Was anyone here in the Haight during the 1960s? (San Francisco: high school, live)

[3243]

If you were, what were your memories of being in the Haight-Ashbury during the time that it was making history?

[Hemlock140]

I hung around there and on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley when I turned 16 in 1968 and got a car, though I lived in the east bay suburb of Lafayette. I had an aunt that lived on Judah street and I'd take my grandmother over there to visit. I looked at the whole thing as fun. Friends and I would go and park somewhere and talk to the hippies, who were actually very accepting though we were clearly not going to turn to their ways and were just high school kids. I had neither the money or parental permission to go to Woodstock but would have loved to.

[3243]

Parental permission to go to Woodstock would have been an issue for me too. Especially because I turned two years old at the time.

[daepro]

I went to Woodstock and despite the hype had a miserable time. Rain, mud, poor sound system, limited view of the stage that was far away, all contributed to me feeling like there was no place like home. For me it was no three days of fun and music. Enjoyed the movie though.

[legal_eagle]

I once rode through in the back of my parents' 1966 Pontiac station wagon.

[rca215]

Damn hippies smoked themselves stupid. Ask them about the Haight and they talk about a town 2,500 miles away!

[eureka1]

As the saying goes, anyone who remembers the 'sixties wasn't really there.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by 3243

If you were, what were your memories of being in the Haight-Ashbury during the time that it was making history?

We lived in Marin County, not Haight but we used to take our friends through the area when they would come to visit. We were young, relatively newly weds (less than 10 years) with more kids than money. We always were looking at things to do that were different, fun and cheap. Driving through SF, especially the Haight-Ashbury area was one thing we loved to do. Our friends, who mostly lived in the burbs in So. CA and were pretty conservative loved to see the pot heads, in the flower clothes sleeping in doorways, standing out on street corners playing there music or singing or carrying protest signs. They really were laid back, and caused little harm to anyone. Of course before the hippies there were beatnicks. Though not as open about their views, they too were anti establishment, especially in the Bay area. There have always been groups like that and always will, just not as many as in the late 60s.

[Pietro25]

My grandparents owned a grocery store in the Haight. I believe they opened it in the 1940s. They lived above the store. They got the place so my father and his sisters could attend Lowell High School, which was then located at Ashbury and Masonic (and was, even then, considered a great school).

We used to visit my grandparents often. Initially my grandpa liked the extra business that the hippies brought in. This was about 1965 or so. Then the chaos started and they were frightened by the area.

People tend to romanticize the Haight of the late 1960s. You have to remember that by 1968, two years after the summer of love, the place had degenerated into a speedfreak zone. The number of homeless gibbering young people on the street was appalling.

[LunaticVillage]

Originally Posted by Pietro25

My grandparents owned a grocery store in the Haight. I believe they opened it in the 1940s. They lived above the store. They got the place so my father and his sisters could attend Lowell High School, which was then located at Ashbury and Masonic (and was, even then, considered a great school).

We used to visit my grandparents often. Initially my grandpa liked the extra business that the hippies brought in. This was about 1965 or so. Then the chaos started and they were frightened by the area.

People tend to romanticize the Haight of the late 1960s. You have to remember that by 1968, two years after the summer of love, the place had degenerated into a speedfreak zone. The number of homeless gibbering young people on the street was appalling.

I'm only 30, but I grew up in San Francisco. The Haight that the Beatles described in the late 60's doesn't seem all that different from the modern day Haight. That is, a placed filled with dirty drug addicts, runaways, burnouts, sometimes friendly homeless people and rowdy and or deeply mentally disturbed street people who love to laze around and smoke weed all day.

http://www.beatlesbible.com/1967/08/...san-francisco/