[My SF Past] Haight Ashbury Tour

[Gloria Lenhart]

• Visit the sites of the Summer of Love.
• See amazing examples of Victorian architecture
• After the tour , explore Haight Street's vintage clothing stores, trendy restaurants and more.

The Summer of Love in 1967 made this once quiet neighborhood famous around the world. The streets around the intersection of Haight and Ashbury became a mecca for artists, musicians, writers, poets and thousands of “flower children”, who came to define a generation. Rock music legends like the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and even Charles Manson, all hung out here.
 
Called the Outside Lands on early maps, the area  was considered uninhabitable.  As late as the 1860s, it was still mostly blowing sand hills dotted with a few struggling farms.  Not until the 1880s when cable car lines were extended down Haight St. to the newly opened Golden Gate Park did development begin.  Weekend hotels sprung up near the Park, many of which are now apartment houses or bed and breakfast inns. Row after row of elaborately decorated Queen Anne style houses were built, with rounded turrets, decorative shingles and stained glass.  Still many thought it was just too far away from downtown.

Lange’s Dairy Farm in the Haight circa 1892.  This farmhouse was later moved to Piedmont Street, where it stands today. Photo Credit:  San Francisco Public Library AAB – 8800 http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/record=b1013716~S0

The Haight was survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire almost untouched, and  people burned out of other parts of the city sought refuge here.  Tents appeared in the Panhandle and large homes were turned into boarding houses. The Haight became a largely Irish working class neighborhood.  Apartment buildings were added in the 1940s to accommodate the new families of the soldiers returning from World War II.  As these families began to exit to the suburbs in the 1950s, some areas of the Haight began to grow shabby and rents dropped.

Elaborate Queen Anne Victorians can be seen throughout the Haight,  like this Waller Street row with plaster designs representing the four seasons.

In the 1960s, musicians, poets and other artists began to move in. SF Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, who had previously invented the term Beatniks (see North Beach), called these new artists “Hipsters.” Fueled by opposition to the Vietnam war, the Hippie movement took hold.

The Hippies advocated a free lifestyle – free thinking, free food, free love. The 1967 Summer of Love drew thousands of young people from all over the country.  They camped in the Panhandle or “crashed” somewhere in a large Victorian house.  A group that called themselves the Diggers distributed free food, taking their name from a 17^th century English protest group who took over public land to grow food for the poor.  There was spontaneous street theater and free concerts by  musicians who became rock legends.  A young medical student opened the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, which still provides low cost medical services in the Haight and other neighborhoods today.

Although the Age of Aquarius had passed, many ideas championed by the Hippies are still relevant  -- conservation, self-sufficiency, organic foods, recycling, diversity and tolerance. Walk with us and you’ll find that the Haight is still an exciting, vibrant neighborhood that continues to attract interesting people and ideas.

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Posted By Gloria Lenhart to My SF Past at 11/08/2011 01:55:00 PM