Walk back south on Ashbury, cross Haight, and continue two blocks south to the 700 block of Ashbury. The purple Victorian on the east side is 710 Ashbury, the house where Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan lived together from 1966 to 1968.
The band moved in as the scene was building. They rehearsed in the living room, ate communal dinners, slept on every floor. Their manager Rock Scully lived there too. The house became, in the most literal sense, the office of the Grateful Dead. Friends, dealers, journalists, hangers-on, and out-of-town musicians cycled through. Janis Joplin’s apartment at 635 Ashbury was a block away. The Diggers’ Free Store was around the corner.
On October 2, 1967, eight state narcotics agents (followed by a press contingent) raided 710 Ashbury without a warrant. They broke down the front door after being denied entry. They confiscated about a pound of marijuana along with some hash and arrested eleven people, including Pigpen, Bob Weir, the band’s two managers Rock Scully and Danny Rifkin, and equipment manager Bob Matthews. Garcia and Phil Lesh were not home. A neighbor had tipped Garcia off in time. The band held a press conference on the steps a few days later and turned the bust into a public argument against drug laws.
This is a private residence. View from the opposite sidewalk only. Do not approach the steps.