History Of Haight Ashbury

How The Haight Became the Home of the Hippies
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Although its heart is Haight Street, particularly the stretch from the eastern edge of Golden Gate Park past Ashbury to a block or two beyond Masonic, the actual physical boundaries of Haight-Ashbury are roughly considered to be Stanyan Street to the west, Baker Street to the east, 17th Street to the south and Fulton Street to the north. Nestled more or less in the center of the city, the Haight is accessible and, steep hills to the south notwithstanding, easy to navigate.

At one time a foraging ground for the local Indians, Haight-Ashbury was first settled in 1870 by a dairy farmer named William Lange. Soon thereafter, most of the district's streets were named after members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, who helped spin the wheels that put Golden Gate Park into motion toward the end of the 19th century.

Tolerant Haight Street itself, ironically, was named after California Governor Henry Haight, known in retrospect for his efforts to keep non-whites out of the city.

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As the park was completed, Haight Street took on more strategic importance, with a cable car line coming through and recreational facilities being erected in the area. During the 1880s, the Haight became an affluent area, and a construction boom resulted in a proliferation of "Queen Anne" style, or Victorian, homes being built–some of the most beautiful houses in the city. Largely unscathed by the 1906 earthquake, the Haight took on even greater import during the first years of the 20th century as prolific building took place in the city's western half. Most of the classic homes that still stand in the Haight today were built before the Great Depression.

After the Depression, however, the rich began to vacate the Haight for other parts of the city, and much of the area fell into disrepair. Despite hosting schools, hospitals, sports facilities and, of course, the gateway to Golden Gate Park, the Haight became something of a ghost town during the years before and directly after World War II, and many of those homes that still housed people at all had been divided into apartments or duplexes. Into the 1950s, Haight-Ashbury remained home primarily to working-class people, particularly minorities.

By the end of the '50s, though, the Haight was being rediscovered, by several groups of low-income people. Its cheap rents and fabulous architecture were welcome signs to students from San Francisco State University, as well as artists and other creative people. Gays also found the area inviting in the years before Castro and Polk streets became fashionable gay outposts. By 1965-66, the Haight had supplanted North Beach as San Francisco's most happening district.

"Haight Street," Marty Balin said in a 1966 interview with Los Angeles radio station KFWB's Hitline magazine, "is just like Carnaby Street [in London]. Long hair, boutiques, ice cream parlors, band sessions and plays in the park, pie fights–it's just great. It's a low-rent district so all the kids can afford to live there."

A community spirit had developed among the new residents even before the arrival of the hippies, the Haight having become a refuge for the politically disenfranchised. When, in 1959, the state earmarked the Panhandle–the narrow strip of park jutting out from Golden Gate Park, buttressed by Oak and Fell streets–as a freeway construction site, a coalition of Haight residents mobilized into action, and by 1966 the proposal was narrowly defeated by the Board of Supervisors. One supervisor, future mayor George Moscone, who admired the Haight's spirit and its focus on the artistic, was said to be the force that knocked down the idea once and for all–just in time for Haight and Ashbury to become the most famous corner in San Francisco and, for a brief while, maybe even the world.

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That's some really interesting stuff. Thank you for posting it.

 

Your welcome-I never knew alot of that stuff and always kinda wondered about the histiry of that area of town-

 

Was just there last summer.



A few of my kids and myself on the Grateful Dead House steps. With the "Get off my porch you dirty hippies" fence behind us. *sigh* The Dead no longer own the house.



On THE corner.



And of course, THE sign

 

hey!!! was there back in september...ive got the picture of THE sign with the 4:20 clock in front....how sad...the Gap on corner of Haight and Ashbury

 

I know.........Look at my Gallery, I mourn the *eek* Gap on OUR corner..... (sniff, whahhhhhhhhh!)

We were there the last week of Sept, first few days of Aug. Where did you stay?

 

Just for good measure, here's Lombard St.

 

You guys are makin me homesick-Did you ride the cabel cars over th Fishermans Wharf and eat clam chowder from a french bread bowl?

 

We rode the cable cars, hung out on the Wharf. Gave some money and food to some homeless hippies, no clam chowder for me, allergic to shellfish. But, my dh did. We had an amazing meal in China Town as well. (We took the Cable Car there.) Bear (my dh) nearly killed the tranny on the car, on Fillmore and something, the STEEPEST street I have ever driven on. Division? Was that it? Or was it Fillmore and Ashbury? I can't remember.

Went to The Rock, too. Wow, talk about a negative place........

The Haight was my very favorite. I wish we could have had more time.

 

I also have a picture of the garage Manson lived in in about 65 or so. I'll see if I can get it posted.

 

65?-I think he was still locked up up here at Mc Neil Island-I could be wrong but I have no fasination for that guy-I'm glad you guys had fun there-Were there alot of artists selling stuff at the Wharf?That city looks pretty much the same as way back then but but it used to just vibrate with energy-or maybe that was that thing I just ate-o- well glad ya had fun-

 

Maggie...we styed at a hotel in the financial district....2nd and Folsom, maybe?
we walked down Market St. thru Chinatown to Columbus Ave. Up that, thru LittleItaly/North Beach down to the Wharf passed Ghiraldehli Square passed Ft. Mason to the Palace of Fine Arts up Lyon St.(yes, all those stairs) down Geary to Fillmore(or Divisidaro?) to Haight St...man, you need to be in shape to walk this town.
we walked down Haight and fell into the Park...took a cab back

im not sure how to get pics on this post, but if i can figure it out, ill post 'em

 

Man-you gotta have legs of steel-!Thoses are some steep streets-You could have rented bicycles-When we were young me and my buds got jobs in the finacial district delivering messeges on bicycles-Got in good shape for sure-We would hold onto the cable cars to get up the hills or car door handles-Hint-Due to the prevaling sexual preference in the city the best place to meet women was downtown in the finacial area at lunch time-They sit alone outside and no guys to sit with!-Time to make a weekend jaunt home!

 

someone told me the hippies went to the mayor and wanted to change the name of haight asbury cuz haight sounds like hate and the hippies wanted to be about the love and the mayor told the hippies to bury the hate idea

 

"a cop's face is filled with hate(haight?)
heavens above he's on a street called Love"

 

Rob, I could well be wrong about the date that Manson lived in that garage. No, I don't have too much facination for the guy, either, but our freind was showing us "Paranormal Sites" around the Haight, and Manson's garage was on the way, across from Janis' house, I beleive. (I have only been there once, so I am not all that great with the geography.)

Some, some people doing charcol portraits ect. Not as much as I expected. A lot of junk shops with crap T Shirts, with not so funny stuff claiming the wearer was in inmate at the Alcatraz and things like that. *sigh* There were some street performers, some rappers, which I didn't like. But, in the evening, there were a few dudes with guitars doing some good stuff.

We didn't have the time (as my dh wanted to go to Sonoma) to spend in Golden Gate park, although we did walk through the Panhandle. I really wanted to spend an entire day in the park.

Yeah, my legs were killing me. I actually cried on night in the hotel, they hurt so badly. We stayed in a little place on Lombard street, before you get to the squiggly part. It was kind of a dump.

 

Yea-Crazy Charlie was the beginning of the end of a great thing-Until he came along that stuff never happened -not by someone with long hair and a commune-He probably flopped on someones couch for a week or two at that place but he had a bus after a while-Anyway-I used to go to the house on Page St. where Big Brother and The Holding Company with Janis Joplin practiced everyday in the basement-They had never performed yet and I could hear them downstairs as I was takin care of bizz upstairs-it was 66'-The Wharf used to have ALOTof vendors set up along the sidewalks there-Ah-Good old Sonoma Co.-I used to live there for a few years on the Russian River and in Santa Rosa-when I was a kid the old man would take us fishing on that river-now it's polluted-ah-progress!-If that part of Golden Gate Park could talk-OMG!-well probably better to remain quiet-haha-those were some fun times and lots of happy-high people-with no particular place to go-just BEING!

 

O-ERIC BURDON made a few bucks off that and Monterey both-It may sound a little like another rip off exploitation thing but at least he got it right-unlike most of the magazines and papers around the country at the time-If you want to see a great-and funny story on the Haight; find the 60 MINUTES interview with the Grateful Dead-Its done right out front of their old place in the Haight-It's funny to watch now-Man-we were gonna change the world!-and we did to some degree-

 

im trying to upload some pics from my trip....
apologies if it doesnt work....

 

ok...didnt work....if anyone knows how to post pics....please pm me