Park embodies North Beach’s heritage, hopes
They say you can’t go home again, but this is the time of the year the expatriate San Franciscans come back to the city.
They are a little older, a little grayer now. Back to North Beach: to Original Joe’s, to the Italian Athletic Club on Washington Square. Back to see old pals in the holiday season. There’s a special lunch or dinner every day in December. No matter what anybody says, this is still the heart of San Francisco.
It’s easy to see what draws them back: the green lawn of Washington Square, the monuments to another time, the restaurants ringing the park, the big white church on the north side of the square, the bells marking the hour. There’s a special feel to the place, as if it were always there.
In a way, Washington Square is the living room of North Beach.
The early morning belongs to the elderly Chinese women, who practice tai chi exercises to music every day. It’s like a ballet, slow and stately and careful.
A few years ago Washington Square was the center of Italian San Francisco — Il Giardino, the garden. Now Chinatown has spread north, and the square is part of a San Francisco mix.
Late morning on weekdays is the time for funerals at SS Peter and Paul’s Church, the mourners on the church steps, the black hearse waiting at the bottom, the bells tolling. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote a poem about it, about the old men sitting on a bench in the park, watching.
On Thursday, it was the turn of Jimo Perini, a noted photographer and war hero, born in San Francisco — lived his long life on a cable car line, died in the autumn, final services at the Italian church on Pearl Harbor Day.
Some of the mourners went for a drink and lunch around the park: Original Joe’s, Mama’s on Stockton Street, Mario’s Cigar Store at Union and Columbus, Tony’s Pizza Napoletana on Stockton. Tony’s is in all the guidebooks and, in the summer, the tourists line for a taste of the city. The customers are all locals at this time of the year.
The talk in the bars was about the news, sports, local gossip, the usual things. And coyotes. There are coyotes on Telegraph Hill. Four of them: a mother, a father, two pups.
“True story,” said Ernie Beyl, who has written two books about North Beach. He has a smartphone picture to prove it.
“Look at that,” he said. “Lombard and Kearny, a coyote in broad daylight. When the sirens go off on Tuesday at noon, you can hear them howl.”
After lunch the locals usually go shopping: the new Giovanni store on the south side of the park for Italian specialties, Victoria Pastry on the southwest corner, Liguria for foccacia bread on the opposite corner. You have to come early in the holiday season. They sell out early. And what are the holidays without focaccia?
I sat on a bench and watched the afternoon roll by. Washington Square is an urban park, full of stories, some of them pleasant, some of them tragic. It is an old park, set aside as a public square 160 years ago. Under the statue of Benjamin Franklin is a time capsule someone will open in 2079.
In a far corner of the square is a monument to Juana Briones, who grazed her cattle in the area in the Mexican times, before the Americans came and overturned her world.
There are gentlemen of leisure, you might say, hanging around the Briones monument, drinking beer and smoking. One of them, a guy named Mark, wears a hard hat and a construction worker’s Day-Glo vest, like a Caltrans guy. “I’m not that,” he said. “I’m the leader of the bums.”
He knows them all, he said. They are harmless. “I, myself, am a tap dancer on street corners, which is how I earn my money,” he said.
The others drink beer and talk. They watch out for each other, they say. They keep the park safe. “No bad stuff happens when we are here,” Mark said. “We don’t hurt nobody. But the cops don’t believe us.”
Just then, almost on cue, two park police showed up — khaki shirts, khaki pants, Sam Browne belts, very official. The tap dancer took off without a word as soon as he saw them. The cops took the beer from the others and poured it out. No drinking in the park.
The afternoon moved on. Schoolchildren sat, laughing and joking, on the church steps, the scene of funerals that morning. The wintry sunshine faded.
The lights went on in the restaurants around Washington Square, but the park itself was dark as the evening’s life swirled around it. Maybe you can’t go home again. But you can try.