The Mayor of Castro Street

Kirkus Reviews wrote that "Shilts' interwoven account of the emergence of San Francisco as a gay mecca--and the accompanying rise in gays' political clout--is first-rate."[1]

• In April 2007, Participant Media closed a deal with Warner Independent to turn the book into a film.[4] However, the film appears to have stalled in "development hell," as no further news about development, casting or production has emerged. The intended adaptation was unrelated to the Academy Award-winning fictional film about Harvey Milk's life, Milk, or to an earlier documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk.
• In 2009, Audible.com produced an audio version of The Mayor of Castro Street, narrated by Marc Vietor, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks.

• On page 30 it is twice mentioned that McKinley is 16 years old. The first mention says, "...at sixteen he decided to quit high school, jump a Greyhound bus, and leave rural Hagerstown, Maryland, for the gay scene in Greenwich Village he'd heard rumors of." Further down on the same page the year mentioned is 1963. "By 1963, O'Horgan had gone bohemian and was trying his hand at experimental theater. McKinley had lived with O'Horgan for only a few weeks..." A couple of paragraphs below that it says, "Within a few weeks, McKinley moved into Harvey Milk's Upper West Side apartment. They bought a dog...At thirty-three, Milk was launching a new life."
• On page 343 it says that on February 14, 1980, McKinley was drunk "and threatening to jump off a ledge of Tom O'Horgan's loft apartment on Broadway...His broken and bloody body was found on the street, eight stories below. He was thirty-three years old, the same age that Harvey had been when the pair first fell in love in 1963."
• On page 376 it says that "Jack Galen McKinley had commited [sic] suicide by the time primary research began on this book."
• Sources outside of this book point to McKinley being 17 years old when he and Harvey Milk began a relationship. The articles recording his disappearance on October 22, 1963, from his home on Lanvale St. at the age of 17;[5][6] McKinley's obituary;[7] the Social Security Death Index;[8][9] and the 1950 U.S. Census.[10]