S.F. health chief warns hippies
Here is a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1992
March 23: It’s au revoir to the Palace of the Legion of Honor for the next 2½ years. The neoclassical building landmark in Lincoln Park is closing next Sunday for a 30-month seismic strengthening, and most of the world-renowned collection of paintings, statues and other works will be put in storage. “This building is not as solid as it looks,” said Steven Nash, chief curator and associate director of the Fine Arts Museums.
The world-famous sculpture in the courtyard, Rodin’s “The Thinker,” is expected to be loaned to the Santa Barbara museum. Some works like the recently acquired Picasso, “Still Life with Skull and Leeks,” will be moved to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park. Other paintings, including works by Rembrandt, Cezanne, El Greco and Monet are being covered by Plexiglas and crated up for an Asian tour lasting a couple of years. The refitting project has been budgeted for $25 million. The Palace of the Legion of Honor was the brainchild of the legendary Alma Emma Le Normand de Bretteville Spreckels, widow of San Francisco sugar baron Adolph Spreckels. “Big Alma,” who was nearly six feet tall, built the museum with more than $1 million of her husband’s money as a memorial to the 3,600 California servicemen who died in World War I. The museum opened on Armistice Day, 1924.
— Maitland Zane
1967
March 25: The turned-on hippies of the Haight-Ashbury were given an ultimatum by the city health department yesterday: clean up or move out. Health Director, Dr. Ellis Sox, announced that a 12-man team of health inspectors will move into the district to tighten up sanctions. “Under the State public nuisance law, conditions that are dangerous to public health can be abated, and can be dealt with within 48 hours.” Said Dr. Sox: “These people are creating the slums they live in.”
“Most poor people forced to live in poor housing at least try to keep clean, but here we have young people of good education and background who are creating a slum. When water is shut off from failure to pay the bill, toilets are not being used,” said Dr. Sox. “Garbage is thrown around, and this attracts flies and rats. Bubonic plague is carried by rats on fleas and it is not impossible there might be an out break of epidemic meningitis.” He said venereal disease and infectious hepatitis are on the rise in the Haight-Ashbury because of the sexual promiscuity and the latter because of dirty needles used in taking drugs. Action by the health department is the latest step in city efforts to discourage an estimated influx of perhaps 100,000 hippies in San Francisco this summer. Police estimate there are now 4,000 hippies in the city. San Francisco Assemblyman John Burton said in Sacramento that hippies are potentially the greatest threat facing the Nation’s traditional social structure.
1942
March 19: Brigadier General Joseph O. Donovan, State Selective Service Director, yesterday announced new dental standards for the military. The old standard: a minimum of six masticating teeth and six incisor teeth, three masticating opposing three masticating and three incisor opposing three incisors. The new dental standard: “Merely the ability to eat army chow.” Many Selective Service registrants who were deferred under the old standards will now be able to qualify for full military service. March 24: A rigid curfew restricting movement of all enemy aliens and American Japanese in West Coast military zones was proclaimed early today by Lieutenant General John L. De Witt, head of the Western Defense Command. The curfew takes effect Friday and requires affected persons to be in their homes between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. “At all other times,” the proclamation said, “such persons shall only be at their place of residence or employment or traveling between those places or within a distance of five miles from their homes.” General De Witt warned, “this is a war measure and swift justice will follow any violation.” All enemy aliens and all American-born Japanese must observe the curfew or face prison sentences. The new regulations will affect more than 250,000 on the West Coast, more than 20,000 in San Francisco alone.
1917
March 21: Shortly after he had eaten 5 dozen raw eggs and had drunk a gallon of beer and a quart of whisky at one meal, “Babe” Stirling, who says he comes from San Francisco, was taken into custody by the police in Stockton, who feared he might do himself harm by attempting to eat more. A year ago Stirling made a bet that he could eat at one sitting three dozen eggs, three large steaks, two pork chops, six pounds of asparagus, a loaf of bread and twelve large potatoes. A large crowd gathered in a restaurant and watched him win the bet. Stirling says he was the first baby born in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.