PHILIP LIBORIO GANGI IN CALIFORNIA,
SPECIAL 30th ANNIVERSARY PAGE,
Photos from 1976 and 1977 (except where noted),
San Francisco and Berkeley.

This is the only photograph I have of the Grey Rabbit. It's the bus in the middle of the photo. We are at a truck stop taking a break from our long trip.


I took this photograph last week. This is the apartment buliding where John and I went to on our first day in San Francisco and rented an apartment.It looks exactly the same as it did 30 years ago, except that it's been painted. The old color was yellow.

Just like 30 years ago there was a "For Rent" sign hanging in the front of the building. John and I paid $190 a month total for the one bedroom apartment. That's $95 each. There were two single beds in the bedroom.

I rang the doorbell last week to ask what the price was now - $1400. The window on the far left on the ground floor was our bedroom window. I used to hear people talking at night on the street when I was trying to sleep.


John Reiss stands in front of our apartment building on Market Street. We got jobs right away as security guards working downtown.


John tries to hitch a ride. There was a transit stike and we had to walk downtown to work.


The other job I got was working security at concerts for Bill Graham Presents. I wrote Bill Graham a letter when I first got to San Francisco. I told him that I used to go to his shows he put on at the Fillmore East in New York and that I just moved to San Francisco and was looking for work. He gave my letter to the head of security and he called me on the phone. I worked at Winterland, the Day on the Green Concerts at the Oakland Coliseum, the Berkeley Community Theater and the Berkeley Greek Theater. I worked at all the great shows during this period - Led Zeppelin, the double bill with The Who and the Grateful Dead,the Jefferson Starship, the first Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concert in San Francisco, The Last Waltz with the Band and Bob Dylan plus lots of other shows.


John and I took a trip to the Marin Headlands. This is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is right over the Golden Gate Bridge.


John and a friend we met walk around the Headlands. There is an old army fort on the Headlands now.


In April John and I decided to take a little trip down to Southern California. We hitch hiked down Highway One. It had many beautiful views, but the trip took about three days to get down there. Highway One is slow and we weren't getting too many rides.


We met these girls in Santa Barbara. All they talked about was David, Steven and Neil. It took me a few minutes to figure out they meant David Crosby, Steven Stills and Neil Young.


I shot this view from one of the cars we were in on our trip to Southern California.


Back in San Francisco, here's a photo of the Jefferson Airplane house on Fulton Street. If this house could talk, the stories it would tell. There were many wild parties here with members of the elite of rock n' roll over the years. The Airplane/Starship owned this house for many years and only recently sold it.


Hey, it's Michael Swain. Mike is probably the first good friend I made in California. I met him on line at a Jerry Garcia Band concert at the Keystone in Berkeley around April/May 1976. A little over a year later in the summer of 1977 he moved to San Francisco and we became roommates in a four bedroom flat on Oak Street in the Haight Asbury section of the city. He now lives with his wife and family in Colorado.

This is one of my "early" San Francisco photos. A woman walks her dog along the cliffs near Lands End, San Francisco.

Another one of my early San Francisco photographs. I call this "Boy on the Sausalito Ferry."


After three months in California, John Reiss got home sick and moved back to New York. I decided that I liked Berekey and rented a summer sublet for three months. It was a great deal. The cost was $250 a month for two bedrooms in a beutiful located near the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). In the photo above I am outside my apartment complex with my cat Cassidy.


My apartment included use of the swimming pool, so it was easy to make friends in Berekey.


The summer was like a non-stop party. New people were coming and going from Berkeley everyday.


A couple of kids playing at the fountain on the campus.


John Slattery, from East Meadow, New York, was the first friend to visit me in California..


Blues legend Mike Bloomfield and his band was the first free concert I saw in Golden Gate Park.


My cousins Josephine Gangi (left) and Josephine Ganci also paid me a visit during the summer of 1976.


At the end of August 1976, the Berkeley sublet ended and I moved back into San Francisco. I worked for room and board at the Granada Hotel on Sutter Street. The photo above is me with one of my co-workers at the hotel.


Here's a terrible photo of the Grateful Dead performing at the Oakland Coliseum. Remember, I only had a Kodak Instamatic 110 camera at the time.


From left to right, it's Brent and Danny Healy. They came to visit me from Long Island a day before I was about to move into a flat with three other roommates. My other roommates thought I was moving in with three people instead of just myself. This caused some strange vibes. As a matter of fact, the whole situation was strange. My roommates consisted of an organic vegaterian, a bongo drum player and my friend Vicki who moved in with her cat who just had kittens. In a few weeks the kittens turned into a house full of cats. I only lasted at this house for three months.


I like this photo of myself. To me this photo says, "Phil in California."


Here is another shot of Brent and Danny. This shot looks like it was taken inside the Presidio of San Francisco.


In the late spring of 1977 I moved into a flat on Oak Street section of Haight Asbury with my friend Mike Swain and Jose and Jim, my other friends from Berkeley. We lived in the top flat of the yellow building.


I met Tom Siebert at a blues bar on Haight Street in the summer of 1977. He came to California a few months earlier from Minnesota. I believe the Grateful Dead influenced his decision to move to San Francisco also.This photograph was taken at a Grateful Dead concert at Winterland.


My brother Mike Gangi moved to San Francisco during the summer of 1977. I'm sure he remembers the exact date. I don't.


Mike and I used to love to hike at Lands End along the cliffs.


It's Mike Gangi with my friend John Montrose on John's staircase on Alma Street in Cole Valley. John is probably my longest continous friend in California. We met in the summer of 1976 working at concerts for Bill Graham Presents. John and I both worked at the Band concert, "The Last Waltz" with Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison and a bunch of other guest stars. So this summer we will have been friends for 30 years. Wow!!! John now lives with his wife Susan and son Keats in Olympia, Washington.


At the end of the summer, 1977, Mike and I moved out of the Oak Street flat and got our own apartment on Dolores Street. The San Francisco Mime Troupe gives free performances in San Francisco parks. In the above photo they are performing in Dolores Park across the street from my apartment.


And here's one final shot of a California sunset.


Here is Mike Gangi across the street from our apartment on the top of Dolores Park with the San Francisco downtown skyline behind him. Mike moved back to New York in the spring of 1978.

BONUS PHOTO: 29 YEARS LATER. Here is a shot of Danny Healy, John Reiss, and me from the summer of 2005. John now lives in Baiting Hollow, Long Island, with his wife Lisa and two children. Danny lives in Bayshore.


WELL, THAT'S ALL FOLKS. HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE PHOTOS. DROP ME AN E-MAIL AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK. BYE!