Hippie Hill - The Park's Gathering Place

Hippie Hill - The Park's Gathering Place

Photo: Benjamin Tincq, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)

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

Walk west on Haight Street into Golden Gate Park and bear right to the grassy slope above Sharon Meadow, known to everyone as Hippie Hill. In the 1960s it was the neighborhood's gathering spot, a place for drum circles, guitars, picnics and impromptu concerts, and drummers still gather here on weekends.

The Haight's biggest moment in the park happened about two miles west. On January 14, 1967, tens of thousands of people came to the Polo Fields for the Human Be-In, with poets, rock bands and speakers on a single stage. It drew national press and spread word of the Haight across the country, setting the stage for the Summer of Love.

Hippie Hill is the end of this mini tour. The park's museums and gardens are the next stop on the main route.

More on Wikipedia: Golden Gate Park · Human Be-In

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