Haight Ashbury Free Clinic - Care Without Questions

A stop on San Francisco, District by District, a free self-guided tour.

At the corner of Haight and Clayton, look up at 558 Clayton Street. On June 7, 1967, Dr. David Smith opened the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic here, expecting that the thousands of young people arriving that summer would need care that no one else would give them. It charged nothing and asked no questions, treating bad drug trips, infections, injuries and hunger with volunteer doctors and nurses.

The clinic became a national model for free community clinics, and during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s it ran needle exchange programs that helped slow the spread of HIV. It closed in 2019, after merging into a larger health nonprofit.

A few blocks east, in Buena Vista Park on October 6, 1967, residents staged a mock funeral called the Death of the Hippie, telling the media and the newcomers that the moment had passed.

More on Wikipedia: Haight Ashbury Free Clinic · Buena Vista Park

Stops on this tour

  1. Ferry Building and the Embarcadero - Where the City Met the World
  2. Financial District and Jackson Square - Gold Rush on the Old Shoreline
  3. Chinatown - The Neighborhood That Refused to Move
  4. North Beach and Telegraph Hill - Little Italy and the Beats
  5. Fisherman's Wharf - Italian Boats and Old Ships
  6. Nob Hill and Russian Hill - Cable Cars, Mansions and the Great Fire
  7. The Presidio - Two Centuries Guarding the Golden Gate
  8. Japantown and the Fillmore - Two Communities, One Neighborhood
  9. Haight-Ashbury - From Victorian Suburb to Summer of Love
  10. Golden Gate Park - Sand Dunes Turned Into a Park
  11. The Castro - A Neighborhood That Became a Movement
  12. The Mission - Where San Francisco Began
  13. Civic Center - Domes, Charters and Protest
  14. South of Market - From Rincon Hill to the Tech Boom