Haight-Ashbury’s Enduring Love of Lewis Carroll
If someone asked me which novelist has had the most cultural impact on Haight-Ashbury, I think my likely answer would be an Englishman who died 69 years before the Summer of Love.
Lewis Carroll (1832-98) was the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, whose influence on Haigh-Ashbury became apparent as early as 1967. Even today, you can see images of Alice as you walk around the neighborhood. They’ve certainly leapt out at me as I’ve researched The Haight Mystery Series over the years.
Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane was the first to notice the parallels between Haight-Ashbury and the world Alice entered when she chased a white rabbit down its hole. Slick began working on her song “White Rabbit” in 1965, which coincidentally was the centenary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland being published. Written before she joined Jefferson Airplane, Slick brought out all the elements of Carroll’s story that would resonate with the culture that celebrated LSD and other narcotics – the altered reality, the mushrooms, the hookah-smoking caterpillar, and popping pills. The song became a single from the Jefferson Airplane’s landmark album Surrealistic Pillow, which was released in February 1967, on the eve of the Summer of Love.
The legacy of that brilliant album is still felt in Haight-Ashbury, and the connection with Carroll is reinforced by Alice’s appearance on murals throughout the neighborhood. As I noted in my novel The Prodi Syndicate (in which Lieut. Jimmy Spracklin investigates the death of an art dealer) the visual artists in the heyday of Haight-Ashbury developed a more distinctive and unified style than the musicians. And their fauvist flair is still felt throughout the Haight in the murals both inside and outside the buildings.
One motif that crops up repeatedly is Alice in Wonderland, most noticeably in the wildly colorful paint job outside Love on Haight, at the corner of Haight and Masonic. This wonderful store is true to the spirit of Haight-Ashbury both in what it sells (psychedelic tie-dye) and how it treats people (working with more than 175 artists worldwide and supporting a range of community groups). During the pandemic, it repainted its exterior in its trademark fluorescent colors and Alice is prominent on the portion along Masonic Avenue. If you look closely, you can see other Carrollesque staples, like the white rabbit and mushrooms.
It’s surreal enough and vibrant enough to appeal to the Haight’s love of all things psychedelic. And it represents a juvenile innocence, which also appealed to the locals. They did call themselves “flower children”, after all.
Kitty-corner from Love on Haight, you’ll find the Psychedelic SF Gallery (and more Alice in Wonderland images) beneath the iconic turret overlooking the Haight-Masonic intersection. On the façade on Haight Street, the brightly colored mural includes a picture of the Mad Hatter, rushing furiously with his alarm clock.
It’s worth noting that these images of Alice all resemble the animation from Walt Disney’s 1951 movie, Alice in Wonderland. Though it bombed when first released and has never been considered one of Disney’s finest works, it modernized the imagery associated with the book. Its artwork, in full Technicolor, is of course more vivid than the original illustrations penned by artist John Tenniel, found in the Victorian children’s book.
My favorite display of Alice in Haight-Ashbury was actually inside a building and may no longer be there. When the Red Victorian Hotel was a long-stay hostel before the pandemic, I was lucky enough to get a tour (again, as part of my research for The Prodi Syndicate). The washroom on the ground floor was festooned with images of Alice. It was wonderful, especially the facial expressions. The building has since been closed, sold and is apparently being renovated. Hopefully this bathroom will be preserved.
One final word about the use of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in public art. Carroll died in Guildford, southwest of London, in 1898, so there are a few memorials to him and Alice in the city, which my wife and I visited in 2023. The best is called Alice Through the Looking Glass, and it stands in the grounds of Guildford Castle, near the place where Carroll died. The sculptor Jeanne Argent constructed a bronze statue of the young girl stepping through an oval of plexiglass to represent Alice going through the looking glass. It’s a wonderful piece of public art, though not as colorful as the murals you can find on Haight Street.
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Peter Moreira is the author of The Haight Mystery Series — retro mystery novels set in San Francisco in the late 1960s. Click the link below to sign up for a free prequel novella.
