Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
defenders. By the 1960s, the Beat writ-
ers, a restless lot, had moved on, mostly
taking their jazz-and-poetry evenings
with them, but North Beach was indeli-
bly stamped with their reputation.
You can take a break now and com-
bine an extended browse with a beer at
the eclectic
Vesuvio
(p. 205), a bar with
a gas-fired chandelier and slightly
absurdist decor next to the bookstore
and across the alley. Or you can wait a
few minutes more while I take you to
an authentic Italian cafe for an espresso.
Cut through the alley (named for Jack
Kerouac) to Grant Avenue and turn
right. Cross Grant, and then cross
Broadway and follow Grant to Vallejo
Street. On the corner is the stop in
the next box.
the marginal offerings of the Barbary
Coast, this neighborhood was then a
cradle for daring entertainment, new
names, and experimental forms of at.
It's pretty much all gone.
From the cafe, continue left down
Vallejo. The Gothic Revival, twin-tow-
ered church is the St. Francis of Assisi;
it, too was gutted by the quake and fire,
but its shell dates to 1860.
Continue to the short block to
Columbus Avenue and turn right. Two
blocks later, you'll arrive at a park.
!
Washington Square
The Romanesque church on its north-
ern side, Saints Peter and Paul Church
(1924), is most often cited as the back-
ground of some shots of Marilyn
Monroe and Joe Dimaggio (who grew
up about a block from here) after their
wedding in 1954. (They actually got
married at City Hall—the images were
just for publicity.) In true literary
North Beach style, the Italian motto on
the facade quotes not the Bible but
Dante's
Paradise,
from
The Divine
Comedy.
About a third of the congrega-
tion these days is of Chinese extraction.
The statue of Ben Franklin in the
square—why are there so few statues of
Ben in America, by the way?—was a
gift in 1879 from a dentist, Henry
Cogswell, who made a mint in the gold
rush. An avid teetotaler, he built such
statues, fitted with fountains, across the
country in an effort to get people to
drink water instead of beer or liquor.
North Beach was lucky; usually, the
statue was of him, glass of water prof-
fered in an outstretched hand.
So where's the beach of North
Beach? Gone. When sailors first got
here, the shoreline was actually around
Taylor Street, 2 blocks west. So deep
beneath your feet, North Beach's beach,
now dry, still lies. Landfill erased it, but
the name stuck.
TAKE A BREAK
I have brought you to Caffe Trieste
(p. 85), which is generally acknowledged
to be the king of the North Beach cafes.
It makes a mean espresso—in fact, it
claims to have served the first one in the
neighborhood back in the 1950s when it
opened. Its paneled dining area is the
kind of place where you're encouraged to
linger for hours, and many do. Some of
the Beats hung here, shaking off their
hangovers, and Francis Ford Coppola is
said to have fashioned the screenplay to
The Godfather
at the tables. So take a
load off and get a homemade pastry.
0
Beat territory
The block up Grant Avenue to Green
Street was, in the 1950s and 1960s, rich
with cabarets and cafes popular with the
era's most iconic talents. At Coffee and
Confusion, once at 1339 Grant, Janis
Joplin made a major splash in 1963,
and years later, an unknown Steve
Martin tried out his fledging act there.
Probably because of the aftereffects of
