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Museums Hope to Bring New Life to the Haight (San Fransisco)

The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood is history. At least, so think two groups of residents who are planning museums to capture memories of the 1960s hippie movement before they fade with its aging participants.

One, led by Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics founder David E. Smith, will function as a "library museum" of the free-clinic movement, which began in the Haight in the 1960s to provide free health care to residents. The other effort, led by local artist David Wills, will chronicle the neighborhood's history from its farming days in the late 1800s to the Summer of Love in the 1960s.

If the museums launch -- neither is slated to open until after 2011 -- they would be the latest in a recent push by San Francisco groups to better document the city's history. The San Francisco Museum and Historical Society has been working to renovate the old Mint Building in the South of Market neighborhood into a San Francisco Museum by 2013. Last year, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Transgender Historical Society opened a museum in the Castro district. Another half a dozen local museums have expanded in the past five years, according to the San Francisco historical society.
Read entire article at WSJ