North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, the Financial District, and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's "Little Italy" and has historically been home to a large Italian American population, largely from Northern Italy.[5] It still has many Italian restaurants, though many other ethnic groups currently live in the neighborhood. It was also the historic center of the beatniksubculture and has become one of San Francisco's main nightlife districts as well as a residential neighborhood populated by a mix of young urban professionals, families, and Chinese immigrants.
Main intersections are Union and Columbus, the southwest corner of Washington Square, Grant Avenue, and Vallejo Street.
The neighborhood consists of modern, mid-century apartments, duplexes, and Victorian homes and multiplexes.
History
View of North Beach from Telegraph Hill, 1856North Beach after the 1906 earthquake
Originally, the city's northeast shoreline extended only to what is today Taylor and Francisco streets. The area largely known today as North Beach was an actual beach, filled in with land fill around the late 19th century. Warehouses, fishing wharves, and docks were then built on the newly formed shoreline. Due to the proximity of the docks, the southern half of the neighborhood south of Broadway was home of the infamous Barbary Coast.[7]
In 1890, Elizabeth Ashe and Alice Griffith founded what would become the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center to help fight illness, illiteracy and poor conditions in North Beach and lobbied hard for better recreation opportunities for neighborhood children. In 1907, the city formed its first playground commission with the idea of carving out space for recreation areas specifically for kids. The first playground commission picked two sites, including the North Beach Playground. The plan included an outdoor swimming pool, which was financed by diverting funds from a fire department cistern planned for Powell and Lombard, perhaps the first publicly-financed public pool in the city. In 1910, the North Beach playground and pool was constructed. The three youngest of the nine DiMaggio kids, Vince, Joe and Dom, grew up playing baseball there in the 1920s and became professional baseball players.[8]
After the 1906 earthquake reconstruction, a large number of Italian immigrants created the Italian character of the neighborhood that still exists. Prominent Italian Americans that came from the neighborhood include baseball legend Joe DiMaggio who grew up in the neighborhood[9] and briefly returned to live there with his wife Marilyn Monroe during the 1950s, as well as former San Francisco mayor and politician Joseph Alioto plus others from the prominent Alioto family.
North Beach was home to the first lesbian bar in San Francisco, Mona's 440 Club. Mona Sargeant and her husband Jimmie opened Mona's in 1936 in a North Beach basement as a small underground bar celebrating the end of Prohibition. Once Mona's gained enough popularity between the gay community and tourists, the club moved to a much larger location at 440 Broadway Street. The club remained Mona's 440 until the mid 1950s.
During the 1950s, many of the neighborhood's cafes and bars became the home and epicenter of the Beat Generation[9] and gave rise to the San Francisco Renaissance. The term "beatnik" originated from the scene here and was coined in a derogatory fashion by famed San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. Many of that generation's most famous writers and personalities such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Neal Cassady lived in the neighborhood. Another poet from this generation, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, founded the City Lights Bookstore that still exists today on the corner of Broadway and Columbus as an official historic landmark and serves as one of the main focal points of this generation.
The Broadway area also created innovations for the strip club industry. The Condor Club, on the corner of Columbus and Broadway, was opened in 1964 as America's first topless bar, which it is again today. The Lusty Lady was the first striptease club to be structured as a worker cooperative, which meant that it was managed by the dancers who worked at that peep-show establishment. Broadway strip clubs owe their legacy to the Barbary Coast, which was located just one block south on Pacific Street during the late 19th century.[citation needed]
In the 1970s and 1980s Broadway was the location of many live music clubs, like the Stone, and a punk rock club called Mabuhay Gardens.[10]
After World War II, and accelerated during the Korean War, the Italian American population has been moving out of the Little Italy sections of North Beach, Telegraph Hill, and Fisherman's Wharf due to suburbanization.[11] Since the 1980s, and much like Manhattan's Little Italy, due to a decrease in emigration from Italy and gentrification, the neighborhood has seen its native Italian American population rapidly shrink.[12] The neighborhood has since seen neighboring Chinatown expanding north into the neighborhood south of Broadway and along Stockton Street, causing a major demographic shift to a mix of mostly Chinese and young professional population, with few Italian Americans remaining.[9]
In 2000 after some negotiations,[13] the heirs of Joe DiMaggio's estate, two granddaughters and their four children, welcomed the renaming of North Beach playground as the Joe DiMaggio North Beach Playground.[14] In 2015, the first renovation of the playground in more than 50 years was completed.[15]
Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane was living in North Beach in an apartment unit above Al's Attire at the corner of Grant Avenue and Vallejo Street at the time of his death in 2016, and was often a patron of nearby Caffe Trieste.[16]
Attractions and characteristics
Events
View of Green Street looking west towards Columbus Avenue.
The North Beach Festival street fair on Grant Avenue and Columbus Avenue usually held on Father's Day weekend in June is one of the city's largest. It is also considered one of the nation's oldest street fairs.
Looking southeast from Columbus Avenue (on the left) and Stockton (on the right). The Transamerica Pyramid is visible in the background on Columbus Avenue. The array of overhead wires supply power for the electric trolley buses such as the one seen on Stockton Street.
The neighborhood still retains an Italian character with many Italian restaurants, cafes, and bakeries that line Columbus Avenue and Washington Square.[20]
Religious institutions and sites
The National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi, the city's namesake, is located on Vallejo Street.[21]
Known as "The Italian Cathedral of the West", Saints Peter and Paul Church is located on the north side of Filbert Street in front of Washington Square. Joe DiMaggio married his first wife there, and came for photos after his marriage to Marilyn Monroe. Saints Peter and Paul is considered a San Francisco landmark and an emblematic tie to the neighborhood's Italian American past.[22]
Secular institutions and sites
An alleyway between Columbus and Grant Avenues is named for Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac, who once lived there and frequented the famous City Lights Bookstore on the corner of Columbus and Broadway as well as the numerous nearby bars and coffee shops.[23]
Broadway east of Columbus Avenue still serves as one of the city's main nightclub districts and offers restaurants, blues clubs, strip clubs, nightclubs, and jazz clubs.[24]
Education
It is in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and is within the John Yehall Chin Elementary School (余河小學) attendance area.[25] Chin has a Cantonese language program.[26]
Joseph Paul DiMaggio, nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "the Yankee Clipper" and "Joe D.", was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees. Born to Italian immigrants in California, he is widely considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time and is best known for setting the record for the longest hitting streak in baseball, which still stands today.
Little Italy is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City, known for its Italian population. It is bounded on the west by Tribeca and Soho, on the south by Chinatown, on the east by the Bowery and Lower East Side, and on the north by Nolita.
The Sunset District is a neighborhood located in the southwest quadrant of San Francisco, California, United States.
The Chinatown centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside Asia. It is also the oldest and largest of the four notable Chinese enclaves within San Francisco. Since its establishment in the early 1850s, it has been important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. Chinatown is an enclave that has retained its own customs, languages, places of worship, social clubs, and identity.
Washington Square is an American park in the North Beach district of San Francisco. It was established in 1847 and is one of the city's first parks. The park is bordered by sidewalk cafes and restaurants such as Mama's (restaurant), Park Tavern restaurant and the Liguria Bakery as well as the Sts. Peter and Paul Church.
The Excelsior District is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California.
The Chinatown neighborhood in Oakland, California, is traditionally Chinese which reflects Oakland's diverse Chinese American, and more broadly Asian American community. It is frequently referred to as "Oakland Chinatown" in order to distinguish it from nearby San Francisco's Chinatown. It lies at an elevation of 39 feet.
The Barbary Coast was a red-light district during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries in San Francisco that featured dance halls, concert saloons, bars, jazz clubs, variety shows, and brothels. Its nine block area was centered on a three block stretch of Pacific Street, now Pacific Avenue, between Montgomery and Stockton Streets. Pacific Street was the first street to cut through the hills of San Francisco, starting near Portsmouth Square and continuing east to the first shipping docks at Buena Vista Cove.
Telegraph Hill is a hill and surrounding neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is one of San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills".
The 49-Mile Scenic Drive is a designated scenic road tour highlighting much of San Francisco, California. It was created in 1938 by the San Francisco Down Town Association to showcase the city's major attractions and natural beauty during the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition.
This is an alphabetical index of topics related to Asian Americans.
Saints Peter and Paul Church is a Catholic church in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. Located at 666 Filbert Street, it is directly across from Washington Square and is administered by the Salesians of Don Bosco. It is known as "la cattedrale italiana dell'Ovest", or the Italian Cathedral of the West, and has served as the home church and cultural center for San Francisco's Italian-American community since its consecration. It offers English, Italian, and Cantonese-language services.
Jackson Square Historic District is an area in downtown San Francisco, California. It dates back to the city's earliest years and the 1849 gold rush, and is known for its historic commercial buildings in the classical revival and Italianate styles.
Jack Kerouac Alley, formerly Adler Alley or Adler Place, is a one-way alleyway in San Francisco, California, that connects Grant Avenue in Chinatown, and Columbus Avenue in North Beach. The alley is named after Jack Kerouac, a Beat Generation writer who used to frequent the pub and bookstore adjacent to the alley.
Columbus Avenue is one of the major streets of San Francisco that runs diagonally through the North Beach and Chinatown areas of San Francisco, California, from Washington and Montgomery Streets by the Transamerica Pyramid to Beach Street near Fisherman's Wharf. This street is home to several notable venues, such as Jack Kerouac Alley, named for poet Jack Kerouac, City Lights Bookstore, Vesuvio Cafe, Specs' Twelve Adler Museum Cafe, and Bimbo's 365 Club.
Chinatowns are enclaves of Chinese people outside of China. The first Chinatown in the United States was San Francisco's Chinatown in 1848, and many other Chinatowns were established in the 19th century by the Chinese diaspora on the West Coast. By 1875, Chinatowns had emerged in eastern cities such as New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred Chinese immigration to the United States, but the Magnuson Act of 1943 repealed it, and the population of Chinatowns began to rise again.
The Dragon Gate is a south-facing gate at the intersection of Bush Street and Grant Avenue, marking a southern entrance to San Francisco's Chinatown, in the U.S. state of California. Built in 1969 as a gift from the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the style of a traditional Chinese pailou, it became one of the most photographed locations in Chinatown, along with the older Sing Fat and Sing Chong buildings.
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