Sonoma Alley
Day 17
Neighborhoods Covered: Financial District, Jackson Square, North Beach, Chinatown
Streets Completed: Mark Twain, Balance, Gold, Hotaling, Merchant, Osgood, Hodges, Bartol, Prescott, San Antonio, Pollard, Fresno, Dunnes, Romolo, Margrave, Varennes, Genoa, Sonoma, Bannam, Jasper, Jack Kerouac Alley (Adler), Saroyan Alley (Adler)
I take it back: SoMa isn't the neighborhood to beat in terms of tiny side streets and alleys. North Beach is.
I've been to North Beach and environs (Jackson Square, Telegraph Hill, Chinatown) over and over in my years here, but somehow never registered much beyond a few favorite haunts and the main drags. But not until I started to take the area block by block did I realize just how many small streets there are. Over the course of a few hours yesterday, I finished 22 of them. (Fear not, Monique: there are many, many, many more to go.) They were, needless to say, utterly empty of tourists, and, in most cases, utterly empty even of residents.
There's a lot to love about North Beach in general, even the stuff purists might sniff at. For every "authentic" "Italian" restaurant along Columbus, there's another that really is, even if it's actually a few blocks off on Grant. There's Vesuvio, Specs Adler's, Stella, Liguria Bakery, Mama's, and, of course, Mario's. There's Washington Square Park's blend of Chinese ladies doing tai chi, tourists trying to figure out how to get to Coit Tower, and various scruffy denizens. And City Lights always reminds me that good things are possible.
But when you step away from the center of things, the place opens itself up even more. For example, North Beach is full of what are called Romeo and Juliet houses: buildings with a main entry in the middle and two perfectly symmetrical apartments on either side. Why Romeo and Juliet? I wish I knew. (If you know, please e-mail or post a comment.) You'd think that if Romeo and Juliet had actually survived, they'd want to live together. At any rate, they're pretty charming, and you don't see them in quite the same abundance elsewhere in the city. You also don't see them on Columbus or Broadway or Grant.
The neighborhood's side streets and alleys offer up other things you wouldn't see elsewhere. Through an opening in a garage on San Antonio, I got a perfect view of Sts. Peter and Paul church with the hills of Marin a perfect green behind it. On Pollard, I saw buildings constructed right in (on?) huge solid chunks of the rock that underlies the area (and sometimes pops to the surface, apparently). On Sonoma, I saw the pastel-perfect houses pictured above, as well as the only decorated fire escape I've yet to encounter anywhere, ever.
By the time I headed back towards Market, I was slightly loopy with heat and the beginnings of serious foot fatigue, but still I had to stop myself from ducking down any more alleys. (Not an easy thing to do.) There's something so fascinating to me about all of these small, out-of-the-way streets that I almost fear it's like I'm eating dessert first, and that all of the big streets that await me will be something of a letdown.
Neighborhoods Covered: Financial District, Jackson Square, North Beach, Chinatown
Streets Completed: Mark Twain, Balance, Gold, Hotaling, Merchant, Osgood, Hodges, Bartol, Prescott, San Antonio, Pollard, Fresno, Dunnes, Romolo, Margrave, Varennes, Genoa, Sonoma, Bannam, Jasper, Jack Kerouac Alley (Adler), Saroyan Alley (Adler)
I take it back: SoMa isn't the neighborhood to beat in terms of tiny side streets and alleys. North Beach is.
I've been to North Beach and environs (Jackson Square, Telegraph Hill, Chinatown) over and over in my years here, but somehow never registered much beyond a few favorite haunts and the main drags. But not until I started to take the area block by block did I realize just how many small streets there are. Over the course of a few hours yesterday, I finished 22 of them. (Fear not, Monique: there are many, many, many more to go.) They were, needless to say, utterly empty of tourists, and, in most cases, utterly empty even of residents.
There's a lot to love about North Beach in general, even the stuff purists might sniff at. For every "authentic" "Italian" restaurant along Columbus, there's another that really is, even if it's actually a few blocks off on Grant. There's Vesuvio, Specs Adler's, Stella, Liguria Bakery, Mama's, and, of course, Mario's. There's Washington Square Park's blend of Chinese ladies doing tai chi, tourists trying to figure out how to get to Coit Tower, and various scruffy denizens. And City Lights always reminds me that good things are possible.
But when you step away from the center of things, the place opens itself up even more. For example, North Beach is full of what are called Romeo and Juliet houses: buildings with a main entry in the middle and two perfectly symmetrical apartments on either side. Why Romeo and Juliet? I wish I knew. (If you know, please e-mail or post a comment.) You'd think that if Romeo and Juliet had actually survived, they'd want to live together. At any rate, they're pretty charming, and you don't see them in quite the same abundance elsewhere in the city. You also don't see them on Columbus or Broadway or Grant.
The neighborhood's side streets and alleys offer up other things you wouldn't see elsewhere. Through an opening in a garage on San Antonio, I got a perfect view of Sts. Peter and Paul church with the hills of Marin a perfect green behind it. On Pollard, I saw buildings constructed right in (on?) huge solid chunks of the rock that underlies the area (and sometimes pops to the surface, apparently). On Sonoma, I saw the pastel-perfect houses pictured above, as well as the only decorated fire escape I've yet to encounter anywhere, ever.
By the time I headed back towards Market, I was slightly loopy with heat and the beginnings of serious foot fatigue, but still I had to stop myself from ducking down any more alleys. (Not an easy thing to do.) There's something so fascinating to me about all of these small, out-of-the-way streets that I almost fear it's like I'm eating dessert first, and that all of the big streets that await me will be something of a letdown.
2 comments:
Those buildings in the photo don't look like what I think of as Romeo apartments. I'm under the impression that Romeo buildings are ones with balcony (instead of enclosed) center staircases, because of the balcony association with Romeo and Juliet.
You're right, Eric: the houses in the photo aren't R&J's, and your description of what Romeo apartments are sounds accurate to me. Next time I'm back in North Beach I'll hunt down a few samples and take some photos.
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