You might say San Francisco’s North Beach suffers from an identity crises. Is it Little Italy or the center of San Francisco’s Beat movement? Is it Broadway street strip clubs or where San Francisco’s punk rock scene got its start? According to San Francisco based rock musician Rykarda Parasol, it’s all of those things. And that’s why she loves it.
This is part one of a two part series profile on San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, with local rock musician and North Beach connoisseur, Rykarda Parasol. To read part two, click here.
North Beach’s nostalgic past
Rykarda Parasol, whose dark-hued, self-described “rock-noir” music has been gaining momentum here and abroad, feels at home in North Beach. “North Beach has always been a favorite of mine,” says Parasol. “My parents had an apartment off of Kearny (street) and they used to always drive up to North Beach when we were kids to reminisce and take us for cakes at an Italian Bakery,” she explains over an espresso at Vesuvio, one of several iconic venues of North Beach.
“North Beach is a very romantic notion of what the city once was,” says Parasol. “I like thinking that that artistic movement will emerge again from the ghostly walls of Vesuvio.”
It was in North Beach in the 1950s, and at Vesuvio in particular, where that artistic movement, the Beat movement, got its start in San Francisco. Poets and writers of the day, including Jack Kerouac, would gather, sometimes over copious amounts of booze, and well, engage in the types of activities and conversations you would expect from a counter-culture movement.
For Parasol, North Beach remains that last bastion of artistic hope in an otherwise technocratic city. “Now San Francisco has this sort of software dot COM characteristic attached to it. And I’m a romantic”, says Rykarda. “We’re sitting here in Vesuvio, listening to Jazz…Tosca (right across the street), is where a lot of writers still write (and) City Lights bookstore is infamous.”
Indeed, it may seem gratuitous, but what story of North Beach would be complete without mention of City Lights? Just across Kerouac Alley from Vesuvio on Columbus street, City Lights bookstore has been a “literary meeting place” since 1953. More than just another bookstore, City Lights is a publisher as well, with over two hundred avant-garde fiction and poetry books in print since City Lights Press was founded in 1955.
Inside the famed bookstore, Rykarda heads straight for her favorite section, the poetry and Beat literature room. Up a narrow staircase adorned with photographs of poets, notable and unfamiliar alike, a cozy den awaits, furnished with antique reading chairs and a sign that reads, “have a seat + read a book”. The room itself encompasses the culture of City Lights, which according to City Lights co-founder and poet, Laurence Ferlinghetti, is for the public to gather and "participate in that 'great conversation'". It's this spirit, this movement that draws Parasol to the neighborhood.
Little Italy meets the Barbary Coast
Further down Columbus, across Broadway, is where you’ll find the Italian restaurants and delicatessens synonymous with North Beach’s namesake, Little Italy. Here, among the checkered tablecloths and sidewalk tables, barkers call out in Italian to lure patrons into their bistros. “Caio bella”, Parasol responds to one gentleman caller. “Un altro tempo marinaio”, she continues in accented Italian. Translation: “Another time, sailor”.
Along this stretch of Columbus it’s difficult to discern the authentic from the bogus. With each passing checkered tablecloth and speaker piping Italian music, something familiar comes to mind. That “something familiar” suddenly dawns on Rykarda, “North Beach, when you’re here you’re family,” she says, punning on the infamous Italian chain restaurant commercials.
North Beach’s other namesake, the Barbary Coast, has less to do with Italian eateries and more to do with the neighborhood’s enigmatic past. “There’s so much history here”, says Parasol. “This is where San Francisco got its start. It’s the Barbary Coast.” The term refers to the area when, after the 1849 Gold Rush, an influx of prostitution, crime, gambling and in particular, the practice of kidnapping sailors and pressing them into service were the norm. These days, the sailors and gambling may be gone (for the most part, anyway), however Broadway still boasts a healthy number of “gentlemen’s clubs”. It’s while peering into one of these famed clubs, the Condor, that Parasol shares an inspired idea. “Did I ever mention I wanted to open a topless tapas joint”, she laughs. “Boobs, booze and pizza. (North Beach) has something for everyone!”
Coming up in Part II - Grant Ave, the North Beach Punk scene and Rykarda's picks. For more information on Rykarda Parasol's music, including show schedule, click here.
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