San Francisco Walking Tour: North Beach, the Beats and Coit Tower

North Beach is San Francisco's old Italian quarter, a small valley of cafes, bakeries and bars squeezed between Russian Hill, Chinatown and the steep green mound of Telegraph Hill. Fishermen from Genoa and Sicily settled here, and in the 1950s a crowd of poets and drifters known as the Beats made its coffeehouses and bookstore famous around the world. This walk begins at the white twin-spired church on Washington Square, follows Columbus Avenue down to City Lights and Jack Kerouac Alley, then climbs the eastern side of Telegraph Hill by garden stairways to Coit Tower at the top. It is only about two kilometers, a mile and a quarter, but the last part is properly steep, and it is one of the most rewarding self-guided walking tours in the city.

Before you set off

Plan on about two hours, longer if you settle into a cafe, which in North Beach is part of the point. The first half is flat and easy, along busy sidewalks. The second half climbs Telegraph Hill on steep streets and long flights of steps, so wear shoes with good grip, take it slowly and stop often to look back at the view. Some of the stairways are uneven, and wooden steps can be slippery after rain or fog. Mornings are calm, with locals at the bakeries and the park quiet; late afternoon brings warm light on the hill and a livelier crowd below. San Francisco weather changes fast, and the top of the hill is often windy and cool even when the valley is warm, so bring a layer. Coit Tower's elevator and the murals inside keep their own hours and charge for the ride to the top, so check before you go.

Saints Peter and Paul Church

Stand at the foot of the church steps and look up at the two white spires, lacy as wedding cake, rising above the north side of Washington Square. Saints Peter and Paul was finished in 1924 to serve the Italian families who filled this neighborhood, and for generations it was the center of their lives, with baptisms, weddings and funerals in Italian. It still holds Mass in Italian today. Look above the main doors for a line of gold lettering. It is the opening of Dante's Paradise, about the glory of the one who moves all things shining through the universe, a fitting greeting for a church built by immigrants from Italy. The neighborhood's most famous son was the baseball player Joe DiMaggio, who grew up a few blocks from here, the son of a Sicilian fisherman. In January 1954, after he and Marilyn Monroe married at City Hall, they came here to have their photographs taken on these steps, because both had been married before, and a church wedding was not possible. When he died in 1999, his funeral was held inside. If the doors are open, step in for a look at the tall, bright nave. Then turn around: the green lawn of Washington Square is right in front of you.

Washington Square

Walk out onto the grass and look around. Washington Square is not square at all. Columbus Avenue cuts across one corner, so the park has five sides, and North Beach likes it that way. It is the neighborhood's living room. In the early morning, groups of older Chinese residents from nearby Chinatown practice tai chi on the lawn, moving slowly in rows, while dog walkers and coffee drinkers drift past. Find the bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin near the middle of the park. It was a gift from a dentist and temperance campaigner named Henry Cogswell, who installed drinking fountains around the city to tempt people away from alcohol, which is a bold idea in a neighborhood famous for its bars. On the Columbus Avenue side, look for a bronze group of three firefighters, one of them carrying a woman to safety. That statue was paid for by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a woman devoted to the city's volunteer firemen, whose money also built the tower you will reach at the end of this walk. Around the edges of the square, notice the cafes and the old bakery. North Beach has been a coffee neighborhood for a century. When you are ready, walk to the southern corner of the park and follow Columbus Avenue a block or so southeast, about three minutes.

Columbus Avenue

You are on Columbus Avenue, the main street of North Beach, and you may notice that it runs at an angle to every other street around it. It was cut diagonally through the city grid in the 1870s to link the waterfront with downtown, and that slant gives North Beach its odd triangular corners and its long views. Look south down the avenue. At the far end, a green copper-clad building with a pointed corner sits in front of the tall white Transamerica Pyramid. That green building is Columbus Tower, finished just after the 1906 earthquake and fire, and today it belongs to the filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Along the avenue you will pass old Italian delis hung with salami, pastry shops, and restaurants with tables on the sidewalk. A block off the avenue, on Vallejo Street at Grant, sits Caffe Trieste, opened in 1956 by an Italian immigrant family, and often called the first espresso house on the West Coast. Beat poets drank coffee there, and Coppola is said to have worked on the script of The Godfather at one of its tables. Look for the Italian flag colors painted on some of the light poles. Then follow Columbus Avenue southeast, across Broadway, for about four minutes. On your left, just past the corner, you will see a bookstore with poetry in its windows.