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History of Washington Square Inn
This historic San Francisco hotel was built in 1910. The Washington Square Inn was first used as an office building including a Pharmacy and Dental offices. The Victorian style building was then converted into a Bed and Breakfast Inn in 1978 by Norm & Nan Rosenblatt. Maria and Daniel Levin are the third owners. They purchased Washington Square Inn in 2004 after selling their inn in Mendocino that they had owned for the last seven years.
History of Washington Square Inn and North Beach
This historic San
Francis,co
hotel was built (or rebuilt - after the earthquake)
in 1910. Though there are photos dating back to around 1850. The Washington
Square Inn was first used as an office building including a Pharmacy on the
lower floor and Dental / medical offices on the upper floors. The Edwardian
style building was then converted into a Bed and Breakfast Inn in 1978 by Norm & Nan Rosenblatt. Maria and Daniel
Levin are the third owners. They purchased Washington Square Inn in 2004 after
selling their inn in Mendocino. They are members of Select Registry and Unique
Inns.
"North beach is San Francisco's best
loved neighborhood. Within its border are all things that made the city famous
- food, literature, cable cars, music, movies, funky bars, good coffee,
rollercoaster streets, great views and bohemian life." Times - UK
"A neighborhood like North Beach is a
rare thing. It manages to be a perennial hit with tourists as well as remain
beloved by San Franciscans. It is best known as "Little Italy" and of all the
neighborhoods in San Francisco, North Beach feels most like New York. The
bustling sidewalls filled with tables of diners chowing down on pizza and fried
calamari, the small, quirky specialty shops, and the plethora of bakeries,
delis and old fashioned bars combine in a vibrant, changing neighborhood." SF.- Chronicle
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Part
of the Barbary Coast; North Beach is
steeped in history. A hundred and fifty years ago; it was a city of 20,000 or so, a boom town
of tents born out of the Gold Rush. It was wild and dangerous. John W. Geary,
the city's first mayor, noted that San Francisco had no police, no fire
department, no jail, no hospital, and no civic funds. "Public improvements
are unknown in San Francisco," he told the city's common council.
Among the first acts of the city government
was to set aside three public squares: Union Square, Portsmouth Square and
Washington Square. Of the three, Washington Square looked the most unpromising.
It was a cemetery, a cow pasture and later, the home of immigrants: first
Russians, then Germans, then Italians, who built wooden shacks around the
square and then up the side of Telegraph Hill.
In the 19th century, Montgomery Street was extended out toward the bay,
cut on the diagonal, like a slash. It ran across one side of Washington Square,
at Union Street, cutting off a corner of the original square and leaving a
small park, now a little triangular jewel fronting what's now called Columbus
Avenue. This park, which contains a small pond shaded by poplars and guarded by
two miniature golden bears, is technically part of Washington Square.
By the turn of the century, North Beach was Little Italy, a district of
fishermen, homemade wine and garlic.
In the catastrophe of 1906 (earthquake), North Beach and the rest of the
city was destroyed and Washington Square was turned into a refugee camp.
In the '20s, '30s and '40s, the square was the heart of Italian San
Francisco; as recently as 50 years ago it was estimated that 70,000 persons of
Italian descent lived within a few blocks.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti - the most
influential poet of the beat movement along with his partner, writer Kenneth
Roxroth opened the famous book store
"City Lights' in 1952, here in North Beach. There they hosted many other
writers from the beat movement, such as, Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Jack Kerouac. The baseball
great Joe DiMaggio, since the age of one;
grew up in North Beach in a flat on Valparaiso and Taylor streets. He married
his first wife, Dorothy Arnold at Saints Peter and Paul cathedral. After their divorce ( and because of it) the
church would not allow him to remarry in the church again, so he married
Marilyn Monroe at City Hall, then came to Saints Peter & Paul Cathedral for
photographs.
By the 1970s, it had changed again. The young
Italian families moved out and now Washington Square was full of old men in
black suits, smoking black cigars in the long afternoons, dreaming of their
past. There were still hardware stores, and until very recently a drugstore
(now Washington Square Inn) on the square actually sold leeches, an old remedy.
"Life is moving on," one of the old men told a Chronicle
reporter nearly 20 years ago. "We come, we go." He was 89 at the
time, and his time came soon after.
Now the old Italian men have been replaced in the square these mornings
by elderly Chinese women doing tai chi; graceful, slow movements, like time
passing.
Washington Square Park has recently
celebrated its 150th birthday, "the almost perfect San Francisco
Place. Washington Square is like San Francisco itself; a beautiful place where nothing is really as it seems
to be." The late Herb Caen loved to recite the park's contradictory virtues:"
It is a square that isn't a square, the heart of North Beach, which isn't a
beach. Washington Square isn't on Washington Street and has a statue of
Benjamin Franklin instead of George Washington. The statue was erected by H.D. Cogswell, a
teetotaler, but the square is surrounded on three sides by bars and restaurants
and on the fourth by a church.
Washington Square is also a historic remnant of a city swirling in
change.
"Benjamin Franklin has stood on his
pedestal there since 1904," said Julienne Christensen, a North Beach
neighborhood activist, "while the park and the city has changed
enormously."
For those who have not seen Washington
Square, it is a lovely green island, with Lombardy poplars in its center.
It is surrounded by the city, the movement
and color of cars, electric Muni buses and taxis. Washington square is the
center of a small valley, Russian Hill to the west, Telegraph Hill to the East.
Standing in the middle, one can see the Top of the Mark and Coit Tower,
tall apartment houses in one direction and wooden flats in another. At one end
of Columbus Avenue is the Transamerica Pyramid, at the other, views of the Bay
and a Mount Tamalpais. The Mason Street cable car is only a block away. North Beach is the most densely populated
place in the city, (next to China Town) and Washington Square is the only park
where one can lay on the grass and see the sky.
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