Visit to Haight Ashbury

After the visit to MOMA we returned to Market Street and boarded the No. 6 bus to visit the Haight Ashbury district. I had been expecting to find a forgotten backwater of interest only to the occasional fossil from the '60s era. Instead we found a prosperous community of charming 19th century SF homes, plenty of young people, lots of hustle and bustle, and still a strong magnet for tourists a full 40 years after the Hippie era. The first shop that we noticed was a "smoke" shop with all sorts of bongs, hubble bubbles, and other smoking paraphanalia. I wondered why only one of the four street corners had the magic names "Haight" and "Ashbury" on it, and why the signs were so high up instead of just above head height as an easier backdrop for tourist photos. We were told that we tourists kept ripping off the street signs that were too low and convenient to reach.

The top photo is of a Hippie Wannabe with gray hair instead of black, two sets of glasses instead of beads around his neck, and a loaf of bread instead of a joint in his hand. Flower Power has given way to Flour Power. Vae Victis.

The second photos shows Brenda, who remembers the '60s, which proves that she really wasn't there.

The third photo shows some of the tourist interest that the area still holds. The other photos give a hint of the superb physical environment.

The mural in the penultimate photo is of Jimi Hendrix.