PART 1
Every neighborhood evolves, at varying speeds and to varying degrees, and The Haight is no different – other than being unique. When you’re in the midst of it, it can be hard to discern just what’s going on. Having accidentally been lodged here for over four decades, I figured I’d attempt a whirlwind tour through time. Here’s my subjective recall – your results may vary….
1970s: First Fearful Impressions: I was a clueless Southern California beach kid, but one with a subscription to Rolling Stone — so I was fascinated by the whole Haight-Ashbury hippie mythology. At 17 years old, on a solo bicycle trip down the entire California coast, I veered slightly off course to see Haight Street. Riding along, I was semi-shocked at how rundown, boarded up, and even threatening it seemed. Stevie Wonder’s fantastic new album Innervisions was blasting out of a storefront but there seemed little “Higher Ground” here, with bodies on the sidewalks and those standing just glaring at me. Clearly the post-Summer of Love collapse was still in effect. I didn’t stop once and kept on moving. But the next year, friends and I came to see The Dead’s “retirement“ (hah) shows at Winterland, and I was again enthralled. A few years yet later, I’d drive in my 1969 red VW van over to the city from UC Berkeley but the Haight still held little attraction and North Beach was much better.
1980s: The Comeback: It was maybe destined for me to move here. The street seemed to be slowly coming back. I rented a couch on Clayton just above Waller and prowled around. Gus had opened his first market and took pity on me, assuming I was homeless when I gathered day-old baguettes from Bakers of Paris next door to feed the arboretum geese, and offered me a job sweeping out front. Movies at the Red Vic were cheap and the brewers yeast popcorn so tasty one didn’t mind the rotting couches. The I-Beam had so many great cheap live shows you didn’t have to leave the “hood. Rock and Bowl was a unique and nefarious late night scene. McDonald’s was a greasy scene. There were parties that felt like something out of the new hit film Blue Velvet.
The Persian Aub Zam Zam martinis were $1.75 if Bruno let you have one. I retailed some pot from the back room at Achilles Heel [NOTE: Now the Green Heron! Read Page 9] to make ends meet. There was a purple blues club with a purple Rolls Royce always parked out front. Liquid Experience sold cheap booze and the Pall Mall Grill was still “The Home of the Love Burger” and a true dive bar. Late one night a bunch of us ran through the N Judah tunnel all the way to Duboce Park (idiots). Somebody burnt down Thrifty at Cole in a protest against chain stores, and/or in a labor dispute, depending on who’s talking, and almost took out the whole block, or worse.
The Other Cafe up on Cole was a center of comedy and coke legend. There were some fading bookshops and other cool businesses but my main hangout became Recycled Records. Cha Cha Cha opened in a small slot at the other end of the street and Haight St. had a destination restaurant. The Nightbreak bar had live tunes down there too. Rockin’ Robin’s bar was retro. In 1989 Oliver Stone filmed his Doors movie and only had to cover The Gap sign at Haight & Ashbury to keep the ‘60s authenticity. The Haight Street Fairs got bigger and wilder. But AIDS was hitting and some of the most fun locals were tragically soon gone. The fabled Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic not only treated as many and as well as possible, but eventually got into needle exchange harm reduction. It’s offshoot Rock Medicine continued helping those who had overindulged at concerts stay out of hospitals, jails, and bad head spaces. I gave Jerry Garcia a band-aid, and he paid me with a Garcia tie.
PART 2
1990s: Charm and Chaos: The Haight was coming back, with few or no more boarded-up storefronts. I moved up the hill, first to upper Belvedere and then, ahem, Ashbury Heights. I became a de facto host at Cha Cha Cha, which was a blast, and made my best Frisco friend, manager and late legend Russ Hahn. Murio’s bar a couple doors down was where we sent the overflow waiting list in exchange for free shots. We once shot pool there with Joe Strummer too. There were some neo-nazi punk incursions on Haight but they weren’t welcome and didn’t last. The Black Muslim bakery folks from Oakland tried to set up shop and extort other businesses but quickly learnt that was a mistake.
The Hare Krishnas from the little temple up at the Carl & Cole park marched up and down the street, chanting, until one of them on meth stabbed another to death (bad karma). Reprobate crack dealers tried to set up shop right on the street but were turned in to the cops by the pot dealers who didn’t want them drawing the Heat. Cool record shops set up, including Reckless and Rough Trade. Goodwill was allowed in where the Thrifty had burnt, being an acceptable chain shop. The bowling alley closed and Amoeba moved in, becoming a music destination. The Free Clinic soldiered on, evolving with the times to serve a more diverse clientele, including the explosion of ravers and their newer designer drugs. When Jerry Garcia died, the neighborhood sidewalks became an extended wake for a fallen hero.
2000s: Funky Upscaling: At some point it all becomes a blur. But the neighborhood trends up and down, as Martin Luther King famously hoped, “with an arc towards justice…” – or, well, at least some type of enduring spirit. When did it start? Some say the 60s when the working class and Black neighborhood was “discovered” by beatniks and freaks. Upper Cole was re-branded Cole Valley for real estate marketing purposes. Likewise the other side of the Panhandle becoming NOPA. Funky Cala market at Stanyan and Haight morphed into Whole Foods.
The site of the digger Free Store became a series of ever more upscale eateries. With legalization, boutique cannabis dispensaries arrived, displacing the “buds… nugs… lids” sidewalk guys. Local Catholic schools became French or other fancy schools drawing students from all over the City. Cool murals got painted over. There are countless other examples. Mainly, housing costs relentlessly rose, which is the most assured way of changing the culture of a ‘hood. Ours once again became a tourist destination, with more used clothing shops and trendy coffee joints than you could shake a dreadlock at – but that’s fine. It wasn’t fine when Covid hit and for a time the boarded-up street looked like the 70s again, but not for too long.
The Free Clinic is finally gone, which is truly the end of an era, but some good services are still offered at that site, so some tradition prevails. The recent Dead & Co invasion was a true festival, which really only could have happened on Haight. It was like our version of Mardi Gras in N’Awlins. Fans from all over visited each day and many remarked how they had been misled to fear crime and poop and needles but, Wow, surprise, they absolutely loved our city and neighborhood (and park!).
Now we’ve got a superb Counterculture Museum on the fabled corner of Haight and Ashbury, which feels like some kind of landmark development. Beloved long-gone spots like The Deluxe are re-opening. Gus’s is expanding. Love on Haight holds down a corner with a blast of Sunny color and our own version of the Hollywood stars of fame on the sidewalk. The tour buses are rolling, misinforming happy riders that Jimi Hendrix lived here and so on, but no biggie (he did play in the Panhandle though!). As I write the street is full of shoppers searching for Halloween costumes, including at Mendel’s, one of the few businesses that was here when I arrived so long ago.
I could go on, but already have, sorry, and hey, we’ve got the mighty Haight Street Voice to chronicle and celebrate it all, persevering where other neighborhood publications have not. The Haight bobbles up and down, but always rises again. The national dark fascistic backlash underway is dire, but better things will eventually prevail, as MLK also advised, if enough good people demand it. Some of those values were conceived and nurtured right here and have never fully left. Yes the Haight is known for nostalgia but some of that is crucially relevant today.
When I lead tours of very young UCSF med students around the ‘hood, I quote the Jefferson Airplane’s late Paul Kantner’s quip that San Francisco is “49 square miles surrounded by reality” – but add that the Haight is an even more unreal one square mile surrounded by San Francisco, thankfully. Standing on the street with a friend recently, we agreed that after living here for an extended time, almost any other place would seem boring indeed. Long may it thrive.
