Life in the Shadow of Mt. Diablo: San Francisco

Breaking Story! 5/4/23

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Mt. Diablo from San Francisco

Jitze Couperus (2010)

CC by 2.0

Still the classic source on the historical and cultural origins of San Francisco:

The history of the Barbary Coast properly begins with the gold rush to California in 1849. If the precious yellow metal hadn't been discovered ... the development of San Francisco's underworld in all likelihood would have been indistinguishable from that of any other large American city. Instead, owing almost entirely to the influx of gold-seekers and the horde of gamblers, thieves, harlots, politicians, and other felonious parasites who battened upon them, there arose a unique criminal district that for almost seventy years was the scene of more viciousness and depravity, but which at the same time possessed more glamour, than any other area of vice and iniquity on the American continent. The Barbary Coast is Herbert Asbury's classic chronicle of the birth of San Francisco—a violent explosion from which the infant city emerged full-grown and raging wild. From all over the world practitioners of every vice stampeded for the blood and money of the gold fields. Gambling dens ran all day including Sundays. From noon to noon houses of prostitution offered girls of every age and race. (In the 1850s, San Francisco was home to only one woman for every thirty men. It was not until 1910 that the sexes achieved anything close to parity in their populations.) This is the story of the banditry, opium bouts, tong wars, and corruption, from the eureka at Sutter's Mill until the last bagnio closed its doors seventy years later.

The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld by Herbert Asbury

https://www.amazon.com/Barbary-Coast-Informal-Francisco-Underworld/dp/1560254084

borrow for free or search inside

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6293499M/The_Barbary_coast?mode=all

William H. Brewer, Josiah Whitney’s principal botanical assistant on the State Geological

Survey, was exploring the mountain [Mt. Diablo] in May 1862

Brewer had some interesting observations along similar lines as Asbury's Barbary Coast.

I had been invited to lecture in Stockton on the evening of April 10, and went up the night before, arriving that morning. I was well received, hospitably entertained, and had a good time generally—got tall puffs in the three daily papers for my lecture.

The State Lunatic Asylum is there, and as the trustees were to have a meeting, I was invited to go up, which I did, and spent several hours visiting the institution while they were transacting their business. There are more insane in this state, by far, in proportion to the whole population, than in any 260 other state in the Union. I need not dilate on the reasons. High mental excitement, desperate characters, disappointed hopes of miners, the unnatural mode of life incident to mining, separation of families, and the indiscretions and infidelity to the marriage vows incident to these separations—these and other reasons have produced this frightful result.

Up and down California in 1860-1864; the journal of William H. Brewer, edited by Francis P. Farquhar, preface by Russell H. Chittenden

https://memory.loc.gov/service/gdc/calbk/142.pdf

The Gold Rush was kicked off and San Francisco was founded by Mormon pioneers and the Mormon Battalion (during the longest military march in U.S. history)

A Legacy More Precious than Gold, contributions of the Mormon Battalion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RkdA-UMGzw

Most people know about San Francisco’s architecture, steep hills, beautiful bridges and cable cars, but few know of a group of Mormon pioneers that arrived by ship in 1846 and helped build the city by the Bay.

https://californiapioneer.com/san-francisco-walking-tour/

Scott Onstott's Secrets in Plain Sight episode about San Francisco (11 min.), an esoteric analysis of SF's architecture and city planning.

Silicon Valley's Secret Weapon - The Shadow History of Burners Part 2 - Psyop & Presidio (2 hrs. 36 min.)

San Francisco began with the Presidio military base. The Church of Satan and Burning Man both started at its edges. It used to be the Command and Control Center of the Internet, as well as home to all kinds of "out there" military concepts like Projects GRILL FLAME and JEDI. It was a major earth base in Star Trek and the headquarters of Star Wars.

Silicon Valley’s Secret Weapon The Shadow History of Burners Pt 3 – Satan's Birthday Party (2 hours)

We take a look at Satanism, and its similarities to other ideologies such as Objectivism, Scientism, and Atheism. The Church of Satan began in San Francisco next to the Presidio, and so did Burning Man 20 years later.

Inside San Francisco's Abandoned Military Bunker Opened After 30 Years (13 min.)

https://youtu.be/UlXq7oznuCY

Long-lost tunnel found in the Presidio
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Long-lost-tunnel-found-in-the-Presidio-3250161.php#photo-2398798

A Peek Inside The Secret Graffiti Tunnels Of San Francisco
https://secretsanfrancisco.com/a-peek-inside-the-secret-graffiti-tunnels-of-san-francisco/

August 19, 1964

The Beatles kick off first U.S. tour at San Francisco’s Cow Palace
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-beatles-kick-off-first-u-s-tour-at-san-franciscos-cow-palace#:~:text=On%20August%2019%2C%201964%2C%20more,concert%20tour%20of%20North%20America.

1970s

Watch John Lennon and Yoko Ono ride a cable car in SF with Geraldo Rivera

Rare footage shows John Lennon and Yoko Ono ride a cable car and drive through San Francisco - ABC7 San Francisco (abc7news.com)

Addresses of Interest:

Anton LaVey's Black House
6114 California St.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_House_(Church_of_Satan)

The Spooky History Of 6114 California Street, The Black House
https://hoodline.com/2016/10/the-spooky-history-of-6114-california-street-the-black-house/

The Spooky History of the Westerfield House
1198 Fulton St.
Kenneth Anger, Bobby Beausoleil, Anton LaVey (and his lions!), and many other interesting characters...

https://hoodline.com/2014/10/the-spooky-history-of-the-westerfeld-house/

Graham Nash

Bobby McFerrin

731 Buena Vista Ave. West

(within short walking distance to Haight St. and Masonic Ave.)

Janis Joplin

122 Lyon St. #3

and 635 Ashbury St.

The Process Church:
407 Cole St.
1820 Oak Street
2416 Geary Street

https://pdfcoffee.com/chapter-from-the-family-pdf-free.html

Alleged Zodiac victim, Paul Stine
615 Cole St.
(accross the street and three doors down from Manson, below
1965 - 1966, and possibly part of '67
Late '67
1842 Fell St.

Manson Family's Haight-Ashbury House
636 Cole St.
https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Manson%27s_Mansion

Introducing The Haight's Charles Manson House
https://hoodline.com/2014/10/introducing-the-haight-s-charles-manson-house/

The Manson Family's San Francisco connections (92 photos)
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/The-roots-of-evil-The-Manson-Family-s-SF-11078365.php#taboola-4

The "Jimi Hendrix House"
1524 Ashbury St.

The "Grateful Dead House"
710 Ashbury St.

Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane

2400 Fulton St.

Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols

32 Delmar St.

The debauched story of San Francisco’s most rock ‘n’ roll house, 2400 Fulton

https://www.sfgate.com/obscuresf/article/sf-2400-fulton-jefferson-airplane-17751356.php

The most famous (and infamous) houses of Haight-Ashbury

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/2021-04-san-francisco-haight-ashbury-famous-homes-16129977.php

Photo tour of Haight-Ashbury
https://www.mansonblog.com/2017/05/tour-2017-haight-ashbury.html

Who's Who of the Haight-Ashbury Era
https://wild-bohemian.com/hip-dbf.htm

by stu_spivack - Haight Ashbury Free Medical ClinicUploaded by LongLiveRock, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9579306

Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic
558 Clayton St.

Abigail Folger volunteered here:
https://www.sfweekly.com/news/yesterdays-crimes-news/yesterdays-crimes-the-helter-skelter-heiress/

(My second husband's maternal grandmother from Massachusetts is descended from the Macy's and the Folgers. So I was married to a not-too-distant cousin of Abigail Folger.)

Hunter S. Thompson's (still bullet-ridden) House
318 Parnassus Ave.

https://maps.roadtrippers.com/us/san-francisco-ca/points-of-interest/hunter-s-thompsons-house

U.C.S.F. Medical Center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCSF_Medical_Center

400 Parnassus Ave.

Four of my siblings were born here.

This is also the location of Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital.

One of my siblings was committed there for a number of weeks sometime around 1990 when I was about 20 and he was in Kindergarten or first or second grade.

I was also taken by my parents to see a medical doctor at the UCSF Medical Center once when I was in high school. I was also there for my mom's prenatal visits and wellness checkups after my siblings were born. When I was in junior high and high school I used to love to go record store shopping on Haight St. When I went to go visit my mother and my newborn siblings at UCSF, or my brother when he was at Langley-Porter later on, I used to take the opportunity to walk to Haight St. to do some shopping.

Andrew Weil who according to Wikipedia, graduated from high school in 1959 with a scholarship from the American Association for the United Nations, Weil began study at Harvard in 1960 alongside Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert During that time period he read The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley. After graduating in 1964 he entered Harvard Medical School and in his final year completed an internship at The University of California, San Francisco Medical Center from 1968 - 1969. During that time he was a volunteer at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic.

https://peyoteway.org/andrew-weill-1987-testimony/

Photo of Jolly West in San Francisco (1976):
https://theintercept.com/2019/11/24/cia-mkultra-louis-jolyon-west/

The C.I.A.'s critique of Tom O'Neill's book, Operation Chaos (2019), says that U.C.L.A.'s Jolly West was sent to San Francisco:

We know of West's ties to the C.I.A. and the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic but so far I haven't seen anyone else mention, or look into, Jolly West's ties to UCSF.

Some of Jolly West's ties to UCSF are listed in the Online Archive of California
https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c84j0hcd/entire_text/

The founder of the HAFMC was a post-graduate student at UCSF Medical Center. He talks about walking home from UCSF, "past the Haight."

CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (2019) by Tom O'Neill

That's another thing that I have never seen anyone notice, the proximity of the Haight to UCSF. I have no doubt the proximity of UCSF to the Haight is a major key in understanding the hidden networks behind the Haight-Ashbury scene.

Another location within walking distance to UCSF which raises questions (even shorter walking distance than the Haight) is Hunter S. Thompson's apartment. Thompson's apartment was 1 block from UCSF Medical Center.

Map

https://tinyurl.com/mr2nh8z9

The neighborhood where UCSF and Thompson's former apartment are located, Parnassus Heights (400ft elev.), is a named after a mountain in Greece. There also used to be a Mt. Parnassus in San Francisco about 1 - 2 miles away but it was renamed Forest Hill (800ft elev.).

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/57604/how-san-franciscos-neighborhoods-got-their-names

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hills_in_San_Francisco

According to a Greek website, this mountain of limestone in central Greece towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers stunning views of the surrounding olive groves. According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Dionysus and the Dionysian mysteries; it was also sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs, and it was the home of the Muses.

https://action-crete-homes.com/the-sacred-mountains-of-greek-mythology/