We were inspired by the wide community engagement and celebration of Haight-Ashbury legacy businesses during our Heritage in the Neighborhoods: Haight-Ashbury month in August!
Throughout the month, we published a series of website articles and social media posts on the history and heritage of the Haight. On August 4, community members gathered to celebrate the launch of our spotlight month at SF Heritage’s pop-up gallery at 1506 Haight Street, where we are featuring a window display of Haight legacy businesses by artists Bee Betwee and Christine Innes (their art will remain on display throughout September 2022!). We also celebrated the continuation of “Mouse House” inside the gallery, featuring art from legendary poster artist and SF Heritage artist-in-residence Stanley Mouse. For our Heritage in the Neighborhoods program, Mouse created one-of-a-kind signature posters of three Haight Street legacy businesses: Zam Zam, FTC and Piedmont Boutique.
As part of the program, we also launched a voting contest to nominate the next legacy business in the Haight, which raised awareness not only for the role of legacy businesses in contributing to neighborhood character, identity, and vibrancy, but also for their vulnerability as they struggle to recover from Covid-19 and its economic impacts. Our campaign was attributed with helping Club Deluxe keep its doors open, and we helped owner Sarah Wilde quickly complete the application to the Legacy Business Registry with support from the Office of Small Business and Supervisor Dean Preston’s office. We received over 1100 votes for the contest and are excited to announce that the winner is Mendels art supply, whom we will support with their legacy business application. Participants in the voting contest were eligible to win a set of three lapel pins featuring legacy businesses in the Haight through a weekly drawing.
And finally, for our spotlight month we created an online self-guided walking tour of historic architecture in the Haight, and an (at-capacity!) in-person tour is happening this Saturday morning (September 3) to close out this exciting month of ‘Heritage in the Haight’.
All of these activities brought together a diverse range of stakeholders and supporters who have helped to raise awareness and support for the community, businesses and visitors of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.
