Haight-Ashbury Switchboard

During the "hippie" period 1967–1968 in San Francisco, an individual named Al Rinker started an organization located at 1830 Fell St in the city's Haight Ashbury district called the Switchboard. Its purpose was to act as a social switchboard for people living there.

History

In early 1967 the Diggers (not the 1649 English group but the new USA Diggers who named themselves after the original group) were promoting a new type of philosophy and life concept in the Haight Ashbury. With media coverage of the district increasing, a local resident Al Rinker visualized the need for a service providing news and information about the Hippie movement. He rented an apartment at 1830 Fell Street in early 1967, adjacent to the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park, to act as both his home and headquarters of his conceptual "Switchboard". Al found willing assistants in George Darling and Danny to assist with his concept of a human switchboard.

While he and the volunteers were doing this, the "Human Be In" took place and the Fillmore Auditorium was gaining national prominence. News coverage of the Haight Ashbury skyrocketed bringing in more people with more work required to keep the Switchboard going.

The rapid influx of people flooding the area created an immediate need for some services that Al had not originally considered. One of these was in finding safe lodging (Crash Pads) for the wandering jobless hippies that arrived without any means of support. This program proved so popular that Al's office (living room) was changed to the "We will help you find a place to stay" room. Al moved his office to a tiny room next to the kitchen. The Switchboard attracted additional volunteers Ron Small and Ken Englander to assist with the many tasks the Switchboard wanted to accomplish.

Social networking took a back seat to the more critical services required by the population explosion. In summary, the Switchboard was created, then made useful by events not originally considered and grew[1] to fill those needs as well as those in its original plan.

Description of Services

Al Rinker had this mission statement[2] for the Switchboard "The Switchboard is a volunteer service designed to facilitate communication among people throughout San Francisco, and specifically to serve as an informational and referral source for the Haight-Ashbury community." As mentioned above, this mission quickly became secondary to services required in a community flooded with runaways and youthful hippies with no means of support. From June 1967 through September 1967, the Switchboard spent a great deal of its time resource in the following areas:

Social Events 1967–1968

Later period

After the departure of Al Rinker, Ken Englander and others took up the Switchboard concept. They moved to a storefront office at 1797 Haight St. It went through a number of moves and forum changes through the 1990s.

Before he left, Al Rinker transferred the Haight Ashbury Switchboard's 501 (c)(3) (non profit tax status) to Pam Hardt and Jed Riffe. They changed the name to Resource One and moved it into Project One.

Where are they now

Pictures

Notes

This article makes reference to the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics. While the Free Clinic was located in the Haight Ashbury district and was associated with the hippies by geography, it should not be thought of as a "hippie" organization. The Free Clinic is in operation today. It provides free medical care and medical assistance to anyone needing it.

Footnotes and other references

  1. Evening Independent article about the Switchboard and Community activities, Jul 26, 1968
  2. Digger Archives The Current Status of the Haight-Ashbury Hippie Community (Excerpt) by Stephen M. Pittell, Director, Haight-Ashbury Research Project, September, 1968
  3. Village Voice article about the Switchboard and Runaways, Dec 14,1967
  4. "The Haight Ashbury - A History" by Charles Perry Random House 1984, page 143
  5. "We are the people our parents warned us against" by Nicholas von Hoffman, LCCN:68013465
  6. Herb Caen column San Francisco Chronicle 1967 "Mayor visits Switchboard Get together
  7. Death of Hippie Parade
  8. Note from his son Adam
  9. Ron Thelin and the Red House

Other references

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, April 27, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.