Contractors Cranston and Keenan were active builders in the Haight district of San Francisco around the 1890's and 1900's This beautifully restored Queen Anne style home was the predominant mode of design during this period. These home sold for around $7,000 which, at the time, was a considerable sum of money.

Tags:   The Haight Haight Ashbury Haight-Ashbury San Francisco hippie hippie movement Summer of Love counterculture California Cranston and Keenan Queen Anne Style

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Lyon Street, between Oak and Page, in The Haight section of San Francisco....house on the left is reputed to be one of the many places that Janis Joplin is said to have lived.

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer, songwriter, and music arranger, from Port Arthur, Texas. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist. Joplin left her home in Texas in 1963. She came to San Francisco and lived in North Beach and later here in Haight-Ashbury around 1963-64.

Housing in the Haight these days is very expensive and homes, such as these, have been restored....I suspect that the house didn't look quite so good as this in the days when Joplin lived here.

Tags:   The Haight Haight Ashbury Haight-Ashbury San Francisco hippie hippie movement Summer of Love counterculture California Janis Joplin Joplin Big Brother and the Holding Company Lyon Street Panhandle American singer

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A beautifully restored Queen Anne Tower House in the Haight section of San Francisco. Queen Anne became an architectural fashion in the 1880s and 1890s, when the industrial revolution was building up steam. North America was caught up in the excitement of new technologies. Factory-made, precut architectural parts were shuttled across the country on a rapidly expanding train network. Exuberant builders combined these pieces to create innovative, and sometimes excessive, homes. Also, widely-published pattern books touted spindles and towers and other flourishes we associate with Queen Anne architecture.

Fanciful and flamboyant, Queen Anne architecture takes on many shapes. Some Queen Anne houses are lavishly decorated. Others are restrained in their embellishments. There is an element of surprise to the typical Queen Anne home. The roof is steeply pitched and irregular. The overall shape of the house is asymmetrical.

Tags:   The Haight Haight Ashbury Haight-Ashbury San Francisco hippie hippie movement Summer of Love counterculture California Queen Anne architecture architectural style Victorian

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San Francisco has long been a city of the "other." Though beatniks and hippies have long gone, two neighborhoods in particular remain mainstays of counter-culture life. The Haight, or Haight-Ashbury, is really two neighborhoods, Lower Haight and Upper Haight. Lower Haight is famed as the epicenter of the hippie movement, but is now a destination for trend-minded youth looking for shoes, bags, second hand clothes, and the odd plastic robot figurine. Yet the Upper Haight, nestled between Buena Vista and Golden Gate Parks, is also an energetic community-oriented commercial district where yuppies, street punks, and long-time residents rub shoulders. Closer to Market Street, the Lower Haight is an edgier place of small bars, night clubs, and DJ hangouts.

Tags:   The Haight Haight Ashbury Haight-Ashbury San Francisco hippie hippie movement Summer of Love counterculture California Upper Haight Golden Gate Park community Lower Haight street corner

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At one time this house, with its unusual and elaborate brass gate and steep brick stairs, was physically connected to the house next door. Both homes, located at 755 and 737 Buena Vista West in the Upper Haight area of San Francisco, were owned by Graham Nash of CSNY fame (Crosby, Stills, Nash and, Young). This section served as a small recording studio. In it, many of the early bay area (San Francisco) rockers recorded demos and honed their craft. Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Steve Miller band made early recordings here.

Tags:   The Haight Haight Ashbury Haight-Ashbury San Francisco hippie hippie movement Summer of Love counterculture California CSNY Graham Nash Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young Upper Haight Spreckels Mansion Buena Vista West brass gate stairs stairway metal grate metal steps house home rocker celebrity brick gate

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