Beat Rebels with a Cause, Hippies and Community

Abstract

The Goodman Building housed mainly temporary workers before WWII, after it became home to Beat artists, especially veterans on the GI bill, then in the late 1960s a gathering place for young artists who were radicalized by seeing the brutalization of people in the Western Addition. But part of this history is found in the squats and hippie communes, cooperatives like the Food Conspiracy and Tenants’ Union. This turned the building into a center for organizing to preserve the community and heritage housing in both the Western Addition and the Tenderloin.