Dreads, Drugs & Dreams - First day in Upper Haight

Having just moved to San Francisco in January from Orange County, a rush of intimidation came over me as I was reading the syllabus for JOUR 300. We have to explore a specific area of the city? We have to spend at least one day and night per week there? Needless to say, I was nervous. I hadn’t really gone into the city to explore with anyone, let alone by myself! But I knew it was time to explore sooner or later; I mean after all, I did move to San Francisco to LIVE here, not just BE here.

I did some research on the list of neighborhoods supplied to us in the syllabus, and got some feedback from people I know who have grown up in the city. Upper Haight seemed extremely interesting after hearing of its “bohemian,” hippie-like aura, so I decided to be gutsy and make it first of my list of choices, and I got it! It was time to be tough and go explore!

It took me about 45 minutes, on an extremely crowded bus, to get to the intersection of Haight and Masonic streets from my house. The icing on the “overcrowded bus cake” was that I decided to go into the city on the hottest day I have experienced here since I moved from Southern California. I survived the long ride, and finally reached my destination.

When I got off the bus, the first thing I noticed was a grungy-looking guy with dirty, tattered clothes yelling at the sidewalk while he dragged his two old pit bulls by leashes made of what looked to be shoelace. “Well, I guess I’m in the right place,” I thought to myself, remembering some of the stories I had been told of this area.

I wasn’t sure where to start first, so I walked toward Buena Vista Park to see what small shops I could find. As I was crossing the street, I looked up from my phone to see a short, heavyset elderly man lightly skipping in the opposite direction. No, it wasn’t odd that he was skipping. What was odd was that this man was stark naked, except for the fanny pack around his waist. This whole scene happened so quickly I didn’t have time to realize what happened until I noticed the people around me, looking at him in either disgust or surprise. There were also some people sitting at a café that seemed to be locals, as they didn’t really look shocked at all.

I continue down the sidewalk, trying to get the visual I just witnessed out of my mind. I reach Buena Vista Park and scope out the area. There are not many people on this side of the area, so I turned back around and went down Haight St. the opposite way. I was surprised by how many tattoo parlors and smoke shops there were on this street, and wondered if the competition was fierce in these parts.

After getting a feel for Upper Haight, I walked into Mom’s Body Shop, a tattoo parlor on Haight St. I took a look around and noticed the shop was small, but organized into open cubicles for each tattoo artist. I was referred to the owner of shop, Barnaby Williams. He is a self-proclaimed “Mama’s Boy,” and opened Mom’s Body Shop on Mother’s Day in 1998. He lived in the Haight area until June 2009, and had a lot of interesting insight on the area, expressing to me that working and living in Haight is “emotionally and spiritually corrupting.”

I could certainly see the reasons behind Barnaby’s emotional statement as I walked past young teenagers, some of them looking no older than 16 years old, sitting on the ground with dirty clothes and troubled faces. I kept walking down the street, making a mental note to come back in an hour or two to speak to some of the homeless youth, but soon figured out that if they are there one minute, they will likely not be in the same spot the next.