Artists Put an Upper Haight Spin on Boarded Up Storefronts

Long one of San Francisco’s more colorful neighborhoods, the Upper Haight turned into a ghost town seemingly overnight when the city’s shelter-in-place order forced businesses to close. Fearing vandalism, many storefronts boarded up. For some long-term residents, the boarded storefronts may recall the dark days of the late 1970s, when vacancies and urban blight were rampant…

Nancy Gille, a board member at SF Heritage and the custodian of the Doolan-Larson building at Haight and Ashbury, is working with the Haight Street Art Center on a partnership with a living legend from the counterculture’s arts scene, artist and printmaker Stanley Mouse.

Gille said the idea is for the art center to print a run of unique posters designed by Mouse for area shop owners and residents to post. Another, larger Mouse installation is about to go up at Cold Steel, Gille said.