CSF History: 1981 - 1996

I want to invite you to come on a trip with me. A trip to 1981. A time of parachute pants and shoulder pads. Leg warmers and chunky jewelry. “Bette Davis Eyes” is blaring on the radio of the Oldsmobile Cutlass and Raiders of the Lost Ark is about to be released at the movie theatre. And downtown on Wall Street in New York City, there is a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch named Robert Casaletto.

Robert, or Bob, as he was known, has a philosophy about personal finance.  He feels that everyone needs a financial advisor that is sympathetic to their unique needs and goals and that one must have complete confidence in their advisor.

That’s not too earth-shattering of an idea.  It would make sense for individuals to choose to work with financial professionals they trust.  But Bob identified a problem. Bob is a gay man and he knows that most gay men would not feel comfortable confiding in a straight advisor about their personal lives.  They may not want to out themselves.  Again, this is 1981. Ronald Reagan is President.  

So, Bob sets out to solve that problem on June 5th, 1981, by creating Christopher Street Financial, the nation’s first financial planning and advisory firm founded to serve the LGBTQ+ community. The name was chosen because the street, specifically the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York City's West Village, is the birthplace of the gay rights movement, starting with the Stonewall Riots in 1969, only just twelve years earlier. You can read more about our name here.  

On the very same day that Christopher Street Financial was founded, June 5th, 1981, the US Center for Disease Control published an article in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that described cases of a rare lung infection in five young, previously health gay men in Los Angeles. This marked the first official reporting of what would later become known as the AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) epidemic. Bob Casaletto founded Christopher Street Financial not a moment too soon.  

Christopher Street provided guidance on issues that were ignored by mainstream advisors, such as navigating the financial implications of unequal tax treatment and estate planning without marriage rights. Click here to learn “What’s so gay about money?”

Bob, himself, passed away in 1996 due to complications from HIV, but not before leaving the business in a Charitable Remainder Trust for the benefit of the ACLU’s “Gay and Lesbian Project”. That trust also ensured that his surviving mother would be provided for, demonstrating that Bob was the good gay son.  

In 1997, four partners purchased the firm from the ACLU.  One of those partners was Christopher Street Financial’s current president, Jennifer Hatch.   Click here to read Part Two of Christopher Street’s history.