What the thing is
Haight-Ashbury is a district of San Francisco named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called the Haight and the Upper Haight, a name locals use in contrast to the Haight-Fillmore, or Lower Haight. It covers the area around Haight Street, bounded by Stanyan Street and Golden Gate Park on the west, Oak Street and the park’s Panhandle on the north, Baker Street and Buena Vista Park to the east, and Frederick Street to the south. It is known as one of the main centres of the 1960s counterculture and of the hippie movement, and the Summer of Love of 1967 has been tied to it ever since.
Where it came from
The streets are named for Henry Haight, a pioneer and exchange banker, and Munroe Ashbury, a member of the Board of Supervisors from 1864 to 1870. Before the Haight Street cable line opened in 1883, the area was isolated farms and sand dunes. The line linked Golden Gate Park to downtown, and the district became an entertainment stop, with the Chutes amusement park from 1895 to 1902, and later an upper-middle-class residential district, one of the few spared by the fires after the 1906 earthquake. The Depression hit it hard, houses were split into apartments and boarding homes during the Second World War, and by the 1950s it was in decline. A freeway proposed through the Panhandle was cancelled after a citizen revolt that ran until 1966. Property values had dropped partly because of the proposal, and the large wooden houses became cheap to rent.
What it gets right
The reputation has concrete roots. Ron and Jay Thelin opened the Psychedelic Shop on 3 January 1966, the first head shop, and it became one of the unofficial community centres for the hippies arriving in 1966 and 1967. The Diggers, a group known for street theatre, ran a free store, daily free meals and a free medical clinic. After the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, local bands the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe and the Fish rose to national stardom. Time and CBS covered the scene that summer, and Joan Didion’s essay “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” appeared in September.
What it gets wrong
The Summer of Love drew teenagers, students, middle-class vacationers and even partying military personnel from nearby bases. The district could not hold them, and overcrowding, homelessness, hunger, drug problems and crime followed. On 6 October 1967 those who remained held a mock funeral in Buena Vista Park, “The Death of the Hippie”. Mary Kasper explained that it signalled the end of the scene: people should not come, and should bring the revolution to where they lived. Ron Thelin said the district had been portioned to them by the media-police, that tourists came to the zoo to see the captive animals, and that they were no longer hippies and never had been.
Why it matters now
After 1967 many residents left, but the Free Medical Clinic stayed. The Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council rezoned parts of the district to protect its houses. Middle-class families bought homes in the 1970s and 1980s. Today the district draws tourists to a street fair held since 1978 and to the Doolan-Larson Building, listed on the National Register in 2011. Gentrification has raised rents and displaced long-term residents. A 100 percent affordable housing project at 730 Stanyan Street, the former site of a McDonald’s, has provided 160 units for low- and moderate-income families and for young people who have experienced homelessness.
Is it worth your time
Yes, if you want to know why a run-down neighbourhood became the symbol of a decade, and what it was like afterwards. It gives names and dates, and says little about the music or ordinary residents.
