San Francisco museum named to prestigious list after just a year in business

Step into the Counterculture Museum near the corner of Haight and Ashbury and it's likely you'll be greeted by Kira, a friendly Australian shepherd, along with a killer playlist. Tunes from the golden age of 1960s and '70s rock spill through the speakers onto the bustling Haight Street sidewalk. Bystanders hear songs like “Eve of Destruction†by Barry McGuire, which was once banned by radio for its controversial lyrics. Co-founder Estelle Cimino says people often dance through the aisles of the museum, and regularly ask for her playlists.

The museum, which opened last May, just scored a major accolade by being listed in a Time Magazine feature of the 100 greatest places in the world, putting it alongside fantastic locales like the Mountain Lodges of Nepal Manang and the Grand Egyptian Museum. The only other California locations that made the cut were Hotel del Coronado in San Diego and Highway 1.

“At first I thought it was a scam, then it happened, and it was like oh my gosh this is amazing,†said Cimino.

The founders, Estelle and her husband Jerry, have also run the Beat Museum in North Beach since 2003. They see this as the next chapter in a broader cultural story of San Francisco.

“The issues are the same, it's how people are treated, how the world is treated, the planet, the environment. We're still dealing with the same issues. One day, maybe we'll get it right,†said Estelle.

That sense of optimism carries through in one of the first prominent posters in the museum, which features Carolyn Garcia, aka Mountain Girl, who was married to the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia. It reads: “We really thought we could change the world. We still do.â€Â 

For Jerry, the quote sums up the empowerment associated with the hippie movement, which brought nearly 100,000 young people to San Francisco in search of alternate ways of living.

“I can't tell you how many people tell me ‘I hitchhiked here when I was 15 years old back in 1967.' I've heard that probably 50 times or more since we've been here … The locals are proud of the history, because it really did change the course of America and the world,†Jerry said.

The space, which formerly housed an RVCA clothing store, isn't huge, but nearly every inch is packed with artifacts from the '60s and '70s, the majority of which were donations. The front of the store doubles as a bookshop, harking back to Estelle's time running a bookstore in Monterey before moving to San Francisco to launch the Beat Museum. Retail serves as an important revenue stream for the nonprofit museum, in addition to $10 admission fee and gifts from philanthropists and foundations. They also host events, with two stages that have featured performances from the likes of David Amram, a musician who collaborated with everyone from Jack Kerouac to Dizzy Gillespie. 

Odds are Estelle or Jerry will be helming the front desk when visitors arrive, though they do have an employee who came over from the Beat Museum. They're both fountains of stories. As they walked me through the museum, the first stop was a display case filled with books and newspaper clippings associated with the JFK assassination, which Jerry describes as the moment that America lost its innocence and trust in the government. The sentiment was compounded by the Vietnam War, to which a prominent section of the museum is devoted. In a sense, the rest of the museum could be viewed as reactionary cultural consequences of these events and other political winds, with undercurrents of protest accompanying each cultural movement. 

Get Jerry and Estelle talking and they may end up pointing out a photo of Muhammad Ali, shown in the Vietnam area, because of his fierce opposition to the war. They once met Ali on the floor of a casino in the Bahamas during their honeymoon. Estelle asked for an autograph, and Ali responded by literally picking her up and hoisting her over his shoulder. In response to Ali's antics, Jerry started doing the rope-a-dope, pantomiming boxing moves to fight to get his wife back. “I hate when people pick me up, but that time it was okay,†Estelle said. 

Another major stop on the tour is a prominent display that highlights the Human Be-In, which featured beatniks like Allen Ginsberg sharing stages with the Grateful Dead in Golden Gate Park for an audience on par with the major music festivals of today.

“50,000 kids from the Bay Area showed up in the Polo Grounds of Golden Gate Park. And that's when the hippies — the baby boomers — realized, good lord, there must be tens of millions of us around the country,†Jerry said.

The Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, a trailblazing medical office that pioneered charitable care, has a large display, and founder Dr. Dave Smith has made several appearances at the museum. There's an impressive collection of issues of the Oracle, the counterculture paper of record. The current featured exhibit highlights the Digger movement, which operated “stores†where items were given away for free. Feminist icon Peggy Caserta, who convinced Levi's to sell the first bell-bottoms, is spotlighted alongside the original sign from her Haight Street shop Mnasidika. Banned texts like “The Love Book†are also explained in detail. 

Social movements like racial justice, gay rights and environmentalism have large displays, and of course there's a veritable treasure trove of Grateful Dead memorabilia, including an original flyer for the Acid Tests. The visit, which took about 45 minutes, ended with a photo of Woodstock, viewed as a peaceful culmination of the hippie movement, alongside a message of empowerment from activist Abbie Hoffman: “The lesson of the '60s is that people who cared enough to do right could change history.â€

Although the museum may not yet be a destination on many San Francisco tourism maps, Jerry and Estelle hope that the distinction from Time will bring an influx of new visitors. But they say the space is packed with visitors on weekends, showing the deep desire to understand the history of Haight-Ashbury.

“The neighborhood has been looking for something like this for a long time to anchor this intersection. Because you need to tell a story. It's about the story. And there's a lot of stories,†said Jerry.