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18
body get together, try to !ove one
another, right now."
1966 - The Media Step
In
As word-of-mouth advertising spread
the news, gradually more young people
carne. The underground press began
writing about it. Then, all of a sudden
it caught everyone's 1magination! Press
and television began to glorify and pub–
licize Haight-Ashbury. This quickly
made Haight-Ashbury
the scene.
News
and a new fad had been manufactured,
if you please. Haight-Ashbury became
the place to go! And, youth took note.
Soon there were songs and slogans.
People wondered what was happening.
The news media liberally fed their
curiosity.
"Haight-Ashbury was unknown until
the media broadcasted it al! over the
United States," said Inspector Joseph
Rinkon of the San Francisco Narcotics
Bureau. "The hippies didn't know they
were flower children until they read
about it. Then they got the flowers. It
was the news media that made Haigbt–
Ashbury what it has been in the past."
Commented one angered businessman
and longtime resident: "The press
would
come
clown with cameras and
photograph a bunch of hippies having
fun in the streets. But they never really
showed it like it was. They glorified the
'flower children'
idea
and this attracted
thousands more!"
As the first hippies smoked pot,
"loved" and grooved, thcir neighbor–
hood filled with sight-seers and pseudo–
hippics. Their music, their vocabulary
and their hippie garb became "stylish."
And merchants began growing fat on
psycbedelic colors, fabrics, buttons and
cheap hippie trinkets.
Suddenly, they had hit the main–
stream of world attention!
The songs claimed the scene was
beautiful. But was it rcally?
Runaways and social misfits began
sharing crash pads. Streets became filled
with peoplc day and night. Therc
were week-end hippies, teeny-boppers,
young-old hippies in their thirties trying
to prove they were "with it."
The vacuum in moral values in
Haight-Ashbury made even an alley cat
seem prudish. Fourtcen-ycar-old girls
The
PLAIN TRUTH
HAIGHT-ASHBURY AFTER THE
HIPPIES-
Today, the older, low–
rent community looks like mony
other streets. Hippie shops are
boarded up. Shoppers are return–
ing and efforts lo rebuild the orea
ore under way.
Ambouodor Colltgt Photos
became mothers. Teen-age escapees
from society sunk into lasciviousness.
Venereal disease reached epidemic pro·
portions. And, "mind-expanding" LSD
blew the cool of many of its advocates.
"Even during its heyday it wasn't all
beautiful," said community relations
official Robert Spotswood. "lt was full
of runaways from al! ovcr the coun–
try. .. . Young !<ids, fourtccn and fif.
teen, would ask visitors for twcnty-eight
cents just to buy a quart of milk. Kincl
uf sad."
Chronic hunger was a common thing.
The crash pads
were
filthy. As many
as fifteen
oc
twenty would live in onc
cold-water flat. They ate dirty food on
dirty plates and slcpt on dirty mat–
tresses. The rooms werc fui! of !ice.
Human excrement littered thc floor.
"Sorne of the places they livcd in,"
commented Police Captain Mortimcr J.
Mclnerney, "you'd vomit when you
walked into them."
No, it wasn't all flowers and songs
and poetry.
It
started .filthy and it gol
worse fast.
April 1971
1967-68 - Weeds Sprout
Youngsters in increasiog numbers
found
the
new scene only disillusioning
and frustrating. It meant going hungry
and it meant panhandling.
It
meant
popping pills and "being uscd." It
brought bad trips and frequent "busts."
This Mecca for nearly every runaway
kid in America was becoming a seething
cauldron of vice and crime. Hustlers
and drug pushers were moving into the
area. The widespread use of drugs drew
the hard-core drug pushers. There were
violcnt assaults and robberies. Pan–
handlers remained, but no longer did
they smilc or offer flowers for a fcw
coins.
And, the rough element carne in -
the "kick 'em around" bunch, the