HAIGHT ASHBURY DISTRICT
Haight Ashbury was a neighborhood that became the center of the San
Francisco Renaissance, and influenced the rise of drug culture and the
rock and roll lifestyle. Students began visiting Haight during the
spring break of 1967. San Francisco's government leaders were determined
to stop the young people from coming once schools let out for the
summer. They unwittingly brought additional attention to the scene, and
created an ongoing series of articles in local papers. These articles
informed the national media of the hippies' growing numbers. By spring,
Haight community leaders responded by forming the “Council of the Summer
of Love”.  The activities in the area were reported almost daily by
mainstream media coverage, this coverage of hippie life in the
Haight-Ashbury drew the attention of youth from all over America.
Haight Ashbury’s fame reached its peak as it became the center for a
large number of the top rock performers and other groups from the time.
The summer of Love helped Psychedelic rock music enter into mainstream,
and receive more commercial radio airplay. One of the more famous songs
was “San Francisco (Be sure to wear flowers in your hair” was written by
John Phillips and became a hit single in 1967. In addition, the Monterey
Pop Festival further cemented the status of the music as a part of
mainstream culture and helped get local Haight bands such as the
Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane to national stardom. Major media
interest in the hippie subculture exposed the Haight Ashbury district
and popularized the hippie culture movements around the world. While the
summer of love attracted a wide range of people, Haight Ashbury could
not accommodate the rapid influx of people. Overcrowding, homelessness,
hunger, drug problems, and crime afflicted the neighborhood and soon the
neighborhood scene quickly deteriorated as many people left in the fall
to resume school. On October 6, 1967, the remaining people in the Haight
staged a mock funeral called, "The Death of the Hippie" ceremony, to
signal the end of the Cultural Revolution in Haight Ashbury. A woman
named Mary Kasper explained the message of the mock funeral by saying
“We wanted to signal that this was the end of it, don't come out. Stay
where you are! Bring the revolution to where you live. Don't come here
because it's over and done with.”  The message was taken seriously and
the large crowds did not return in following years.

Haight-Ashbury. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November
08, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/724540/Haight-Ashbury