50 plus DC - Mission and Haight Ashbury

Mission Dolores

Mission San Francisco de Asís was founded in 1776 beside an inlet called Laguna Dolores. After the nearby town of Yerba Buena changed its name to San Francisco, the mission became better known by the name of the inlet. The location near the inlet proved to be a poor choice as there was little space for agriculture and cold winds blew off the sea bringing damp fogs. A better site was chosen a little way to the west and a new adobe church was dedicated on that site in 1791. The Mission Dolores church has survived undamaged by earthquakes, fire and political upheavals to become the oldest intact building in San Francisco. In contrast a brick church standing next to it was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. It was replaced in 1918 by the Mission Dolores Basilica.

Dolores Street near Liberty

Haight-Ashbury dates back to 1883 when the Haight Street Cable Car line opened. Soon middle class houses were springing up where previously there had been little more than sand dunes. Hit hard by the depression in the 1930s, the area went into decline and many of the spacious Victorian houses were divided into apartments or left vacant.

Victorian houses, Castro at Liberty

An area that is in decline is a good place to look for cheap rooms, and in the 1960s hippies came here in droves. With them they brought their drugs culture and their psychedelic rock music. In 1967 the ‘Summer of Love’ brought a rush of people to the area, eager to sample the culture. The event is immortalised in Scott McKenzie’s recording of the song ‘San Francisco (be sure to wear flowers in your hair)’. It is probable that the Hippies saved the Victorian nature of Haight-Ashbury as without them the decline would have continued and redevelopment would surely have followed. Nowadays the search by the hippies for free everything has been replaced by a faint whiff of money. Haight-Ashbury is a much smarter place but it retains some of the bohemian atmosphere of the hippie era.

Mission & Haight-Ashbury

This is an area that escaped the worst effects of the 1906 earthquake, indeed it completely escaped the the fires that followed the earthquake. As a result it has plenty of history, from its 1776 Mission to its abundance of Victorian buildings. It is also a place where plenty of people failed to remember the 1960s. Hippies moved in and drugs such as marijuana and LSD became part of their way of life. The hippie era culminated in the Summer of Love when up to 100,000 people from around the world flocked to the Haight-Ashbury district.

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- An area that is interesting for its Mission and Victorian Houses.

- It is a bit far from the main tourist areas and most easily explored by car.

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