Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California
Encyclopedia
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, named for the intersection of Haight
Haight Street
Haight Street, in San Francisco, is perhaps best known as the principal street in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, also known as Upper Haight. It stretches from Market Street to Stanyan Street, at Golden Gate Park. It is named after California pioneer and exchange banker Henry Haight ....
and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight.
Location
The district generally encompasses the neighborhood surrounding Haight StreetHaight Street
Haight Street, in San Francisco, is perhaps best known as the principal street in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, also known as Upper Haight. It stretches from Market Street to Stanyan Street, at Golden Gate Park. It is named after California pioneer and exchange banker Henry Haight ....
, bounded by Stanyan Street and Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles long east to west, and about half a...
on the west, Oak Street and the Golden Gate Park Panhandle
Panhandle (San Francisco)
The Panhandle is a park in San Francisco, California that forms a panhandle with Golden Gate Park. It is long and narrow, being three-quarters of a mile long and one block wide. Fell Street borders it to the north, Oak Street to the south, and Baker Street to the east. The Haight-Ashbury District...
on the north, Baker Street and Buena Vista Park
Buena Vista Park
Buena Vista Park is a park in the Haight-Ashbury and Buena Vista Heights neighborhoods of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the oldest official park in San Francisco, established in 1867 as Hill Park and renamed Buena Vista in 1894. It is bounded by Haight Street to the north, and...
to the east and Frederick Street and Ashbury Heights and Cole Valley neighborhoods to the south.
The street names commemorate two early San Francisco leaders: Pioneer and exchange banker Henry Haight
Henry Haight
Henry Huntly Haight was the tenth Governor of California from December 5, 1867 to December 8, 1871.-Life:Son of Fletcher Mathews Haight, he was born in Rochester, New York, and graduated from Yale University...
and Munroe Ashbury, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco, California, United States.-Government and politics:...
from 1864 to 1870. Both Haight and his nephew as well as Ashbury had a hand in the planning of the neighborhood, and, more importantly, nearby Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles long east to west, and about half a...
at its inception. The name "Upper Haight", used by locals, is in contrast to the Haight-Fillmore or Lower Haight district; the latter being lower in elevation and part of what was previously the principal African-American and Japanese
Japanese American
are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity...
neighborhoods in San Francisco's early years.
The Haight-Ashbury district is noted for its role as a center of the 1960s hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
movement, a post-runner and closely associated offshoot of the Beat generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
or beat movement, members of which swarmed San Francisco's "in" North Beach
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
neighborhood two to eight years before the "Summer of Love
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...
" in 1967. Many who could not find space to live in San Francisco's northside found it in the quaint, relatively cheap and underpopulated Haight-Ashbury. The '60s era
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
and modern American counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
have been synonymous with San Francisco and the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood ever since.
Farms and homes
Before the completion of the Haight Street Cable Railroad in 1883, what is now the Haight-Ashbury was a collection of isolated farms and acres of sand dunes. The Haight cable car line, completed in 1883, connected the west end of Golden Gate Park with the geographically central Market Street line and the rest of downtown San Francisco. The cable car, land grading and building techniques of the 1890s and early 20th century reinvented the Haight-Ashbury as a residential upper middle classMiddle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homeowners' district. It was one of the few neighborhoods spared from the fires that followed the catastrophic San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
Depression and war
The Haight was hit hard by the DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, as was much of the city. Residents with enough money to spare left the declining and crowded neighborhood for greener pastures within the growing city limits, or newer, smaller suburban homes in the Bay Area. During the housing shortage of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, large single-family Victorians
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
were divided into apartments to house workers. Others were converted into boarding homes for profit. By the 1950s, the Haight was a neighborhood in decline. Many buildings were left vacant after the war. Deferred maintenance also took its toll, and the exodus of middle class residents to newer suburbs
White flight
White flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. It was first seen as...
continued to leave many units for rent.
Postwar
In the 1950s, a freeway was proposed that would have run through the Panhandle, but due to a citizen freeway revolt it was cancelled in a series of battles that lasted until 1966.The Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) was formed at the time of the 1959 revolt.
HANC is still active in the neighborhood as of 2008.
The Haight-Ashbury's elaborately detailed, 19th century multi-story wooden houses became a haven for hippies during the 1960s, due to the availability of cheap rooms and vacant properties for rent or sale in the district; property values had dropped in part because of the proposed freeway.
The bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
subculture that subsequently flourished there took root, and to a great extent, has remained to this day.
Summer of Love
The neighborhood became the center of the San Francisco RenaissanceSan Francisco Renaissance
The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range...
and with it, the rise of a drug culture and rock-and-roll lifestyle by the mid '60s. College and high-school students began streaming into the Haight during the spring break
Spring break
Spring break – also known as March break, Study week or Reading week in the United Kingdom and some parts of Canada – is a recess in early spring at universities and schools in the United States, Canada, mainland China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, the United...
of 1967. San Francisco's government leaders, determined to stop the influx of young people once schools let out for the summer, brought additional attention to the scene, and an ongoing series of articles in local papers alerted the national media to the hippies' growing numbers. By spring, Haight community leaders responded by forming the Council of the Summer of Love, giving the word-of-mouth event an official-sounding name.
The mainstream media's coverage of hippie life in the Haight-Ashbury drew the attention of youth from all over America. Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...
labeled the district "Hashbury" in The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
, and the activities in the area were reported almost daily. During that year, the neighborhood's fame reached its peak as it became the haven for a number of the top psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
performers and groups of the time. Acts like Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
and Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
all lived a short distance from the intersection. They not only immortalized the scene in song, but also knew many within the community as friends and family. Another well-known neighborhood presence was The Diggers
Diggers (theater)
The Diggers were a radical community-action group of activists and Improv actors operating from 1966–68, based in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Their politics were such that they have sometimes been categorized as "left-wing." More accurately, they were "community anarchists"...
, a local "community anarchist" group known for its street theatre
Street theatre
Street theatre is a form of theatrical performance and presentation in outdoor public spaces without a specific paying audience. These spaces can be anywhere, including shopping centres, car parks, recreational reserves and street corners. They are especially seen in outdoor spaces where there are...
who also provided free food to residents every day.
During the "Summer of Love", psychedelic rock music was entering the mainstream, receiving more and more commercial radio airplay. The song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)
San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)
"San Francisco " is a song, written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was written and released in 1967 to promote the Monterey Pop Festival....
," written by John Phillips
John Phillips (musician)
John Edmund Andrew Phillips , was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter and promoter . Known as Papa John, Phillips was a member and leader of the singing group The Mamas & the Papas...
of The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s . The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles...
, became a hit single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
in 1967. The Monterey Pop Festival
Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California...
in June further cemented the status of psychedelic music as a part of mainstream culture and elevated local Haight bands such as the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane. They are best known as the band that featured Janis Joplin as their...
and Jefferson Airplane to national stardom. A July 7, 1967, Time magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
cover story on "The Hippies: Philosophy of a Subculture," an August CBS News
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
television report on "The Hippie Temptation"http://www.sfsu.edu/~avitv/avcatalog/88444.htm and other major media interest in the hippie subculture exposed the Haight-Ashbury district to enormous national attention and popularized the counterculture movement across the country and around the world.
The Summer of Love attracted a wide range of people of various ages: teenagers and college students drawn by their peers and the allure of joining a cultural utopia; middle-class vacationers; and even partying military personnel from bases within driving distance. The Haight-Ashbury could not accommodate this rapid influx of people, and the neighborhood scene quickly deteriorated. Overcrowding, homelessness, hunger, drug problems, and crime afflicted the neighborhood. Many people simply left in the fall to resume their college studies.
On October 6, 1967, those remaining in the Haight staged a mock funeral, "The Death of the Hippie" ceremony, to signal the end of the played-out scene. Mary Kasper explained the message of the mock funeral as follows:
Attractions and characteristics
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
ambiance, though the effects of gentrification
Gentrification
Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...
are also apparent and continually changing. The neighborhood remains a thriving center of independent local businesses. It is home to a number of independent restaurants and bars, as well as clothing boutiques, booksellers, head shop
Head shop
A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in drug paraphernalia used for consumption of cannabis, other recreational drugs, legal highs, legal party powders and New Age herbs, as well as counterculture art, magazines, music, clothing, and home decor; some head shops also sell oddities, such as...
s and record stores including Amoeba Music
Amoeba Music
Amoeba Music is an independent music chain with stores in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Founded by former employees of nearby Rasputin Records, it opened on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley in 1990. The stores are unusually large given their independent status...
. The cohabitation between throw-backs to the Fifties lounge scene, organic and spiritual New Age ambiance of the Sixties, punk-rock politics and computer culture is one of the neighborhood's most interesting and endearing aspects socially and artistically.
The Red Victorian
The Red Victorian
The Red Victorian is an historic hotel located in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, two blocks from Golden Gate Park and well served by public transit....
hotel is also a popular attraction. An independent theater of the same name operated about a block away from the hotel from 1980 to 2011.
The neighborhood is home to many restored Victorian house
Victorian house
In the United Kingdom, and former British colonies, a Victorian house generally means any house built during the reign of Queen Victoria...
s. Painted Lady
Painted ladies
"Painted ladies" is a term used for Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings painted in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by writers Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their 1978 book...
Victorians are a common sight throughout the neighborhood.
The Haight-Ashbury Street Fair is held on the second Sunday of June each year, during which Haight Street is closed between Stanyan and Masonic, with one sound stage at each end.
See also
- Chinese Immersion School at De AvilaChinese Immersion School at De AvilaThe Chinese Immersion School at De Avila is the latest incarnation of the historic Dudley Stone School, founded in San Francisco, California, in 1896 and surviving the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. The kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school provides instruction in the Cantonese...
- Counterculture of the 1960sCounterculture of the 1960sThe counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
- Haight Ashbury BeatHaight Ashbury BeatThe Haight Ashbury Beat is a free, independent neighborhood newspaper that began in February 2004. The Beat covers news in the following San Francisco neighborhoods: Upper Haight, Lower Haight, Cole Valley, Panhandle & Divisadero corridor....
- I-Beam (nightclub)I-Beam (nightclub)The I-Beam was a popular nightclub in San Francisco that was located in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood at 1748 Haight Street from October 1977 to July 1994.-Opening of the I-Beam:...
- Kerista Commune
- Magnolia ThunderpussyMagnolia ThunderpussyMagnolia Thunderpussy , born Patricia Donna Mallon was a San Francisco burlesque performer, radio personality, filmmaker and restaurateur. Thunderpussy operated two San Francisco restaurants in the 1960s: the one at 1398 Haight Street , which bore her name, featured a late-night...
- The Process Church of The Final JudgmentThe Process Church of The Final JudgmentThe Process, or in full, The Process Church of the Final Judgment, commonly known by non-members as the Process Church, was a religious group that flourished in the 1960s and 1970s, founded by the English couple Mary Anne and Robert DeGrimston...
(religious movement formerly based in Haight-Ashbury) - The Red VictorianThe Red VictorianThe Red Victorian is an historic hotel located in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, two blocks from Golden Gate Park and well served by public transit....
- San Francisco RenaissanceSan Francisco RenaissanceThe term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range...
- Summer of LoveSummer of LoveThe Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...
Further reading
- Perry, Charles. The Haight-Ashbury: A History. Wenner Books, 2005. Original publication: 1984.
External links
- Haight-Ashbury
- The Haight-Ashbury 30 Years Ago: A Timeline
- The Maze: Haight/Ashbury – 1967 KPIX-TV documentary about the Haight-Ashbury district presented by writer Michael McClureMichael McClureMichael McClure is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums...
, from the Digital Information Virtual Archive at San Francisco State UniversitySan Francisco State UniversitySan Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...