On what would have been Jerry Garcia’s 83rd birthday, San Francisco officials, musicians and fans gathered Friday morning to rename a street in honor of one of the city’s most iconic native sons.
Mayor Daniel Lurie led the dedication ceremony at the intersection of Mission and Harrington streets in the Excelsior — just steps from the modest yellow house where Garcia lived with his grandparents and first picked up a guitar.
“Jerry gave San Francisco and its people lasting memories and music,” Lurie told the crowd. “He created something out of nothing. Jerry had the spirit of a rock star, an innovator and a futurist.”
Born Aug. 1, 1942, Garcia attended Monroe Elementary and Balboa High School — each just blocks from his childhood home — before serving in the U.S. Army. After returning to the city, he immersed himself in the local music scene and, in 1965, co-founded the Grateful Dead. The band’s fusion of rock, folk, bluegrass and psychedelia became a cornerstone of 1960s counterculture and cultivated one of the most devoted fanbases in music history…