Love and Architecture in Haight-Ashbury

Love was all around

when we joined the San Francisco City Guide’s walking tour of Haight-Ashbury

to learn the history of 60’s Rock music (Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Big Brother & the Holding Company) as well as the architecture of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.  Raquel loved the 4 Seasons houses: Winter, Spring, Summer & Fall:

Our guide played music from the 60s as she walked us around the neighborhood and the Panhandle park.

We learned the history of Haight Asbury from the 1920’s giant water slide where people would go to “shoot the chutes” on Haight Street, to why Haight-Ashbury was “the” place chosen as the heart of the 60’s movement, to learning about Janis Joplin who lived on Ashbury Street

Our guide also touched on the negative aspects of the psychedelic drug era in which many great talents died very young (Ron “Pigpen” Mckernan from the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix all died at 27 from drug overdoses).  We also saw the house Charles Manson lived in where he took advantage of young people who had come from all over the country for the “Human Be In” event in 1967.

In addition to seeing beautiful houses on almost every corner, another unexpected highlight of the Haight-Ashbury occurred after the tour had finished and we were having lunch. While we were walking out of the restaurant, Raquel happened to spot someone from our tour, started talking with them and after only a few minutes realized that their mothers had been close friends from a youth group back in Australia.  What a small love-filled world!