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City
Lights Bookstore in San Francisco
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"
Allen
Ginsberg slept here," said the desk clerk, as he filled my sherry glass at
the Hotel Boheme in San Francisco. A 1955 photograph of the late great poet, smiling
with Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady in front of the nearby City Lights Bookstore
had caught my eye. Part of the hand-scrawled caption under the row of rascally-looking
guys read: "We were just hanging around."
Last
November, my husband and I found "just hanging around" San Francisco's
North Beach neighborhood, many years after that photo was taken, can still evoke
the carefree happiness that picture captured. We, like the Beat writers of the
50s, had been lured here by the European atmosphere of the area, which had been
created by a nineteenth century wave of immigrants who wanted in on the Gold Rush.
It was the Italians who took hold; stayed on and opened bakeries, cafes, and restaurants.
This was the perfect spot to indulge our craving for an Italy fix, sans the rising
euro and jet lag.
But
between delicious bites, we discovered other appeals
of the neighborhood. North Beach is Little Italy
blended with a boisterous bar scene that originated
during the Wild West Barbary Coast days, and the
jazzy legacy of the Beat generation.
This mix is packed into a 6-by-3-block wedge, bordered
by Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf, and the Financial
District. It could easily be circled on foot in
twenty minutes. But its many enticements are seductive,
so we took it slow, hanging around to the pace of
its old world rhythms.
The Hotel Boheme, smack in the middle of Columbus
Avenue (the neighborhood's main drag) was key to
making us feel part of the North Beach family. A
15 room former transient hotel, it's been expertly
remodeled in Bohemian chic style. Cozy rooms are
romantically decorated and accented by whimsical
canopies of mosquito netting over the beds and lampshades
decoupaged with faded Beat era newspaper clippings.
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Hotel
Boheme - Bright Rooms |
Our
second floor bay window offered a sidewalk show
of local hipsters and sophisticates settling in
to read, write, and drink espresso at the Caffe
Greco, camera-toting tourists being lured into restaurants
by enthusiastic aproned waiters, and elderly Chinese
women in quilted jackets toting bags stuffed with
fresh vegetables. The sweet aroma from Stella Pastry
just below us drew us down to taste the family's
specialty: Sacripantina - a heavenly Genovese cake
filled with zabaglione cream.
Hanging
around, I found not a chain store or Starbucks in
sight; but many shops that have been run by Italian-American
families for generations, which featured hand-made
gems. Window-shopping highlights included Biordi,
chockfull of colorful imported Italian dinnerware,
and Macchiarini jewelry, famous for its avant-garde
creations.
Even my normally impatient husband got into the "hanging
around" spirit at Molinari Delicatessen, not
flinching when we had to take a number and wait 15
minutes for counter service. It was a pleasure to
mingle with other Italian food enthusiasts, surrounded
by shelves crammed with imported pastas, olive oils,
and wines in the tiny "Since 1896" store
that smelled of cured proscuitto and aged cheeses
- an aroma the Italians call "Piedi di Dio"
(God's feet). As we stocked up on souvenirs of house
made salami and hunks of Parmesan, our server tipped
us off to the best spot for an afternoon pick-me-up:
the Caffe Trieste.
Nowhere
was the la famiglia spirit stronger than here in
the neighborhood's oldest coffeehouse. We settled
in at a colorfully tiled table and were joined by
a single woman visiting from Japan and a local couple
who were regular fans of the establishment's traditional
Saturday afternoon concerts. We bonded over cappuccino
and wine, sharing stories of our Italian travels,
as the three piece band played classics from the
Neapolitan songbook and one by one, each member
of the café family took a solo turn at the
mic. By the time Pappa Gianni was belting out "Volare,"
we were swaying along and joining in with the "Can-tar-e,
woa-oh-oh-ohh!" chorus. Outside it had become
a chilly San Francisco afternoon, but here we'd
been transported to the sunny Mediterranean.
There are dozens of Italian eateries in the area,
from casual pizzerias to elegant ristorantes. Like
all American Little Italies, North Beach has its
sorry share of spots that dish out watery minestrone
and mushy over-sauced pastas. But fortunately there's
more excellence than mediocrity to choose from and
we hit on two outstanding places.
An intimate atmosphere and eager waiting line of
patrons attracted us to L'Osteria del Forno. It's
a 28-seat storefront owned by two women from Bologna
and Varese who we could watch bustling about in
the open kitchen, cooking fantastic thin-crusted
pizzas, baked pastas, and roasted meats and vegetables.
We splurged for dinner at the award-winning Rose
Pistola. Its menu is an exquisite homage to the
Ligurians, the first-wave of Italians who settled
here. The wood-burning oven behind the lively bar
fills the softly lit dining room with an earthy
feel, counter-pointed by the soulful sounds of a
live jazz trio. The restaurant is deservedly famous
for its cioppino; a fragrant fish stew which the
Ligurians adapted from their simple one-fish recipe,
by adding Dungeness Crab they found to be plentiful
in the San Francisco Bay. The seasonally changing
menu and sophisticated atmosphere makes this restaurant
a perfect combination of old world Italian and top
of the line 21st century California cuisine.
In
the evenings, the people parade on the sidewalk thickens,
as tourists and locals join in on the great North
Beach tradition of bar hopping that began here during
the Gold Rush days. We opted to hit City Lights Bookstore
before imbibing, and found it to be a golden Saturday
night hangout.
The landmark literary institution began as a publishing
house and first-ever paperback bookstore in the 50s,
to showcase the breakthrough writing of the Beat generation.
Though it's now expanded to three floors, it still
retains a subversive artsy ambiance; complete with
creaky wooden stairs, worn out linoleum floors, and
walls thumb-tacked with flyers for experimental theater,
political events, and readings going on about town.
We
completely lost track of time browsing the store's mind-candy: a large selection
of poetry, foreign titles and literary journals, along with top choice classic
and modern books. The customers were equally entertaining -- from a fired up oldster
launching into a lefty political discussion with the cashier, to a young couple
snuggled up on a bench, cracking up as they thumbed through illustrations in "Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas."
Intellectually
sated, we slipped into Tosca for a nightcap, where opera
played from the jukebox and artsy types filled deep
red booths. The house special, called cappuccino,
contained no coffee, but rather a perfect mixture
of hot chocolate and brandy served in curvy stemmed
glasses. It was invented as a prohibition cocktail,
and remains "what to order" in this spot
that's been around since 1919. It was just the right
finish to take us out past the colorful blinking
lights of Broadway and home to our hotel.
As
we crossed the street, a glamorous tourist next
to us flipped her shining chestnut hair, turning
from left to right to take in the bustling night.
Her ecstatic reaction to it all would have made
any Beat poet snap his fingers in approval, as she
exclaimed, with a breathless gasp, "Che bello!" (...BACK)
IF
YOU GO... |
HOTEL
BOHEME
444 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
T: (415) 433-9111
F: (415) 362-6292
www.hotelboheme.com |
SAN
FRANCISCO VISITOR & INFORMATION CENTER
900 Market Street
San Francisco,
CA 94103
T: (415) 391-2000
F: (415) 362-7323
www.sfvisitor.org |
ROSE
PISTOLA
532 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
T: (415) 399-0499 |
L'OSTERIA
DEL FORNO
519 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
T: (415) 982-1124 |
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