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Parade sounds<\/em><\/p>\n Olivia Allen-Price: <\/strong>San Francisco\u2019s Italian Heritage parade creates a massive public party in North Beach every October. Streets are blocked off from Fisherman\u2019s Wharf to Washington Square Park on Columbus Day weekend. Bystanders wave mini Italian flags and eat gelato as they watch the fancy floats and trolleys go by.<\/p>\n Parade music<\/em><\/p>\n Olivia Allen-Price: <\/strong>At Saints Peter and Paul church, people play a salami toss game.<\/p>\n Salami toss sounds<\/em><\/p>\n Olivia Allen-Price: <\/strong>Word is, this is the longest-running Italian parade in the country \u2013 started back in 1869. Our question asker this week, Grant Strother [STRUH-ther]], says, he\u2019s not Italian, but he\u2019s walked these streets since he was a teenager.<\/p>\n Grant Strother:<\/strong> I do remember in high school in the early 2000s, you would still hear some Italian conversations on the street. I remember like hearing that at Mario\u2019s and Trieste.<\/p>\n Olivia Allen-Price: <\/strong>Now, as an adult, he works in the financial district and sometimes walks to North Beach for lunch, to grab a caprese sandwich at Molinari\u2019s Deli. But during one of those walks, he wondered \u2026 Do Italian people still live in North Beach, or is it all just a tourist trap?<\/p>\n Grant Strother:<\/strong> Obviously, immigration patterns have undoubtedly changed since North Beach was populated. But I was just interested then in how Italian North Beach really is, aside from a lot of the restaurants that are still there.<\/p>\n Olivia Allen-Price: <\/strong>I\u2019m Olivia Allen-Price, and today on Bay Curious, we\u2019ll look at the Italian roots of North Beach, track how things have changed and learn about some of the efforts to keep this history alive.<\/p>\n Sponsor message<\/em><\/p>\n Olivia Allen-Price: <\/strong>Located on San Francisco\u2019s northeast side, North Beach is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city and has been home to immigrants from many backgrounds over the years. It sits right next to Chinatown and where Little Manilatown used to be. Now, it\u2019s teeming with Italian cafes, restaurants and bakeries. KQED\u2019s Pauline Bartolone went to find out whether any Italians still live in this neighborhood.<\/p>\n Sound of Columbus Avenue<\/em><\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>Remnants of Italian culture are still all around North Beach, but to spot them, it helps to have a guide. Someone like Steve Leveroni, who grew up in North Beach in the 50s and 60s.<\/p>\n Steve Leveroni: <\/strong>Way back when\u2026 home of the Genoveses lived on Green street from Green and Mason all the way up to Green and Grant.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>Steve gives me a tour of the neighborhood, his great-great-grandfather, Luigi, landed back in the 1860s. Like many Italian immigrants in North Beach, he came from Northern Italy, the Genoa region. In the decades that followed, other Italians came from Tuscany, Sicily and Calabria to escape poverty and seek new opportunities.<\/p>\n (Sound of walking up steps)<\/em><\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>They settled around the Italian Cathedral, Sts. Peter and Paul Church\u2026still a center point for later generations.<\/p>\n Steve Leveroni: <\/strong>So this is where you come for your baptism, you come for marriage, you also come for your funeral.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>The church towers above Washington Square Park, where residents bask in the sun, play with dogs, practice tai chi and blast music. Steve says when he was growing up, Italians used to hang out here.<\/p>\n Steve Leveroni: <\/em><\/strong>You\u2019d see groups sitting down of men and women and they would be speaking in Italian. So that is probably one thing that\u2019s not as much.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>You don\u2019t hear Italian very much because not many Italians live here anymore. At its height in 1930, the Italian community numbered about 60,000 people, almost a tenth of the population of San Francisco. But as early as the 1950s, the Italians here joined many others in the flight to the suburbs. Now, only four percent of residents in North Beach\u2019s main ZIP code have Italian heritage, that\u2019s according to the latest census data of people who reported ancestry. But Steve says even if younger generations moved out of the city, they still come back to the neighborhood for celebrations.<\/p>\n Steve Leveroni: <\/em><\/strong>The North Beach area is the gathering place for all the Italians to come back to. But where do they go? They come, you know, to the restaurants.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>The restaurants of North Beach are now the most visible and lasting legacy of the Italian enclave here. Graffeo\u2019s coffee on Columbus, since 1935. Molinari\u2019s Deli, our question-asker\u2019s spot, Italian-owned since 1896. Liguria Bakery known for its mushroom or raisin focaccia since 1911.<\/p>\n Restaurant sounds<\/em><\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>Steve wraps up our tour by taking me inside one of the city\u2019s best seafood spots: Sotto Mare, owned by his grammar school friends.<\/p>\n Steve Leveroni: <\/strong>Their sauces are all, I can see all on the stovetop there, so we\u2019re getting some aromas from that. And then probably one of those pots is their crab chipino, which is, which is excellent.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>Nowadays, you have to look pretty hard to find Italian old-timers in the neighborhood, but it\u2019s not impossible.<\/p>\n People speaking Sicilian<\/em><\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>After weeks of looking around, I finally heard some chatter at Stella\u2019s pastry shop on Columbus Avenue.<\/p>\n Michele Ferrante:<\/strong> We come every morning, seven days a week. Just, you know, we just get a drink espresso and you know we talk Italian, Sicilian actually.<\/p>\n Frank Balistreri:<\/strong> It\u2019s a meeting spot. Come out here and bullshit all day long. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>Michele Ferrante and Frank Balistreri both ran Italian restaurants in the neighborhood and still live here. They\u2019re just two of the Sicilians who talk sports and politics here every morning.<\/p>\n Michele Ferrante:<\/strong> We are known as the peccatore. We are all sinners.<\/p>\n Frank Balistreri:<\/strong> Give him the Academy Award, please. Make him happy.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>In fact, San Francisco\u2019s Italian restaurants are what drew Michele here as a young adult in the 1960s. His parents left Palermo for New York, but Michele wanted to come further west.<\/p>\n Michele Ferrante: <\/strong>I told my father, my mother says, Arrivederci, I\u2019m going to California. I heard about the Fisherman Wharf full of restaurants, full of Italians, mostly Sicilians, the Aliotos and others. And also because I was hearing so much about North Beach, and being Sicilian, and being a cook, so well, I can go there and get a job.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>By the late 1960s, North Beach\u2019s reputation was evolving beyond an Italian neighborhood. Beatnik culture was well established by then.<\/p>\n Michele Ferrante: <\/strong>Those were the days of the hippie generation, you know, \u201867 was the summer of love. Everything was going on. One of my favorite hangout was at La Rocca\u2019s Corner, which is still here.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>The beat culture, artists and Italians got along perhaps better than expected\u2026 Italian property owners reportedly kept rents low, and poets liked the cafes. In 1976, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, founder of City Lights Bookstore, took note of North Beach\u2019s waning Italian culture in his famous poem \u201cOld Italians are Dying.\u201d Here\u2019s a recording of him reading it.<\/p>\n Lawrence Ferlinghetti:<\/strong> For years the old Italians in faded felt hats have been sunning themselves and dying.<\/p>\n You have seen them on the benches in the park in Washington Square<\/p>\n The old Italians in their black high button shoes<\/p>\n The old men in their felt fedoras with stained hatbands have been dying and dying day by day.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>By the early 1980s, Michele says, North Beach didn\u2019t feel like an Italian enclave anymore.<\/p>\n Michele Ferrante: <\/strong>They all move, Burlingame, San Mateo, Napa, San Helena, Sonoma. San Francisco, not too many living here anymore, very little.<\/p>\n Frank Balistreri: <\/strong>Sure, we saw it change. There\u2019s still some kind of flavor, but not originally what I grew up with. The way I was raised here, you knew who was Italian and who wasn\u2019t. Now you don\u2019t know who\u2019s who. So, basically, you feel like nobody\u2019s here.<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>That feeling of \u201cno Italians\u201d \u2013 didn\u2019t sit well with the North Beach chamber of commerce. In the 1990s, they kicked off a marketing campaign for the neighborhood, \u201cLittle Italy of the West.\u201d Light poles were painted with Italian flag colors. People could buy \u201cI\u2019m proud to be half Italian\u201d t-shirts. Afterall, research shows, preserving a neighborhood\u2019s ethnic identity is good for business.<\/p>\n Sounds of kids singing in Italian<\/em><\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>Now, new initiatives are popping up to keep Italian heritage alive, like the Little Italy Honor Walk, a series of bronze sidewalk squares that memorialize notable Italians in San Francisco history. Five have been installed around Washington Square Park, and there\u2019s more on the way.<\/p>\n Singing fades out and sounds of Italian being spoken fade in<\/em><\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>Back at Stella\u2019s pastry shop, Michele and Frank say remembering North Beach\u2019s Italian history is important, but they don\u2019t need monuments to remind them.<\/p>\n Frank Balistreri: <\/strong>Times change, things change, I don\u2019t worry about it, as long as I\u2019m here where I want to be. Italians are no Italians, I know who I am, right?<\/p>\n Pauline Bartolone: <\/strong>North Beach\u2019s original Italian enclave may be long gone, but the neighborhood\u2019s history and food will keep bringing tourists\u2026and locals with Italians heritage\u2026 back for years to come.<\/p>\n Olivia Allen-Price:<\/strong> That story was brought to you by KQED reporter Pauline Bartolone. Special thanks to the San Francisco State University library where Pauline researched some of North Beach\u2019s history. Thanks also to Jim McKee of EarWax Productions for the recording of Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading \u201cOld Italians Are Dying.\u201d<\/p>\n Today\u2019s question came from Grant Strother, and you could be next! Submit your question about the Bay Area at BayCurious.org.<\/p>\n Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.<\/p>\n Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price.<\/p>\n With extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED.<\/p>\n Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.<\/p>\n I\u2019m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a wonderful week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n