Now the best place in the park to find impromptu drum circles and enthusiastic pot smokers, the gentle grassy slope known as “Hippie Hill” once attracted Janis Joplin to play her guitar in the shade of the tree that now bears her name.

The hill has enjoyed its reputation for mellow lounging and music dating to the city’s epic age of the Hippie. One observer of 1960s San Francisco culture noted, “To this hill streamed the endless river of young persons drawn to San Francisco in search of personal freedom, in search of peace in time of war, or possibly just in search of Acapulco Gold, incredibly good marijuana that wholesaled at $65 a kilo.”