Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Echoes of the Past: The Haight
Haight Ashbury, named for one of the neighborhood's intersections, was,
for a time, one of the most influential neighborhoods in America. Seduced
by cheap Victorian-era houses, early hippies moved in and forged a
bohemian, freedom-first society. The late '60s counterculture movement,
the one that was going to change the world forever, was centered right
here. For a while, it was utopia. Young people hung out in the streets,
invited each other to love-ins, and grooved to the emblematic music of
the day; Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead both played free concerts on
the Panhandle, which is the park a few blocks north of Haight.
But eventually, the dream soured. Marijuana and LSD use turned to
heroin, and the idealists of the Haight were lost in more than just a pur-
ple haze; they became junkies, infiltrated by revolutionary zealots such as
Charles Manson (who lived at 636 Cole St.), and the neighborhood quickly
slid into a poorly tended ghetto of lost souls living in the past.
Like Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, though, the Haight retains at
least a shimmer of its old reputation. Homeless kids and slumming subur-
banites still come, hoping for a slice of that forgotten '60s dream, but all
they really encounter are a string of cheap diners, head shops, and consign-
ment stores (albeit some of the city's best; some are named in chapter 8).
There's nothing really to see in the Haight unless you're a big fan of the
Grateful Dead (the band lived at the pretty purple-gold-gray house at 710
Ashbury St., which isn't open to the public). That's the Haight in a nutshell:
It's famous for what once happened there and for a time that's dead. Even
the intersection of Haight and Ashbury is now as unremarkable as any other.
Still, it's worth a stroll down Haight Street to catch a whiff of the
1960s, faint and tawdry as it now is. If you're in the market for a pot pipe
or a pair of used jeans or some Doc Martens, you'll find something to
please you, and you may even glimpse a few elderly stragglers who never
left after the Summer of Love. I suggest starting at Central Street (at
Buena Vista Park) or Masonic Avenue and heading west; off Haight, it's
residential, so there's not much need to veer off the street until you reach
the edge of Golden Gate Park, 6 blocks west. One thing you won't find
much of is chain stores; locals are still proud of the fact that a branch of
the Gap failed to thrive at the famous corner (although there is a Ben &
Jerry's there now).
daggers, altarpieces, drums, pots, ceremonial trappings, and 15,000 other priceless
goodies and artworks are artfully lit and presented in a bright, multilevel space.
Simply because it means you'll be unlikely to miss anything, curators recom-
mend you begin a visit on the third floor and work your way down, and by the
time you reach the ground floor, you'll find a cafe ($8-$10, with food of all
