Return to Haight, walk west to Cole, then turn left (south) onto Cole and walk a short half block. On the east side of the street, painted in muted colors, is a Victorian put up in 1903. Charles Manson lived here from approximately April to July of 1967, in the height of the Summer of Love.
He had been paroled in March 1967 from a federal prison in Washington State after serving seven years on a check-forgery conviction. He came to San Francisco specifically because he had heard about what was happening in the Haight and recognized it as recruiting ground. He brought a guitar. He started talking to young women on the street.
By the time he was here he had Mary Brunner, a Berkeley librarian, in his orbit. Susan Atkins joined that spring. Patricia Krenwinkel and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme followed. Some of the early Family lived with him at 636 Cole. He moved them in and out, drove a bus, took LSD, lectured for hours. He left the Haight by late 1967 and eventually settled the group at Spahn Ranch outside Los Angeles. The Tate-LaBianca murders happened in August 1969.
The contrast with the rest of the Summer of Love is the point. Most of what happened on these blocks was generative: bands forming, the Free Clinic, the Free Store, the Be-In. Manson was here too, walking the same sidewalks, picking off the most vulnerable people he could find. The building has been a normal residence for decades. Private residence. Do not linger. Keep voices down.