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ANTIQUES ON THE AVENUE: North Beach’s GRANT AVENUE, once known as Dupont Street, is San Francisco’s oldest street and is probably one of the most populated and diverse back streets in San Francisco. This one-way lane is dotted with many antique shops and vintage retailers. Get lost in century-old maps and rare books at SCHEIN & SCHEIN. The owners Jimmie and Marti Schein will give you a dose of local history. ARIA is a favorite stop for antique shoppers looking for an interesting and eclectic array of finds. Vintage LPs and records of all varieties are packed into 101 MUSIC—a real music lover’s paradise. MEA CINIS has a fresh take on decorative arts showcasing uncommon ethnic artifacts and striking jewels—some of which are beautifully crafted from antique glass and metals by owner Mike Leon. Vintage stores such as OLD VOGUE keep hipsters clad in blasts from the fashionable past. Modern-day fashionistas get their fill at the avenue’s boutiques. Find the perfect pair of designer jeans to complement your curves at AB FITS, upscale urbanite outfits at PAPARAZZI, and a sassy selection of feminine apparel at OOMA. This street is home to a variety of ethnic cuisines, but ITALIAN FRENCH BAKING COMPANY remains distinctly Italian. This longtime local favorite bakes fresh focaccia bread and dozens of flavored biscotti daily. As you stroll, stop to gawk at the beautiful cakes adorning the windows at I DREAM OF CAKE. Nighttime revelers flock to Grant Avenue at for its many watering holes: MAGGIE MCGARRY’s serves stiff drinks with an Irish flair, MOJITO offers live music and many incarnations of its namesake cocktail, SAVOY-TIVOLI is always packed with the 20-something crowd, and THE SALOON—the oldest bar in San Francisco—still attracts a crowd after more than a century of business.
Inside Track on San Francisco - TravelSmith
Schein & Schein featured in TravelSmith catalog and online "Travel Destinations - Tour of San Francisco". Fall 2009
A
drizzly night on the edge of spring at the Caffe Trieste on upper Grant
Avenue. Not many people inside: a man in a dark suit and tie, maybe a
lawyer, sitting by himself, a tall young woman writing the Great
American Novel (or maybe the Great American Spreadsheet) on a laptop,
another woman in the corner, reading. A man and two young women at a
table, laughing.
There
is a band: mandolin, guitar, bass, drum. For their opening number: the
old Duke Ellington standard "Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me." A
ragged-looking man comes in, short, bearded, selling wilted red roses.
Not much going on, really. A slow night, people just hanging out in North Beach, San Francisco.
Seeking a connection
North Beach has always existed in kind of a dream, part reality,
part fantasy, a neighborhood of deep roots and no roots at all.
Sometimes, people settle down and stay, and become San Franciscans.
Others are just passing through.
But it's kind of a California dream for a lot of people: an
18-year-old kid in some dead-end West Virginia town, the smartest girl
in her Iowa high school class, looking out the window at the snow at
the end of a long winter. Maybe, they think, maybe it's time to go to
California, to San Francisco, to that North Beach place and hang out,
drink wine, smoke something, listen to jazz.
Maybe they were assigned "On the Road" in school and read how Jack
Kerouac saw San Francisco after a long, crazy drive. "It seemed like a
matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland
and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the
fabulous white city of San Francisco on her 11 mystic hills with the
blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato patch fog beyond, and
smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time. 'There she blows!'
Dean Moriarty yelled. 'Wow! Made it!' "
Kerouac and his pals settled, of course, in North Beach. They took
over upper Grant. At the high noontide of the Beat Generation, men and
women in black drifted up and down the streets and into the
coffeehouses, drinking, smoking, reading poetry, arguing.
Jimmie Schein grew up in Pennsylvania, saw no future in it, and at
the age of 17 was playing harmonica in a band at the Saloon on Grant.
He was a musician, went on the road himself, but was always drawn back
to San Francisco and North Beach.
Now he and his wife, Marti, own Schein & Schein, an antiquarian
book and map shop on upper Grant. "We deal in history," he says.
Everything you needed
The history of North Beach is like the history of the city in the
20th century - change roiling over a city that doesn't like change. You
can find lots of people in North Beach who will tell you that the
neighborhood was better a generation ago.
Back then, it was Italian. "It was a great neighborhood," said Gigi
Fiorucci, "It was an Italian neighborhood. I mean, you didn't have to
speak English at all."
North Beach had daily newspapers in Italian, it had Italian
bakeries, delicatessens, selling dozens of varieties of olive oil, shoe
repair shops, tailor shops, hardware stores. It had everything you
needed. They called it "The Little City."
Fiorucci runs a restaurant called Sotto Mare on Green Street. He
started as a dishwasher at Caesar's on Bay Street and owned a baker's
dozen San Francisco restaurants. "This is my first restaurant and my
last," he says of the Sotto Mare.
Roots run deep
There are people like Stephen Scarpulla, the manager at Rose Pistola
restaurant on Columbus Avenue. Like a lot of Italians born and raised
in North Beach, his roots run very deep. His uncles run restaurants.
He's related to the Aliotos, and lots of other North Beach families.
How many cousins does he have? "More than a hundred," he said.
"You know," he says, "you care more about the community if you have a business and live here, too."
Ken Maley has lived in North Beach for 32 years and has seen it
change. He remembers the old Italian men sitting in Washington Square
and basking in the sun, gossiping in Italian, smoking those
foul-smelling Toscano cigars. He remembers very different places: bars
like the Capri, the Black Cat, the Paper Doll. All gone now.
He remembers the first time he walked into the U.S. Cafe on
Columbus, a new kid in town, long hair, obviously not a San Francisco
type. "Everybody looked up. I could see what they were thinking. Who is
this guy?"
Maybe the old San Francisco cliche is true. The city was perfect the
day you arrived here, and it has gone to hell every day since.
Carl Nolte fondly remembers the French bread and salami sandwiches from Panelli Bros. on Stockton Street.
Winter 2008/2009 - Inside San Francisco
Inside San Francisco Magazine Finders Keepers San Francisco's Antique Stores Provide Premium Pickings Written by Jeanine Matlow Schein & Schein 1435 Grant Avenue San Francisco CA 94133 www.scheinandschein.com Jim Schein and his wife, Marti, co-owners of Schein & Schein, bring 500 years of print history to the Bay Area. They also offer preservation framing to protect the engravings and maps that have become their niche. Many of the 25,000 maps on hand hold academic as well as aesthetic merit, Jim says. And, 20th-century children's maps are another popular choice. Now that the art of mapmaking has transitioned from print to electronic sources, those in existence hold even more charm. "As the world gets more complex," Jime says, "maps are very endearing."
Sunday, March 26, 2006 (SF Chronicle) ON THE TOWN .. With Jayson Wechter/Private eye sleuths treasures Aidin Vaziri, Chronicle Staff Writer
Over the past 15 years, San Francisco private detective Jayson Wechter has turned the city upside down with his "Vertigo" Treasure Hunt, using locations from Alfred Hitchcock's film of the same name, and another hunt based on sites from Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City." He also hangs up his spyglass every February and leads amateur sleuths on the Chinese New Year's Treasure Hunt. Needless to say, during that time he's discovered some Bay Area treasures of his own, and he shared some of his favorites with us by e-mail.
Schein & Schein, 1435 Grant Ave. "I feel like I'm hanging out in Jimmie and Marti Schein's living room when I settle into the overstuffed couch in their antique prints and maps shop. I'll pore over their stacks of vintage San Francisco photographs, and Jimmie and I will try to puzzle out locations and the identities of long-gone landmarks. I've used at least one old print I found here in one of my treasure hunts."
Postcards & Greetings:
1435 Grant Ave., San Francisco, CA 94133
415-399-8882 fax: 415-399-8883
Open Tuesday through Saturday 11am to 7pm Closed Sunday & Monday