My first view of Haight last August. On one hand you have a stenchhippie next to a tattoo shop, too lazy to stand and bum, and on the other hand, a nice looking couple walking by hand in hand.
Posted on 07/29/2008 7:36:46 AM PDT by SmithL
There is nothing that captures the yin and yang of San Francisco today like the inexorable pull of change in the neighborhoods. As young families and empty nesters move in, they push to raise the standard of living. And inevitably, there is pushback from those who like things the way they are.
If there's a perfect test tube for that kind of neighborhood conflict, it is the Haight, where bong shops meet trendy new clothing shops. Longtime residents like to say that Haight has been a district in transition for years, but it seems that now it has reached critical mass.
Neighborhood groups are up in arms, angry e-mails are flying, and there's even talk of a sit-in at City Hall.
All over a grocery store.
The fact is, things are changing in the city. Residents are demanding more from their neighborhoods - and they are getting it. A new consciousness is taking hold, and that's a good thing.
The nexus of this conflict is the abandoned Cala Foods store at Stanyan and Haight streets, right across from the east entrance to Golden Gate Park. It's been an eyesore and gathering spot for panhandlers, drug users and layabouts for years. Developer Mark Brennan wants to place a large, four-story building there with a Whole Foods store on the ground floor, three levels of parking underneath and three floors of condominiums. Opponents, like the famously militant Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, are fighting the idea.
As a rule, when the council opposes something, that's the end of it. But neighbors say this may be the issue that changes the game in the Haight.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
My first view of Haight last August. On one hand you have a stenchhippie next to a tattoo shop, too lazy to stand and bum, and on the other hand, a nice looking couple walking by hand in hand.
Ick ick icky. The comic Sinbad once summed it up perfectly: “I went on down to the Haight-Ashbury today. You know, someone needs to tell these people ‘time moves on!’”
Are they so bitter that they cling to their angry emails and sit-ins? Why, don’t they know this is the season of Change???
Charge him with a HaightCrime.
History repeats itself. Saw part of a PBS special on H-A that showed the Hippies taking over from the folks that had lived there and pushing them out, now the same thing is being done to those aging hippies.
Heh! Good one!
Is there anything these people won’t protest? Sorry folks time moves on, younger families move in who don’t give a darn about what you like they’d like a grocery stores they could walk to instead of a hang out spot.
Don’t these people care about GLOBAL WARMING? They expect folks to DRIVE far away to get their groceries rather than have a store in the neighborhood, just so they can keep their charming bum, er hippie/drug culture alive? SAVE MOTHER EARTH!!!!
So, because some hippies hung out there 40 years ago, the current hippies don’t want a food store to open there?
Makes sense.
Smith, do I recall the right park entrance......is this the corner that already has a McDonalds??
I’m the wrong one to ask. I rarely go into the Special City, and the last time I took visitors through the Haight was years ago.
LOL
As if...
right across haight street from mickey ds.
I guess they consider it a hipstorical site.
LOL
As if...
__________
I confess I’ve made the pilgramage to Haight Ashbury the last 2 years I have attended the Oracle conference (the Magnolia brew pub is worth the trip if you like really good craft brews), and there are quite a few young families there. It is a neighborhood in transition, and from where I sit, it’s moving up.
Why are they being so conservative about this issue.
I thought they were Liberals, pressing for change on all fronts; but here they are trying to keep things just like they were 40 years ago.
They’re just a bunch of ol’ fuddy-duddies.
Love the moocher’s poster, “You will give me change.”
There’s a certain humor in that....McDonalds okay, Grocery store (Whole Foods no less) not!!
’ “It’s not wealthy people,” Goldman said. “It’s young people with their first kids. They both work, and they can barely afford the place they bought.” ‘
If this is the case they need a Vons, not the very expensive and very limited Whole Foods. Actually, I’d love to see the hippies go nuts over a proposed WalMart in that spot.
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