Haight-Ashbury San Francisco: Summer of Love History & Today's Neighbourhood

Haight-Ashbury is where the 1960s happened most visibly — the intersection that gave the Summer of Love its address, the neighbourhood where the Grateful Dead lived at 710 Ashbury Street, Janis Joplin played for free in the Panhandle park, and tens of thousands of young people arrived in 1967 with flowers in their hair and genuinely uncertain plans. The neighbourhood has been living with that history for sixty years, sometimes reverently, sometimes ironically, and always commercially.

The corner of Haight and Ashbury is still a pilgrimage point: the street sign is perpetually stolen, the shops around the intersection are heavy on tie-dye, crystals, and vintage psychedelia, and the people-watching is reliable entertainment. The Grateful Dead House at 710 Ashbury is a private residence (still inhabited) with a small plaque; visitors photograph it from the street. The Joplin building two blocks away similarly. Walking the length of Haight Street from Stanyan (at the Golden Gate Park edge) to Divisadero covers the full range: the vintage and record shops are genuinely excellent, and the used book stores in the eastern Haight are the kind that require an afternoon rather than a browse.

The Upper Haight (between Clayton and Central Avenues) has the best vintage shopping concentration: Wasteland for mid-century fashion, Amoeba Music on Haight Street for vinyl (the legendary Berkeley original relocated here and remains one of the great record shops in America). The Lower Haight (east of Divisadero) is less tourist-facing and has a stronger neighbourhood restaurant scene.

Golden Gate Park's eastern entrance is at the end of Haight Street: the Japanese Tea Garden, the de Young Museum, and the Conservatory of Flowers are all within walking distance from the neighbourhood.