Hippies Counterculture

San Francisco was originally a port known for sailors stopping to do drugs, drink, and use prostitutes. In 1921, attempts were made to make the city more inviting and less of a pleasure-filling city (Hoshyns 11). Later, in the 1950s, counterculture called the Beats formed. They paved the way for the hippies by smoking weed and listening to jazz music (Sixties). The hippies took the Beats’ ideas and changed them to fit different standards. Haight-Ashbury was the beginning of the hippie movement and it changed the county with its music, community, and loving atmosphere.

Haight-Ashbury is an area spanning out of Haight Street to the Golden Gate Bridge. With over fifteen-thousand hippies, one-thousand-two-hundred of them were teens that had run

away from home looking for something they were not certain of until they found it. they found the community of Hashbury and all it had to offer which was an escape from the real world (Baers). Even though the district is fairly small, Haight Street itself is twenty blocks long, leading to a park that ends at the Pacific Ocean. On the other end of the street is Fillmore, a mostly African-American neighborhood. Some of Fillmore’s residents moved to Haight and gave more diversity to the area (Cottrell 139). Not only did a thousand plus teens come to Haight with more coming in each day, but also people living in the area would receive letters from children asking for help to get to California. The desire to live in Hashbury was very strong in young people all over the country (Anthony 64-66). Initially, when the neighborhood’s popularity began to rise, teens from the surrounding areas would travel to Haight to escape the society they felt was forced upon them. They used the music, as well as the drugs, as an escape from the hollow lives they though they were living (Hoshyns 27).
A large part of the population consisted of college students, since there are three colleges in the general vicinity: Stanford University, San Francisco State, and Berkley. This allowed for the area to be filled quickly and create a coherent community. Just two years before Haight-Ashbury's height, the neighborhood had only rundown houses and mostly empty stores, making rent cheap and it the perfect place for teens and young adults to move in away from the rest of the world (Anthony 11, 37).
The person said to have initiated the popularity of Haight-Ashbury is Ken Kesey, a college student at Stanford.

Ken and his friends took part in an experiment, taking drugs that caused hallucinations. When testing the new psychometric drugs, Kesey discovered the most popular drug used in the area, LSD. LSDs are lysergic acid diathylamide drugs, commonly referred to as acid. Later they experimented with the drugs on their own and more and more people joined in (Sixties). This drug was the most powerful for creating a temporary alternate reality. Kesey, who attended Stanford on a creative writing scholarship, not only housed those looking for free drugs, but also aspiring authors and musicians. Kesey thought the use of drugs helped artists of all kinds, since it appeared to help him write his book One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (Hoshyns 31-33). Later, Kesey planned a music festival called “Trips Festival”, where over twenty thousand people dressed in costumes attended to join in the carefree lifestyle the hippies had. This caused Haight-Ashbury to become known for the hippies that lived there and the drug-filled atmosphere. A group called the Merry Pranksters formed in Kesey's house and they would go around organizing concerts and drawing in crowds to take the hallucinogenics (Sixties). The Merry Pranksters also bought a bus and painted it with patterns to create spiritual significance. This bus was the first example of the vans associated with hippies in modern times. They

used this bus to travel the country and interact with the other, not drugged, members of society (Hoshyns 33-35).
Phyllis Willner was just a girl when she arrived Haight and she had nothing. She used the Digger's food services when she first arrived in Haight. Later, the leader of the Diggers was arrested and Phyllis, along with other women, scavenged for food to serve those who were in need. The women were very persuasive in getting more food to serve. The Diggers had a store where everything was free, but it was not a common store, it mostly contained non-essential items and services. They did provide food, however, for the hungry people in Haight, who left everything behind (Anthony 31-34). Haight also had a free medical center to help with the many problems as a result of drugs, but it also treated common sicknesses and diseases for anyone who needed help (Hoshyns 87). The Free Frame of Reference, a store in a garage where everything was free, began with most young people starting out using only the store, but a majority of the clothes were costumes, hence the beginning of wearing costumes daily (Perry 108). When people would wear these costumes, some would act in the character he or she was portraying, but the well known fringe and tie dye was still very common.
The Diggers were a self-proclaimed group of hippies. They adopted the phrase "1%" from Hell's Angels. The Hell's Angels proclaimed that only 1% of motorcyclists are not law abiding citizens. Diggers used 1% to represent the people who helped them change society (Anthony 27). They organized a “Death of Money” parade, but, ironically, two people marched to the police station and collected money for bail. Then, they marched to the jail and got one of the men out that they legally could (Perry 114). The Digger's "Rebirth of Haight/ Death of Money" march was very extravagant with the Diggers wearing animal masks and carrying a coffin on their four mile march through and around Haight (Hoshyns 119).
The Hells Angels were a group of motorcyclists from California who protected the hippies at concerts and other large events where trouble may have occurred in return for beer and drugs . Because the hippies and the Angels had different values, they did not always see eye to eye. Hell's Angels were not against fighting, which is why they beat up an 18 year old hippie who kicked a member's motorcycle and ended up killing him with a pool cue (7).
The Thelin brothers opened a store called the "Psychedelic Shop" on Haight Street in 1966. It included a meditation room, most commonly used for sex and drugs, theater seats looking out of the front shop window, and a message board, which was the main way for people in the city to communicate with one another (Anthony 60-61). The shop was in a central location, near the Haight-Ashbury intersection, and quickly replaced the former hangout, a laundromat, although the shop was not originally intended to be a hangout, but gladly accepted it. Because the Psych Shop was not built to be a neighborhood hangout, it received several charges against loiterers, and even got an eviction notice. Many other shops in the area received similar charges (Perry 76, 99). The Psychedelic Shop offered more than just a place for hippies to gather. It sold concert tickets, incense, fabrics, and records. Ron Thelin wished for the store to become more like a loose leaf tea store, but with drugs instead of tea (Cottrell 140). The Psych Shop's popularity did not decrease, however the profits did significantly. When the meditation room, called the Calm Center, opened in the shop, it took over half the space and some of the hours, leading to the financial trouble (Perry 189).
Hashbury, a loving reference toward the neighborhood, filled many artists with inspiration both by physical appearance and the spiritual, loving atmosphere. Michael Bowen painted his perception of the world in Haight while his friends would wander past him, yet he still worked to capture the essence he searched for (Anthony 16). Even though most musicians did not go to Haight in search for fame, they ended up becoming the main force of moving forward with the peace and spirituality hippies desired. The loving attitude took the pressure to succeed off and the emotion began to shine though. Clubs, restaurants, bars, and coffee shops were popular hangouts for the townspeople to convene, eat, listen to music, and share thoughts and ideas. Many artists started out preforming in these places and moved forward (Hoshyns 27). The performers that came from Haight were not all musicians, although the majority were. Mimes, magicians, and palmists would not be uncommon to see on the streets. There was not a lack of entertainment in Haight with music, performers, and drugs to keep residents occupied (Anthony 78).
Music was said to be the center of activities in Haight. Many famous bands emerged from the area, including Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and the Charlatans, along with many others, even if they were not necessarily good, no one seemed to care (Hoshyns 15). The music played in the area was new at the time and called psychedelic rock. It carried from rock 'n' roll by having much longer songs, mixing different music genres and instruments, and being less structured. The songs often referred to drug use, fit for the setting (Sixties). Acid rock had a very distinct sound, one that mixed different genres and allowed for it to be liked by many. It connected different groups of people as a common ground and, though the music now wouldn't be considered very good to most people, the fact that listeners were doing drugs did not hurt. The psychedelic sound was not recreated until much later, in the 90s. The new songs were made to help one lose themselves in music, like in the 60s, but without the use of drugs (Hoshyns 15-17) .
The peak of Haight-Ashbury was in the summer of '67, called the Summer of Love. Everything seemed to be working together in harmony and the police never intervened since no harm was done in playing music and roaming the streets. The summer of 1967 included several music festivals, but the biggest with over fifty-thousand attendees was Monterey International Pop Festival, near Haight. The festival jump started the careers of both Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix (Sixties). Monterey was the gateway from Haight to LA, and they actually tolerated each other for a while which was uncommon, but Monterey also put acid rock out there for the rest of the world to enjoy, unlike any time before. Many Hippies in Haight felt that Monterey was not a good idea because it was full of fake hippies who did not live the life of peace and simplicity. They just wanted to listen to music and do drugs. The festival also had a negative impact, it allowed for the stars who once lived in the streets to let fame get to their head, breaking the bonds of togetherness into pieces (Hoshyns 151, 155-157).
The use of LSDs were declared illegal on October 6, 1966, but most people paid attention to the date rather than the law.

They associated the law with the anti Christ or a beast, since the numbers 666 stand out in the date. Exactly a year after the outlawing of LSDs, Haight had a parade called "The Death of Hippie." Many of the leaders in the hippie movement left Haight, and the parade was one last event. It ended in the burning of psychedelic sign and daisies being dropped on the Pentagon. Haight-Ashbury was a world class tourist attraction. The area was more well known than most other major cities in California. Tours of the area were given daily and very popular. At first, the hippies didn't mind the tourists, but as time went on, they wanted to stay out of the public’s eye (Anthony 118, 167, 27). In 1967, the loving atmosphere of Haight was interrupted when people came just to take drugs and were not interested in hippie lifestyle. Possibly even more discouraging to the residents, the neighborhood became a place people would pass through to see instead of a destination (Sixties). The hippies were different from other drug users. Although they used drugs to escape problems, they also used them to create the feeling they wanted society to be like, violence and sexist free in a world of peace and harmony. Just a year after Hashbury's height, the area was filled with drug abusers who did not care about love and camaraderie as the hippies, who now lived their separate

lives away from each other, did (Hoshyns 19, 205). Since the end of the 60s, Haight emptied out, along with the surrounding areas loosing their population. Today, things are mostly empty and all that is left on Haight Street is a few coffee shops, restaurants, and small stores, none of which accurately display the significance of Haight to American history (Anthony 167).