North Beach, San Francisco, California
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
North Beach is a San Francisco, California neighborhood bounded by the former Barbary Coast, now Jackson Square, and the Financial District south of Broadway (except North Beach institutions extend down Columbus to Washington and Montgomery where the Black Cat originally was), Chinatown to the southwest of Columbus below Green, and then Russian Hill to the west, Telegraph Hill to the east and Fisherman's Wharf at Bay Street to the north.
Originally, the city's northeast shoreline extended only to what is today Taylor and Francisco streets. The area, what is largely known today as North Beach, was an actual beach, filled in with soil years ago.
Typical intersections are Union and Columbus, the southwest corner of Washington Square, Grant Avenue and Vallejo, location of Caffe Trieste, Mason and Francisco, where there is shopping and dining.
The neighborhood, particularly on Broadway east of Columbus, was infamous until fairly recently as home to many of the city's striptease clubs. Many of the sex-related nightspots seen in Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movies as well as TV's "The Streets of San Francisco" have been converted to other, more mainstream uses. The Condor Club, on the corner of Columbus and Broadway, was opened in 1964 as America's first topless bar. It is now a lobster restaurant. The Lusty Lady, a peep show establishment, is notable as the world's only worker cooperative strip club. The Broadway strip was also home to the Mabuhay Gardens, the Stone and On Broadway nightclubs, which were important venues in the punk rock scene of the late-1970s to mid-1980s. By the late 1990s, however, the economic facts of life asserted themselves and the area's colorful nightlife was reduced to those places that could afford to stay in business.
There is a street fair on Grant Avenue on Father's Day and a parade along Columbus Avenue to Aquatic Park around Columbus Day. There is a National Shrine at Vallejo and Columbus and St. Peter and Paul Church on Filbert north of Washington Square. The Powell Mason cable car line ends in the outer portion of North Beach where there is no beach.
North Beach, historically an Italian neighborhood (and still perceived by many as such), in fact has attracted diverse peoples Italians, Beats, Chinese.
An alleyway off of Columbus between Kearny and Broadway is named for Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac, who once lived here and frequented the famous City Lights Bookstore on the corner of Columbus and Broadway as well as the numerous coffee shops here. Baseball legend Joe Dimaggio grew up in the neighborhood and briefly returned to live there with his wife Marilyn Monroe. Prominent trial attorney Tony Serra has his office near the corner of Columbus and Broadway.
The somewhat compact layout of the neighborhood consists of three-story buildings painted in light colors dating from the 1920s, when people rebuilt after the earthquake and fire of 1906. The weather is typically San Franciscan: moderate, with occasional sunny hours between noon, after the morning fog burns off, and four, before the fog starts rolling back in from the Pacific Ocean.
The San Francisco Art Institute is located in the Northern end of North Beach, on Russian Hill.
Contents |
[edit] Restaurants
- Mama's on Washington Square
- Fior d'Italia
- North Beach Restaurant
- Rose Pistola
- Capps
- Il Pollaio
- Ristorante Volare
- Figaro
- Mara's bakery
- Caffè Trieste
- Franchino
- Panta Rei
- Steps of Rome and Trattoria
- Caffè Macaroni
- Caffè Sport
- Mona Lisa Ristorante
- Caffè Puccini
- Caffè Greco
- Stella's Pastry
- Melt Cafe
- Maykadeh
[edit] Bars and Clubs
- Spec's
- Vesuvio's
- Gino + Carlo's
- The Crow Bar
- Impala
- Grant and Green
- Magnet
- The Bamboo Hut
- Tosca Cafe
- Jazz at Pearl's
- The Saloon
- The Purple Onion
[edit] Residents past and present
- Joseph L. Alioto
- Enrico Banducci
- Juana Briones
- Joe Dimaggio
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Amadeo Giannini
- Allen Ginsberg
- Jens Hoffmann
- Bob Kaufman
- Philip Kaufman
- Jack Kerouac
- Philip Lamantia
- Eric "Big Daddy" Nord
- Wayne Wang
- George Rager
[edit] Films featuring North Beach
- Barbary Coast (1935)
- Dirty Harry (1971)
- So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
- EdTV (1999)
- North Beach (2000)
- Sweet November (2001)
- The Wedding Planner (2001)
- Twisted (2004), directed by local resident Philip Kaufman
- Just Like Heaven (2005)
- No Small Affair (1984)
- The Sweetest Thing (2002)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- North Beach Interactive Neighborhood Map: MondoMap
- North Beach Yahoo Maps
- Guided photo tour
- The Chronicle's standing article about North Beach
- North Beach San Francisco Blog
- JB Monaco - Turn of the Century North Beach Photographer
- Surrounded by Sound: Aurally Exploring the Barbary Coast at en fuego magazine
- San Francisco North Beach & North Beach Precious Cheese Festival
