ONE FINE DAY back in 1975 or so, a state senator named George Moscone was sitting around the table in the front room at 409 Clayton St., plotting strategy with a group of neighborhood activists, when Diamond Dave Whitaker lit up a joint and started passing it around. When it came near Moscone, his press secretary snatched it quickly, so that the mayor-to-be wouldn't be caught smoking the evil weed. But Moscone would have no such thing: He asked his flack what the heck that was about and grabbed himself a hit.

Tom McCarthy got a laugh when he told that story to a nice crowd that came together Dec. 4 to remember the dozens and dozens and dozens of campaigns and causes that were launched over the years from the very modest first-floor flat that came to be known as 409 House.

The list is too long for anyone to remember (except maybe Calvin Welch, who can remember everything), but the folks at the rather upbeat wake made a good stab at it. The place started in 1968 as a ministry to the migratory youth who were flooding the Haight. The Haight Ashbury Switchboard was born there, as was the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic's Rock Medicine program. The first district elections campaign came together around the table in the front room, as did Proposition M, the landmark anti-high-rise initiative. The first meetings of what would become the Green Party of California were held at 409 House.

Rene Cazenave, who with Welch runs the San Francisco Information Clearinghouse, told me that at least 60 organizations have, at one point or another, used the place as a headquarters. You can't talk seriously about the history of modern politics in this city – or, to be honest, about the history of grassroots urban politics in the United States – without talking about 409 Clayton.

The house is on the market now – the financially beleaguered Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, which owns the property, is having to liquidate some assets. The SFIC isn't going away (it's moving to 405 Schrader), and neither are Welch, Cazenave, and the others who made 409 House such a crucial part of the city's fabric: As Welch pointed out, the place was just a place – but it was a place for people who cared about places, about the city, about San Francisco. That's what matters.

Tim Redmond

tredmond@sfbg.com