Flashback Downloads: Haight-Ashbury, 1966

posted on evolver.net by Vintage Tripper, Sylvia Anderson | November 12, 2010


If we had to live in a city again, I wanted a big apartment, close to a park. I found one through a rental agency. It was a five-room flat on the corner of Shrader and Waller streets, a block from Golden Gate Park and within my budget. Great! The fact that it was also a block from Haight Street didn’t mean a thing to me. I was still in my New-Yorker head of thinking that nothing really important could be happening anywhere west of the Hudson, and I had never even heard of Haight-Ashbury. It was Fall, 1966, Little did I know that all Heaven was about to break loose in our new neighborhood, in our apartment, and in my own consciousness.

So Todd, Yogi and I moved into our new digs in the Haight. The apartment was one flight up, over a tool rental store. I actually felt somewhat relieved living in a city again. At least I could walk to the laundromat and grocery store if the van wasn’t running. And living just a block from Golden Gate Park was wonderful. It was a huge park, extending ten miles west to the ocean, with many meadows, forested areas, museums, and a great playground for kids of all ages. Todd especially enjoyed the spiral slide, the petting zoo, and the merry-go-round.