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Haight-Ashbury Information
The Haight-Ashbury is a district of San Francisco, California, USA named
after the intersection of Haight Street and Ashbury Street, commonly known as
The Haight or, in recent years, The Upper Haight. The names of the streets
themselves are taken from Henry Huntly Haight, Governor of California in the
1870's, and one of the city supervisors of the time, a Mr. Ashbury. Both of them
had a hand in the planning of the neighborhood, and, more importantly, Golden
Gate Park at its inception.
The district is famous for its role as a center of the 1960s hippie movement, a
post-runner and closely associated offshoot of the Beat generation who swarmed
San Francisco's "in" North Beach neighborhood 2-8 years before the "Summer of
Love" in 1967.
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,
most of which was not graded or developed in any way. The new cable car line,
completed in 1883, connected the west end of Golden Gate Park with Market Street
and downtown San Francisco. Shortly afterward, in the 1890s and early part of
the 20th century, the Haight-Ashbury was developed as an upper middle-class
residential district. It was one of the fortunate districts spared in the
disastrous fires that followed the catastrophic San Francisco Earthquake of
1906.
The Haight was hit hard by the Depression, as was much of the rest of the city.
Residents with enough money to spare left the declining and “crowded”
neighborhood for greener pastures such as Forest Hill and St. Francis Wood.
During the housing shortage of World War II, the large single-family Victorians
were divided into apartments to house war workers; others were converted into
boarding houses. By the 1950s, the Haight was a neighborhood in decline.
Deferred maintenance took its toll, and the exodus of middle-class residents to
newer suburbs to the south and west continued.
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
Victorian properties for rent in the district and the bohemian subculture that
subsequently flourished there.
It gained a reputation as a center of illegal drug culture, especially with the
use of marijuana. The area was thus sometimes known as The Hashbury, but, ca.
1967, its fame chiefly rested on the fact that it became the neighborhood of
choice for a number of important psychedelic rock performers and groups of the
mid-1960s. Acts like the Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin,
who all lived a short distance from the famous intersection, not only
immortalized the scene in song, but knew many within the community as friends
and family. Its mystique was further enhanced by the 1967 Scott MacKenzie hit
"San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)," written by The
Mamas & the Papas member John Phillips. Some said the song was a blatantly
commercial pop song that climbed the charts much to locals' chagrin.
Finally the fallout from hard drugs and irreverence to social norms took its
toll. By the mid 70's, thirty percent of the 20 some square blocks of housing in
the neighborhood were condemned, and nearly a third of the storefront property
stayed vacant into the early eighties.
Today the district has lost little of its status as a center of alternative
lifestyles, though much has changed. The area still maintains a lot of its
bohemian atmosphere, it has become a major tourist attraction and has
experienced the effects of gentrification to some degree. Perhaps the best
illustration of the district's slide into the mainstream is the presence of a
Gap store, a major international retailer that (ironically) started in San
Francisco in the late 60's, now fell to mixed reviews by the city's trendy
inhabitants. Though the Gap and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream are now located at the
famous Haight-Ashbury intersection, the neighborhood remains a thriving center
of independent local business. It is home to a number of independent restaurants
and bars, as well as clothing, smoke, and record shops, including Amoeba Music:
San Francisco's largest new and used record store, as well as shops catering to
anything retro, nuevo, or strange. The cohabitation between throw-backs to the
fifties lounge scene, organic and spiritual new age, the punk of the 70's and
beyond is one of the neighborhood's most interesting and endearing aspects. The
Haight-Ashbury Street Fair is held on the second Sunday each June. The
twenty-ninth annual street fair will occur on June 11, 2006.
Because of its past and present reputation and its location between Buena Vista
Park and Golden Gate Park, the district draws the homeless and teen runaways. To
a great degree, the main commercial area's blend of diverse street life engulfs
all types in the carnivalesque and liberal surroundings, just as it had in the
sixties. Recent police and community efforts help maintain park curfews and "no
camping policies" as well. The area suffers little in the way of crime, compared
to rougher San Francisco neighborhoods.
Both commercial and residential property in the district are in high demand
today, a testament to the area's long history and many charms.