If You're Going To San Francisco: The Haight

It could have so easily gone all wrong. The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco was ground zero of the '60s counter-culture movement. All the '60s icons like Hendrix, Joplin and friends passed through at one point or another. Our experience with neighborhoods such as this suggest decades later The Haight could have easily been a charicature of its former self, a place where tourists come to capture to spirit that has long since vacated.

And The Haight was probably headed in that direction, expect that sometime in past decade or so The Haight was adopted by another cultural movement, that of urban/street culture. And now? The neighborhood is alive, but not just with tourist on stop 4 for their 11 stop tour around San Francisco, but with plenty of young locals, buying sneakers or seeing a gallery show by a graffiti artist.

In the far west corner of the neighborhood is Giant Robot (618 Shrader St.), another outpost of the Giant Robot mini-empire. Started as an Asian pop-culture magazine, this Giant Robot store was the first outside of the magazine's LA home. The first room holds a candy-colored display of T-shirts, toys, art books, comics and zines, and other fun doodads. The adjoining gallery space plays host to many a talented young artist

But don't confuse Giant Robot with Kidrobot (1512 Haight St.), which has a mini retail empire of its own around designer/urban vinyl toys. The shop is best known for the many cool versions of the Dunny toy it has produced for the years.

Villains (1672 Haight St.) and high-end compadre Villains Vault (1653 Haight St.) are clothing anchors of the area. Villians is all about laid California style, with a mix of shorts, jeans, shirts, cords and casual shoes and sneakers. Surf brands, skate brands, Levi's, it's nothing you haven't seen before, Villian's just does it bigger. Villian's Vault is a more interesting proposition if only because the place seems wed to high-end denim from the likes of Rag & Bone, Acne, Nudie and Earnest Sewn.

For clothing and shoes with even more of an urban/street bend, you can't miss True (1415 Haight St) and True Sole (1427 Haight St).

And if you're going to mention shoes and The Haight in the same sentence, than you need to talk about Shoe Biz (1446 Haight St.). Shoe Biz opened in area many, many years ago and has since opened Super Shoe Biz (1420 Haight St.) and Shoe Biz II (1553 Haight St.). Shoe Biz carries what we like to call urban casual shoes, Shoe Biz II is all sneakers, and Super Shoe Biz has more exclusive, expensive labels along with an Adidas concept shop.