Haight-Ashbury In The 1960S Essay, Research Paper
The district of Haight Ashbury covered a five-block area starting at the Golden Gate Park and ending around the intersection of Shrader and Haight The appeal of Haight Ashbury? Simple; low rent, old Victorian homes, there were little shops everywhere, and a small town good vibe atmosphere and a need for acceptance from ones like themselves. The appeal of Haight Ashbury was simple: low rent, old Victorian houses, little shops everywhere, small town atmosphere and a contagiously good vibe. In the 1960?s San Francisco?s Haight Ashbury district was a national symbol through the lifestyle, the music, the people, and the publicity they thrilled a generation of American youth and scared there Parents.
The mysterious drug agent lysergic acid diethylamide, also known as LSD, connected the musicians, the hippies, and the love of Haight Ashbury (web site #3). Everywhere you went in the city of San Francisco that decade, 1960s, you saw the word love. The drug LSD opened a new window to the world for those who took it and followed the ?visions? they saw. Everyone there ate in the same restaurants, shopped for clothes at the same second hand stores, even took the same drugs.
It wasn?t until 1966 LDS became illegal (Web site #1). Drugs however weren?t the only thing going on at Haight-Ashbury. There was a new religion that also caught on as fast as LDS it was buddaismn. The music also was a huge key point to the Haight-Ashbury lifestyle.
Many musicians came out of Haight-Ashbury; influencing a generation of young people into how and why the Hippies felt the way they did. The band The Greatful Dead owned a house in the middle of Haight-Ashbury. They along with Jefferson Airplane held many free concerts on the now famous Hippie Hill.
?A handful of rock musicians acted as electric gamelons for this bizarre
New culture, both articulating the language, dress and style and spreading
Infection. And, in doing so, they changed the way music was played and
Heard around the world (web site #2).?
Over 160 other musicians and bands came out of the Haight-Ashbury area. Most however didn?t catch on as well as The Greatful Dead but in the streets they rang out.
Not only poets, philosophers, writers, and spiritual leaders came out of Haight-Ashbury. Writer Anne Rice, then known as Anne O?Brian, wrote her now famous book Interview With A Vampire there. Also the house at the beginning of that book is set in Haight-Ashbury (web site #1). Charles Manson also lived at Haight-Ashbury for a while. He sang a bit and slowly gathered the young females that became his ?family? that killed so many people. The people who hung out at Haight-Ashbury were some of the most creative people of the time. The thing that was too bad about this was the Hippies were looked down upon and most of these talents were never known by the nation. What little publicity Haight-Ashbury got was unwanted.
All the Hippies wanted was to be left alone. A book called The Love Book was illegally made and sold at the Psychedelic Shop in Haight-Ashbury. The book told of the advage day of a hippie. At first not very many were sold. Then the book sales skyrocketed when the Psychedelic Shop was busted for saling the book. Allen Cohen was also arrested for the writing and selling of the book. The publicity over the book drew even more people to Haight-Ashbury. When Allen Cohen went on trial just about every artist, poet, writer, philosopher, sociologist and spiritual leader in Haight-Ashbury came and spoke on his behalf. In the end The Love Book won and the conservative San Francisco lost.
Haight-Ashbury became bigger then anybody had imagined. What happened in that small neighborhood in San Francisco among a small circle of people will never fully be understood. The lifestyle, the music, the people, and the publicity that generated from Haight-Ashbury will always stay with the ones who experienced it and the youth around the world who wanted so badly to be involved with it. The events they set up there once started overtook them. To them it was just a statement of whom they were to the nation they were something to fall in love with.
Bibliography
Bib Page
Internet sites
1. http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Maps/Map6.Haight.html Ed Stephen?s Maps Created 11/8/2000 Looked up 11/11/00
2. http://www.delerium.co.uk/index_l4.html Delerium’s Psychedelic Web Of Sound Created 2000 Looked up 11/10/00
3. http://leda.lycaeum.org/Chemical_Families/Ergolines.7.shtml
lycaeum Created 1/16/2000 Looked up 11/11/00
Books
Beneath the Diamond Sky; Haight-Ashbury, 1965-1970 Barney Hoskyns. December 1997 Simon & Schuster
Haight Ashbury Flashbacks Stephen Gaskin December 1990 Ronin Publishing;