In this paper, I want to share the history of Haight Ashbury, and its transition from a small town with nice Victorian homes, to its deterioration in the 1960’s. The importance of a farm in Woodstock, to the Cultural Revolution and how it all spread from there including the role of radio and television in spreading the news of the hippie movement and how an attempt to free culture from its moral ideals and standards only led it with no standards or moral compass, and all they were left with was thought to be an idea of the Summer of Love.
Haight Ashbury and its history has been an amazing phenomenon to many visitors. I have found that many people have visited to see the art, learn about the culture, and even hear about what kind of music everyone was obsessed with. Haight was named a “Vibrant Hippie History” because of its bright colors and very artsy buildings. In 1967, Haight formed the famous heyday, which included the infamous “Summer of Love.” This “Summer of Love” included a very psychedelic movement of experimentation and peaceful protests. The way that Haight Ashbury died out was caused by a fall but was originally a neighborhood of revolutionaries, famous singers, and cult leaders. I observed this fall and found out that it had been caused by people trashing it and abandoning it. It was later then filled with homeless people and drugs.
Why does Haight have an “artsy” culture? Well I can tell you. In the 1960’s, artists from spiritual groups, musical groups, and famous musicians descended on Haight Asbury to express their creativity. Fueled by drugs, this often gave the artists and participants a bad reputation. Local filmmakers and independent artists would show their movie work at the Red Vic Theater. The artists woul...
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...e of the hippie philosophy, the many people drawn to Haight Ashbury were teenagers, college students, members of the military, and vacationers. Many were drawn to the area because of radios playing popular songs, and major media, and newspapers, interest in the hippie culture. With the rival of all those hoping to find a place with a perfect culture, the area deteriorated. Homelessness, drug problems and crime drove many away with broken lives, and shattered dreams.
References
G, Gilbert. "Hippies." New World 16 May 1967: 1. Newspaper.
G., Gilbert. "Report From Haight - Ashbury." San Francisco Chronicle 15 May 1967: 1. Newspaper.
McIntire, C. "Haight Ashbury Literary Journal." San Francisco Chronicale 1979: 2. Newspaper.
Schwartz, C. Huffington Post. September 15 2012. Website. 4 April 2014.
Unterberger, R. Eight Miles High. Berkley: Backbeat Books, 2003. Book.
Here she explains that New York was making a fast change to something different, but hip hop gave it the voice that it needed in order to show what was going on throughout all that. Hip hop was the trending music choice at that time, especially when others around the area could relate. Hip hop also was a release for them, instead of being stressed over not having a job or wondering how they’re gonna get money, they partied all together while listening to hip hop. When music classes were cut in school they could listen to it on their own with the innovative ways they created, “The postindustrial city, which provided the context for creative development among hip hop’s earliest innovators, shaped their cultural terrain, access to space, materials and education”
Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing project is notorious in the United States for being the most impoverished and crime-ridden public housing development ever established. Originally established as inexpensive housing in the 1940’s, it soon became a vast complex of unsightly concrete low and high-rise apartment structures. Originally touted as a giant step forward in the development of public housing, it quickly changed from a racially and economically diverse housing complex to a predominantly black, extremely poor ghetto. As it was left to rot, so to speak, Cabrini-Green harbored drug dealers, gangs and prostitution. It continued its downward spiral of despair until the mid 1990’s when the Federal Government assumed control the Chicago Housing Authority, the organization responsible for this abomination. Cabrini-Green has slowly been recovering from its dismal state of affairs recently, with developers building mixed-income and subsidized housing. The Chicago Housing Authority has also been demolishing the monolithic concrete high-rise slums, replacing them with public housing aimed at not repeating the mistakes of the past. Fortunately, a new era of public housing has dawned from the mistakes that were made, and the lessons that were learned from the things that went on for half a century in Cabrini-Green.
Several works we have read thus far have criticized the prosperity of American suburbia. Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus, and an excerpt from Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poem "A Coney Island of the Mind" all pass judgement on the denizens of the middle-class and the materialism in which they surround themselves. However, each work does not make the same analysis, as the stories are told from different viewpoints.
Proud (2014) describes Shoreditch, an area in east London as a metonym for unlucky pieces of real estate that have had the hipster formula applied to them. situates the term in space, going one further to describe hipsterfication as “Shoreditchification” However the term “hipster” has been mentioned in other geographical works such as that of David Ley and Tom Butler (1980; 1997), in the theories of “the new middle class” of gentrifiers. Hipsters have turned themselves into “self-gentrifying urban Bedouins”, “popping-off then popping-up” where ever is cheapest (Eror 2014). The perceived advantages and disadvantages that this new “creative class of the skilled, educated and hip”, bring are mixed in literature (Companella; Kotkin
American society and culture experienced an awakening during the 1960s as a result of the diverse civil rights, economic, and political issues it was faced with. At the center of this revolution was the American hippie, the most peculiar and highly influential figure of the time period. Hippies were vital to the American counterculture, fueling a movement to expand awareness and stretch accepted values. The hippies’ solutions to the problems of institutionalized American society were to either participate in mass protests with their alternative lifestyles and radical beliefs or drop out of society completely. The government and the older generations could not understand their way of life.
Acting as a catalytic reaction, the Beatnik Riot put in motion for a new modernized America. Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park in Manhattan, New York was previously occupied by young protestors driven by anti-war and racial aspects. “In the spring of 1961, the Washington Square Association, a community group of homeowners around the square, appealed to New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation to do something about the hundreds of ‘roving troubadours and their followers’ playing music around the square’s turned off fountain on Sunday afternoons “ (Straughsbaugh 1). “The parks commission began issuing permits to limit the number of musicians, allowing them to ‘sing and play from two until five as long as they had no drums,’ Van Ronk writes” ( Straughsbaugh 1). Permitting the number of musicians provoked the traditionalist to become active protestors. The community around the square complained about the ruckus caused by these hippies, racial mixture, cultured young folks. In Greenwich Village an old historical dilemma was of the racial ideas having this heritage people were not in favor of t...
Most Angelinos know that Dodger Stadium was once Chavez Ravine, a quiet and independent hillside neighborhood. Most would also agree that Dodger Stadium is an appropriate progression for an area known and designated as a slum. However, what most citizens do not realize is the designation of Chavez Ravine as a slum served merely as a cover-up for the city's own agenda of modernization through the vehicle of politics. The Community's identity as a quiet hillside neighborhood was ultimately shattered in the wake of the 1949 Housing Act under modern urban planning and the larger realm of politics during an era of intense anti-communist sentiment. This paper will argue that those aforementioned themes as the reason f...
In 1969 at Bethel, New York, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was 3 day event that was all about peace, love, music, and partying. It was a historic event that changed what was known back then as the “hippie movement”. At Woodstock there were many influential artists that performed at this huge event. It was a popular festival that led the later generations to embrace the sentiment and mood of what Woodstock came to represent. People didn’t realize (until later) how historic Woodstock really was. Woodstock was actually supposed to be a simple small event that would have around a only expected to have 5,000 people attend. It surpassed all expectations by having nearly 500,000 people attend. In the end it actually become a
The general mindset of the 1960’s San Francisco scene is well summarized by Reebee Garafalo in his book Rockin’ Out: Popular Music in the USA when he states: “For the counterculture, the focus on mind-expanding drugs seemed to offer the possibility of greater self-awareness and consciousness, which would in turn lead to a world without war, competition, or regimentation.” The concept of expanding the mind in order to achieve a peaceful, utopian world naturally lends itself to the consumption of drugs. The image of half naked, marijuana smoking hippies dancing around in the park comes to mind when one thinks of the late 60’s Haight-Ashbury scene. Drugs help tremendously in creating an altered state, making one oblivious to the outside world. A great deal of the music was preaching peace, love,...
Approximately, fifteen thousand hippies occupied this section of the town, including the psychedelic bands The Charlatans, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother, and the Holding Company. The Diggers attempted to create a subculture independent of the monetary economy because they were scorned by consumer society. The Diggers took the name from the original English Diggers who had promulgated a vision of society free from private property, and all forms of buying and selling. Pete Coyote was the founder of the Diggers and active in Haight-Ashbury during the mid-60’s, he was a director with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and was a key figure during San Francisco’s counterculture. The San Francisco Mime Troupe is a theater that uses a mix of political satire and original music. They used to preform free shows in various parks in San Francisco Bay area and around California. Coyote, along with Emmett Grogan and Peter Berg, they created provocative "theater" events designed to heighten awareness of problems associated with the notion of private property, consumerism, and identification with one's work. They fed nearly 600 people a day for "free", asking only that people pass through a six-foot by six-foot square known as The Free Frame of Reference.” They continued to carry the belief that
In the duration of one year, 1968, the American national mood shifted from general confidence and optimism to chaotic confusion. Certainly the most turbulent twelve months of the post-WWII period and arguably one of the most disturbing episodes the country has endured since the Civil War, 1968 offers the world a glimpse into the tumultuous workings of a revolution. Although the entire epoch of the 1960's remains significant in US history, 1968 stands alone as the pivotal year of the decade; it was the moment when all of the nation's urges toward violence, sublimity, diversity, and disorder peaked to produce a transformation great enough to blanket an entire society. While some may superficially disagree, the evidence found in the Tet Offensive, race relations, and the counterculture's music of the period undeniably affirm 1968 as a turning point in American history.
Harvey, Todd, and et al. Gentrification and West Oakland: Causes, Effects, and Best Practices 1999. 22 Nov. 2003.
This festival was a pivotal moment in San Francisco history because it was the leading cause of rock music’s evolution as well as the Summer of Love. Monterey outlined the spirit, look, and sound of the Summer of Love and affected San Francisco forever. After the Summer of Love, San Francisco was molded as the carefree open-minded, loving city and people from all over the world came by to experience the san Francisco culture.
Along with the peak of several movements music began to reach a point of climax. Rock specifically began to flourish in the 1960’s, while expressing the voice of the liberated generation. It is the power of such trends that overall lead to what is known as the greatest music festival of all time: Woodstock Music and Art Fair. The festival started on August 15, 1969 on Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York. Appealing to the time period, Woodstock was designed to be Three Days of Peace and Music. However, many argue that it was more than just a musical art fair of peace, but a historically significant event that shifted American culture. While some regard Woodstock as the beginning of a cultural advancement and the end of a naïve era, others view it as ridiculous hippy festival infested with illegal drug usage. Woodstock cost over $2.4 million and attracted over 450,000 people (Tiber, 1). Despite the debate of whether Woodstock produced a positive or negative effect, it is clear that a note worthy impact was made. When discussing the overall impact of Woodstock it is important to look at the influences and creative plan and the positive and negative effects produced from the festival.
The Beats, hippies, and punks are evidence that behind the white picket fence of suburbia lay an America that wanted more out of life than the sugar coated portrayals of domesticity and patriotism it received from pop culture. The unfortunate side of authenticity often lead to the conclusion that autonomy was an impossible dream and that just mere existence required an individual to compromise his integrity. The post-war generation developed an interesting love-hate relationship with the mass culture of it’s time. Some, like Andy Warhol, embraced the inevitability of mass culturalization in order to control the beast (yes, this is a reference to Revelations). While others recognized the American Dream as being a hypocrisy and so chose the Golden Eternity instead.The Beat generation and early hippies sought to separate themselves from mainstream society where they believed they could start anew and fully experience life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The flower child philosophy was in fact very Transcendental, minus the stuffy New England mentality.