Welcome to Haight Ashbury, the home of the 1967 Summer of Love and the home of a countercultural revolution. We are going to visit some landmarks and discover what makes them iconic and how they helped shape the identity of the area. 
First, I will give you a very short background of what helped the area become the epicenter of such a distinct time in history. 
It was the 1960’s. A growing consciousness of social justice began to spread amongst a generation of younger creatives, who had before now, not really had a voice. They had disillusions of America’s involvement in the Vietnam war. They were spurred on by the civil rights movement. They realized that consumerism was on the rise and materialistic values were damaging communities. 
A decade before, in the 1950’s, the Beat Generation of writers originally from New York had ended up in the North Beach area of San Francisco. These writers had created a foundation for hippies to root their call for change in and nearby, low-rent Haight Ashbury was the perfect landscape for continuing to explore those ideas. 
Haight Ashbury was a neighborhood full of grand houses that had been left for other developing parts of San Francisco and became a breeding ground for carefree hippies who wanted to perpetuate the values of free love, spiritual consciousness and community. Low rent coupled with commune-type living meant that this group of young Americans’ could afford to spend a summer here with low to no income. Approximately 100,000 people flocked to Haight Ashbury to join the countercultural revolution.

Haight Ashbury

We begin our tour in 1966. Built in 1900, when the popularity of nearby Golden Gate park was booming, this house and others nearby are significant in that they represent an older San Francisco, much of which did not survive the great 1906 earthquake. The Haight area was amazingly largely untouched by the quake and subsequent fires that flattened nearly 80 percent of the city. 
Fast forward to 1964. The Grateful Dead form and in 1966 the band, supported by notorious chemist and LSD manufacturer Owsley Stanley, move into 710a Ashbury Street where we stand now. This beautiful Victorian house is a pilgrimage for those who see the San Franciscan band as an embodiment of the hippie revolution. 
The band become a regular fixture on the local music scene and built up a fantastic fan base in the area, due in part to their numerous free concerts. Meshing sounds of American rock and roll, bluegrass, country and psychedelic improvisation the band appealed to a large audience and became the forefront of hippie culture as their music reflected the ideas that their community stood for.&nbsp; 
In 1967 we see the Summer of Love make San Francisco its national capital. It was a youth movement of free love, freedom, peace and flower power. A press conference was held here by the Dead after a drug bust that saw a number of the members arrested. They called for the decriminalization of marijuana, which eventually took place in California but not until 2016. The Dead moved out in 1968 after what is seen as the ‘death’ and commercialization of Haight Ashbury in late ’67. 
In 1973 this house was sold for $55,000. It has continued to be a private residence. We mentioned before that the hippie’s feared materialistic values. They were more concerned with each other than with possessions. So it is interesting that in 1997, just 24 years after the house was bought, the house was listed for $990,000.&nbsp;That’s a huge jump of over $38,000 a year for those 24 years. Can you guess what this house is valued at today? 
Redfin.com suggests $2.35-$2.60 million. It is astounding to see how the culture that defines this area’s identity actually ended up revitalizing and commercializing it, thus turning it into the antithesis of what hippie’s stood for.

Grateful Dead House

Look across to 719 Ashbury Street, and you will see a house that eventual Grateful Dead employees lived in, as well as psychedelic poster artists Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse who helped create the imagery synonymous with 1960’s America. Interestingly this house later became a Hell’s Angels headquarters.

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Hell's Angels House

As we move down Ashbury, we stop at 635 where another face of the hippie movement lived. 
Rock, soul and blues singer Janis Joplin. Although she lived in a few apartments in the area, this one is arguably the most iconic for its color and for the fact that while living on the second floor, Joplin shot to fame. 
She lived here while the Grateful Dead were just down the road, and unfortunately had a long battle with addiction and passed away in 1970 at the age of 27. It’s interesting to try and determine how to honor such a great musician so embedded in the Haight’s cultural heritage without glorifying the drug use so prevalent in the scene at the time. Keep this in mind as we continue to stroll around the area. You might still see the long-term effects of the darker side of the Summer of Love.

Janis Joplin's House

This is the intersection of Haight and Ashbury Streets. This corner is where the area originally got its name from and 557 Ashbury became the backdrop for the 1960’s and a corner that guaranteed people would run into friends or like-minded individuals to hang out with. This house was listed on the National Register for Historic Places in 2011 not only for its significance in the 1960’s but as a great example of early 1900’s Colonial Revival architecture. It has never been moved from its original space, however in 1907 as the area was expanding, the house was lifted to enable three storefronts to occupy space under the living quarters and is recognized by the Register as an ‘unusual integration of residential and commercial uses on one site'. It is one of the most original examples of the beginning of the commercialization of Haight Street, and from 1965-1968 the store space housed Mnasidika one of the first hippie stores in San Francisco and the first in the Haight Ashbury Area. It was owned by Peggy Caserta, a friend and lover of Janis Joplin, and was named as a nod to the first lesbian social and political group in America. You can see ‘Haight’ and ‘Ashbury’ painted on the respective sides of the building really establishing it as the heart of the area. 
By listing this house on the National Register, both heritage conservationists and formal government agencies have acknowledged its significance and have made moves to ensure that the site remains largely unchanged from 1907. This could not have been achieved without the efforts of the current owner and the community that surrounds it and is a great example of both government agencies and the community working together to conserve historic landmarks.

Haight and Ashbury Streets

We’ve turned left on to Haight Street, and you can see the difference between the commercialized Haight and the residential Ashbury which makes the transitional house at our previous stop so unique. As we walk down this road you will spot signs and artwork heavily inspired by the 60s era artists like those mentioned earlier - Kelley and Mouse. The influence of this time has not yet disappeared as the 60’s are viewed as the beginning of a revolutionary change in the way that people interacted with each other and with politics. 
We stop at 1524a, a short time residence for guitar great Jimi Hendrix after playing the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967, which was one of the first large scale music festivals and included Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. The first song recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was called ‘Red House’ and so the house is painted red in his honor. 
Have a look at the mural painted on the building. Hendrix is forever remembered and overlooks Haight Street and all the changes it has seen. Very unfortunately, Hendrix died at the age of 27 mere weeks before Joplin did.&nbsp; Again, we have to acknowledge that the cultural heritage of Haight Ashbury in the 1960’s was not all fun and free love. In fact, one person in particular recognized the flow on effects from the rampant drug culture. This takes us to our next stop which also propels us into the current day.

Jimi's Red House

We are now just off Haight, on Clayton street and the site of the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic which is thankfully still servicing the area. This clinic is the brainchild of Doctor David E. Smith or ‘Doctor Dave’ as he is known on the streets. In 1967 fresh from graduating from medical school in Berkley and living in the Haight, Doctor Dave was very well aware that the more ‘fun’ and reckless parts of the Summer of Love were throwing residents and visitors into a downward spiral of substance abuse and addiction that was sure to last a lot longer than just the summer. In an interview with SFGate in 1997, Doctor Dave talks about how his teacher’s lamented that such a promising student had chosen to work with low-income community members and addicts but the Clinic has since spawned many free clinics like it across the USA and heads up multiple facilities in the San Francisco area. 
Not only did Doctor Dave acknowledge that the children of this countercultural revolution would need medical assistance, he knew that the movement itself had come from a deeper sense of social unrest that had disconnected this group from societal norms and which needed to be addressed with a combination of counseling and medical solutions. As far as I know, this clinic is not on many other Summer of Love tours. 
Visitors much prefer to remember the time as flawless, but this too is a significant part of the story of Haight Ashbury that not only needs to be acknowledged but also praised, especially as the Clinic has stood the test of time, where hippie culture has rapidly declined.

Haight Ashbury Free Clinic

Our final stop is at the Evolutionary Rainbow – which isn’t its official name but one that the community gave it. This mural was one of the first community murals in San Francisco, painted in 1967 by the manager of the business at the time – Yana Zegri. Up close you will notice that it depicts the stages of evolution in each separate colour of the rainbow. 
This is a great place to end our tour, as it symbolizes that things are constantly changing. Haight Ashbury and the rest of the world will continue to evolve and a myriad of people will experience the area in very different ways. It reminds us that life is transient and that heritage and importance can mean different things at different times. 
This mural was restored by the artist in 1981 so that the community could continue to enjoy a work that had been inspired by all that was happening in 1967. In 1982 the building changed ownership and the new owner had the mural painted over. 
In a great show of the community’s need for safeguarding significant pieces of heritage from such a defining time in history for the area, the local community protested and petitioned against what they saw was the erasure of heritage. This resulted in the new owner asking Zegri to repaint it that same year, and she returned again in 2006 to restore it. 
Hopefully this tour has given you some cool background into Haight Ashbury but has also introduced you to some of the negative flow on effects from the cultural burst that defines this area. While it’s great to celebrate the positive things that Haight Ashbury housed, including the architecture that pre-dates the 60’s it is also important to recognize that history and heritage is different for many. Some who enjoyed the Summer of Love here, got out without a scratch. Other’s weren’t so lucky and had their demons follow them wherever they went. Some didn’t make it much further than ’67 at all.

Image: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/3965275109">"San Francisco - Haight-Ashbury: Rainbow Mural"</a> by&nbsp;<a data-track="attributionNameClick" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/" title="Go to Wally Gobetz's photostream">Wally Gobetz</a>&nbsp;is licensed under&nbsp;<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0</a>

The Evolutionary Rainbow

Haight Ashbury&nbsp;is a thriving&nbsp;district in San Francisco, where cultures and colorful Victorian houses blend together. Made famous by the hippie movement in the 1960s,&nbsp;Haight Ashbury&nbsp;was the turbulent epicenter of rebellion,&nbsp;psychedelic mindset, and famous singers.

Take a trip down memory lane to see some famous landmarks of the 1967 Summer of Love and to discuss how this period of history became a countercultural revolution.

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Audio tour&nbsp;developed by Virginia Masinovic&nbsp;and powered by IZI.travel

Haight Ashbury - Icons of the Summer of Love

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Haight Ashbury - Icons of the Summer of Love

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