 43-year-old Michael, a real estate appraiser who moved to San Diego in 1985 but now lives in the Bay Area.

“I moved here in 1989 from Sonoma to accept a job with the state,” says 56-year-old Marilyn who lives in Hillcrest with her partner and still works for the state of California.

“I moved here in ’98 from rural Michigan primarily for the weather and for the Hillcrest gay community,” says Robert, 44, who manages a retail store in the area.

Twenty-nine-year-old Mark, who works in a pharmacy and moved here in the summer of 2000 after finishing grad school in Georgia, says he “felt the urge to come out west, and San Diego was one of the cities I felt I could tolerate. San Francisco and L.A. were too big for me to jump right into.”

Perhaps the most unusual answer to this question came from 48-year-old Chad, who is in software sales and moved to North Park from Washington, D.C., in 2002. Although he says San Diego’s weather was his main motivator, 9/11 also played a role in his decision. Driving to a business meeting in suburban Virginia on that sunny Tuesday morning, Chad actually saw the plane that eventually hit the Pentagon. “It was coming from the wrong direction and flying at weird angles,” he says. His concern that a “second shoe would drop” helped cement his inclination to move to San Diego.

“I was recruited by a local hospital,” says Ellen, a 26-year-old nurse originally from Portland, Ore. “I came in the spring of 2003.”

“It wasn’t even on my radar screen,” says Patrick, who remembers the Barbary Coast, the most popular gay bar when he moved here in 1974, located on Pacific Highway.

“A little dumpy,” says Michael.

“Really funky,” says David. “There was a wig shop where Kemo Sabe is now.”

“A mix of old people and gay people,” says Scott, a 56-year-old state employee who moved here from Los Angeles in 1981. “Compared to West Hollywood, which had already begun to gentrify, it was a little shabby.”

“It kind of looked like North Park does now. Most of the facades needed a lot of work, says Tim, a 47-year-old federal employee who arrived from Sacramento in 1985. “Also there was an old empty Sears store where Uptown is today surrounded by a big ugly parking lot.”

“I remember how easy it was to meet other women,” says Marian. “I lived very close to The Flame, and I learned early that it was a great place to meet women. I also became involved in Front Runners. For that matter, I’d meet other people just by walking around. I felt very comfortable living here very quickly.”

“It was beautiful. I felt like this was where I was supposed to be,” says Robert. “I remember when I saw the sign for Gaymart at Sixth and University, I said to myself ‘I’m home at last.’”

“The first time I saw Hillcrest I wasn’t out yet,” says Luis, whose first visit took place on Pride weekend in 1999. “I wasn’t shocked but I was amazed. There was so much diversity. I saw guys and girls holding hands, rainbow flags and drag queens everywhere. I loved it.”

“There were few more condom-related shops than I’d seen in Georgia,” laughs Mark. “I enjoyed the fact that it was a community, and you could spend the entire day there sitting in a coffee shop, shopping, going to the park. That was a new experience for me.”

Not surprisingly, how people answer this question is largely a function of how old they are and when they moved here. For most of the men and women who’d already arrived in Hillcrest by the mid-90s, the cost of living generally wasn’t an issue. “It was a lot cheaper for me,” says Scott. “My salary as a state employee bought me a lot more here than it did in L.A.”

Michael, who moved to San Diego from Santa Barbara in 1985, shares that experience: “I was excited to finally be able to get my own place instead of sharing an apartment with somebody else.”

“It was about the same for me,” says Patrick. “I sold my house in New Jersey for $30,000 in ’74 and bought one in La Mesa for $33,500.”

“It was a lot more expensive than Tennessee,” says David. “But not so much that I couldn’t handle it.”

Jump ahead a few years, and the answers change real fast.

“It’s about triple or even four times as much,” says 29-year-old Mark, who says he rented a three-bedroom, two-bath house for $750 a month in Athens, Ga. “I knew California had a higher cost of living than pretty much any place else but I assumed the pay scale would make up for that, at least to some degree. So I was a little shocked when I got here.”

“It’s a lot higher than rural Michigan!” laughs Robert. “But it balances out in the end. You can’t beat the quality of life here.”

“Very pretty and very expensive,” says Ellen. “I’d hoped to live within walking distance of work, but it just wasn’t in the cards.”

Apparently, the words shabby and funky no longer apply.

“To me it’s one of San Diego’s most sophisticated neighborhoods,” say Scott. “There’s a lot of energy here, a lot of restaurants and foot traffic. It’s not quite La Jolla or downtown, but it’s a primary San Diego neighborhood.”

“It’s very trendy,” says Tim, who has lived in Hillcrest since 1985. “It’s also becoming somewhat less gay” now that the neighborhood has gentrified and gone more mainstream. “I think a lot of younger gays have been priced out of the area and can’t afford it. But it’s still very gay-friendly and bohemian. You can hold hands with another guy and nobody cares.”

When you ask longtime residents the biggest reason for the area’s Cinderella-like metamorphosis, they quickly respond with one word: Uptown.

“It had a huge impact. Uptown was the turning point in making Hillcrest what it is today,” says Tim. “When they built Uptown, everybody else jumped on the bandwagon and started fixing up their buildings. After that came Whole Foods, the Metropolitan and a lot of other new upscale businesses.”

“Uptown made it a lot more convenient to live and work in Hillcrest, because of the new businesses that came in,” remembers Karen. “I love having a very good grocery store like Ralph’s so close. And with the addition of Trader Joe’s several years ago, Hillcrest’s stock really went up.” She hastens to add, however, that Hillcrest would have gained even more had the city gone ahead with its original plans to build a new central library on the site.

“What Horton Plaza did for downtown Uptown did for Hillcrest,” adds David.

“It’s a national model for mixed use,” notes Scott.

“Uptown the complex is different from what people now refer to as Uptown the area. I don’t know where Hillcrest stops and Uptown starts anymore,” says Patrick, adding that the project was initially very controversial because of its density.

Even people who’ve moved to San Diego more recently have noticed changes in the area. “A lot of old buildings are being torn down for condos,” says Mark. “In the last six months I can think of six new condo buildings going up within a six block radius.”

Marian echoes Mark’s observation. “On my block there’s been a reduction in single family homes and an increase in condominiums. Just across the street from me, they tore down two little houses and built 12 condominiums.”

“I hate to be stereotypical, but in the time I’ve been here I’ve seen a kind of yuppie takeover,” chuckles Robert. “I see a lot more straight people with kids, and to some degree [gay life in San Diego] seems to be migrating toward North Park.”

Like most of the women and men we interviewed for this article, to 23-year-old Luis “Hillcrest means freedom.” You almost get the sense that this international business major and part time retail clerk hasn’t stopped smiling since he first laid eyes on the place during Pride weekend 1999. “In Hillcrest you can do anything you want. You can kiss, hug or do whatever. There is no place where you can be as free as Hillcrest,” he says.

“I feel proud to live here,” says Marian. I like the fact that it is identified as a gay and lesbian community. I dislike the fact that it’s becoming so expensive, but I love the park and the zoo and the museums. And I love the fact that we can walk everywhere – to shops, to the movies and out to dinner.”

Patrick can cite the precise moment when, to him and thousands of other gay men and lesbians, Hillcrest became Hillcrest. It was 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 16, 1984. University Avenue had been closed off for hours as thousands of people gathered to watch then San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock flip the switch that would relight the newly restored Hillcrest sign.

“It was one big party. Everybody was dancing in the streets. This was our neighborhood; the mayor was lighting our sign; this was where you could dance guy to guy; this was the place where it was all happening. It was a very, very exciting night!”

“It was incredible!” adds Karen, who like Patrick speaks of the event as if it took place last Tuesday. “And did you know that a lot of the money to restore the sign came from fundraisers held in gay bars?”

Twenty years later, in an era where “Will & Grace” is a top-ranked sitcom and same-sex marriage a real possibility, it may be hard to realize what a truly revolutionary moment that was. Only 15 years after the Stonewall riots and 3,000 miles away from where they took place, the mayor of San Diego was acknowledging the rebirth of a new urban neighborhood – a gay neighborhood.

No wonder the air was electric.

You can relive that moment every July during Pride weekend, San Diego’s largest annual civic event. Last year, over 150,000 people showed up – thanks in no small measure to that smaller but equally enthusiastic crowd that danced in the streets 20 years earlier at the grand relighting of the Hillcrest sign.

In the end one thing seems obvious: If you only talk about Hillcrest the place – the rents and the renovations – you kind of miss the point.

For Hillcrest is far more than a mere geographic location. Hillcrest is a state of mind.