Welcome to the 690 Stanyan Project

To quote Haight Street legend, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead,” “What a long strange trip it’s been” maybe best epitomizes the long, illustrious & evolving history of the Haight Ashbury area. What began as dairy farms in the 1870’s and next became a vacation spot for wealthy San Franciscans seeking proximity to the park would again evolve into a place people would call their permanent home. The area saw its first major influxes of permanent population as people sought refuge from the earthquake and subsequent fires of 1906 and then again after the beat poets of post WW II sought out the cheap housing left by the mass “suburban flight” that left the Haight largely unpopulated and in need of caring for the wonderful Victorians they left behind.

Shortly thereafter what happened in 1967’s, Summer of Love, made Haight Ashbury an internationally recognized place and signified yet another transition for this part of San Francisco. The area became home to a new subculture as the former beatniks discovered free love, rock music and psychedelic drugs. The hippie movement, with the intersection of Haight and Ashbury as its epicenter, attracted anti-establishment types from around the world. But save for a few hippie relics, the Haight today is a whole new scene. On a positive note, today the cohabitation between throw-backs to the fifties lounge scene, organic and spiritual new age via the sixties, punk rock of the seventies and beyond is one of the neighborhood's most interesting and endearing aspects and certainly keeps the area attractive to its visitors. However, there are currently obvious defects that need to be addressed in order to keep it attractive for residents and neighbors as much as it is to visitors to the area. The neighborhood needs to continue to evolve. The area has become characterized by the precursors of urban blight: panhandling, drug dealing, homelessness, crime, graffiti & the disappearance of neighborhood serving businesses.

In the spirit off the Haight’s evolution, the project at 690 Stanyan Street attempts to improve the current situation and achieve two goals. First, to bring a neighborhood serving grocery store back to Haight Street after the closure of the Cala Foods and secondly to create more housing alternatives to a city and an area that are negatively affected by the lack of housing for its residents. We are hoping this web page will inform everyone as to our efforts as well as provide details to the proposed project. Thank you for visiting this site.