San Diego Culturecast By Voice Of San Diego

On a recent Friday night, a few dozen people gathered at Marston Point, a parking lot and lookout perched at the southwestern end of Balboa Park. It was a particularly cold night, so some folks huddled around a portable fire pit gripping hot cider, others jumped in and out of about 15 parked cars spread across the lot. Inside each car, audio stories played on repeat. Each was a memory of Balboa Park's gay cruising culture. Things have calmed down considerably in recent years, but Marston Point and the road leading to it were once an epicenter of gay culture in San Diego. Especially in the '50s and '60s, gay people pushed underground by the reigning mores of the time used the secluded area as a meeting place. Some folks, gay men mostly, used the dark pocket of the park to meet for anonymous sex. A few still do. The area eventually earned itself a nickname: The Fruit Loop. And especially after the sun went down, the illicit activity cranked up. Things got so wild, city officials permanently closed the nearby