I am happy the author followed her curiosity. I remember feeling much the same “pull” when I moved to San Francisco in 2013.

Those of us who really vibe with the place seem to share a desire to get behind the city’s strange magic and discover the past souls and events that make San Francisco what it is - that make it feel this particular way that it does.

To the author and everyone else who has arrived here recently: welcome to San Francisco!

I have frequently walked by the "OG Huckleberry House" depicted in the photo near the bottom, and knew its history. It's near the stairwell and garden that connects Broderick St with Buena Vista East. You can actually see, on the northern side of that incline that is a steep ramp with no stairs, that the house goes pretty far back, probably had lots of room for boarders.

I loved my time in SF. For those that remember Detour GPS guided audio tours in 2015 that Andrew Mason founded, the audio tours in SF were next level and so special and showed a side of the history of SF I hadn't seen. Luckily they're preserved on Spotify (although without the GPS guided part) - https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/detour-podcast/

A good friend of mine ran away to San Francisco in the mid 80s when he was 15. And his parents flew there and brought him back.

I have a great uncle that moved to Haight Ashbury to chase the whole spiritual open your mind idea. He said it was nothing like the media or nostalgia portrayed it. Lots of homeless drugged out kids who were completely lost. No jobs, panhandling for food and money, no direction, just spaced out druggies. Said it was fairly sad and he left within a year. He is an old hippy type as well, it was not what I was expecting to hear. I remember seeing an interview of George Harrison saying something similar.

Very cool. If you're interested in things like this you might wanna checkout CGP Grey's videos on tracking down various stories from books through archives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEV9qoup2mQ

I moved to San Francisco to become an open source developer and get my first job doing DevOps at a consultancy in my mid 20s. I'd be open to moving back there to work in Emeryville, I know Pixar is hiring out of that location for starters.