In a trend that we heartily approve of, Saveur has been recycling some of its greatest hits from its archives. The most recent entry is a heartwarming–and a little heartbreaking–piece on North Beach by Peggy Knickerbocker, first published in the halcyon days of September 1994.
The article by Knickerbocker, a longtime North Beach resident, gives a brief history of the neighborhood, from the actual beach once at the end of Columbus Avenue to the Italian immigrants’ role in rebuilding the city after the 1906 earthquake. She recounts the great historical figures of North Beach like Joe DiMaggio, Joseph Alioto and the Beats. She then goes on to hit all her regular dining and caffeinating destinations, some which are still around (Rose Pistola, Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store), some which have since departed (Iacopi’s).
But what a difference 13 years make:
If they wanted to, Italians could live a lifetime in North Beach without ever speaking a word of English. Here, they could do virtually everything they would have done back home—fish, sell (and eat) familiar produce, cook, bake, paint, sculpt, write poetry, sing opera, play bocce ball, make wine. (When I first came to North Beach as a child, I saw what I thought was blood running in the gutters; then I realized that the “blood” was actually harvesttime spillover from the garage wineries that were then all over North Beach, using grapes shipped down from the Napa Valley in open railway cars.)
In a trend that we heartily approve of, Saveur has been recycling some of its greatest hits from its archives. The most recent entry is a heartwarming–and a little heartbreaking–piece on North Beach by Peggy Knickerbocker, first published in the halcyon days of September 1994.
The article by Knickerbocker, a longtime North Beach resident, gives a brief history of the neighborhood, from the actual beach once at the end of Columbus Avenue to the Italian immigrants’ role in rebuilding the city after the 1906 earthquake. She recounts the great historical figures of North Beach like Joe DiMaggio, Joseph Alioto and the Beats. She then goes on to hit all her regular dining and caffeinating destinations, some which are still around (Rose Pistola, Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store), some which have since departed (Iacopi’s).
But what a difference 13 years make:
