Haight/ Ashbury

[kevin nee]

I am going to LA to visit a relative in Lake Arrowhead. Then going to San Franscco to visit another relative in Hercules. I will have a a free day in San Fran when I arrive and would like to check out the Haight, been before 1968 & 2001. What is going on there now. Any suggestions on where to stay or where to stay away from. I will be there the 27th. Thanks in advance, Kevin

[Bruce Page]

Let us know what you find. I was there for a weekend in 1967 and haven’t been back since. Crazy place! I smoked at the time and made the mistake of lighting up as I and a buddy were walking around. I was out of cigarettes by the time I got to the next corner..

[Scott Donley]

You must have been one of a few smoking cigarettes, when I was there in 69 that is not what they were smoking

[Jim Koepke]

Then going to San Franscco to visit another relative in Hercules. I will have a a free day in San Fran when I arrive and would like to check out the Haight

Not sure if there is really much there worth checking out. Of course my last visit there is getting close to a decade gone by. Things I did like in SF was down in the basement of Macy's was a food court with one of them being a pretty high class menu but inexpensively served on plastic plates with plastic utensils. Another just up Geary Boulevard past Powell Street was Lefty O'Doul's. If one is a baseball fan, this is almost a must see. Then down Powell toward Market Street is TADS, (I used to joke it meant Tough And Dry Steaks) Steakhouse. A good steak dinner at a decent price. It was always fun to see the tourist from the other side of the Pacific there taking pictures of their meals and amazed at the portions.

If you get to Berkeley and like Mexican food, check out Cancuun on Allston Way. If you like good hot dogs there is Top Dog on Center Street.

I smoked at the time and made the mistake of lighting up as I and a buddy were walking around. I was out of cigarettes by the time I got to the next corner..

Makes me think of some song lyrics, "You light yourself a cigarette and just as soon as you've got it lit, there's forty new found friends right by your side... "

I used to roll my own cigarettes just to avoid this. If my cigarettes looked like it was hand rolled people would think it was made of something other than tobacco and ask for a puff. When people asked me for a cigarette my honest reply was, "this is the only one I have." If they asked about it more my story was rather long about how on a trip through Ireland a short little man who befriended me, after trying to snatch a bottle of whiskey from my pack, granted me an idle wish about being able to have "just one cigarette" and how since then whenever the thought of having a smoke came up one would appear in my pocket. Amazingly many of these folks believed me and by that time I was pretty much through with my smoke and gave them the rest of the cigarette to finish.

jtk

[Bruce Page]

You must have been one of a few smoking cigarettes, when I was there in 69 that is not what they were smoking

There was plenty of that going on too.

[Wade Lippman]

I stayed in a AirBNB a block from there a few years ago. It isn't much different than many other neighborhoods.

[Stan Calow]

Its been gentrified.

[Jim Barkelew]

I drove thru there sometime around 1970. Never stopped. After driving thru the intersection, I would got to Golden Gate park, the coast, Fisherman's Warf or best yet, drive across the Golden Gate to Muir Woods.