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North Beach,voted Top Ten Neighborhood In U.s.

San Francisco - -- San Francisco's North Beach has been celebrated through the years by poets and novelists. Now, add the American Planning Association to the chorus. The 41,000-member professional organization on Tuesday proclaimed the low-slung district between Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf to be one of 10 Great Neighborhoods in America. The planners praise the physical character of the place - Columbus Avenue slicing past Washington Square below the spires of SS Peter and Paul Church, for instance - as well as the community activism that has helped to preserve the local retail scene. But if the honor makes good press, it didn't exactly catch the district's regulars by surprise. "North Beach has vitality. It's fun. Our employees and clients love coming here, and that speaks volumes," said Hans Baldauf of BCV Architects, which has 50 staffers jammed into a pair of offices near Washington Square. "We keep outgrowing our space, but we don't want to leave the neighborhood." Once a largely Italian enclave focused on the fisheries and docks of the bay, North Beach today is known equally well for such cultural landmarks as City Lights Bookstore. Grant Avenue has designer clothing boutiques. There's Chinese lettering on the marquee of North East Medical Services, three doors down Stockton Street from Palermo Delicatessen. This social mix caught the eye of distant planners every bit as much as the aged terrain of three- and four-story buildings. "One thing that jumps out about North Beach is that it's a vibrant neighborhood within the whole context of the city," said Paul Farmer, executive director of the association. "You've also got a great diversity of ownership and architectural styles because there are so many buildings. It's a more complex urbanism." Physically, North Beach hasn't changed much from 1940, when the Works Progress Administration's guide to San Francisco described Columbus Avenue as a "traffic-crowded artery, where stucco-framed commercial buildings with their awnings and signboards string in long rows." It portrayed the eastern residential streets as "endless blocks of weathered frame flats, staggered - steplike - one above another." These days, though, you're more likely to find Asian immigrants doing tai chi in Washington Square than Italian men sitting on benches smoking cigars. The Italian-themed coffeehouses and restaurants are aimed at tourists and regional diners more than people who live or work nearby. Still, "North Beach has shown a real ability to adapt itself to different generations, maintaining a sense of authenticity," said Boris Dramov, a principal at Roma Design Group. For 20 years, Dramov's firm has been based in the second floor of a building that stretches from Columbus to Grant. And when Dramov moved to San Francisco in the 1960s, his first perch was an apartment on nearby Telegraph Hill. "There's still a mix of uses, layers of activity," Dramov said. "North Beach has evolved, but it's still exceptional." To some San Franciscans, of course, North Beach can be just another neighborhood where it's hard to find parking. Case in point: Jake Nicol and Alex Sanchez, two native San Franciscans in their 20s. On Tuesday, they had a prime table across from Washington Square at Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe. When asked about the lure of North Beach, they shrugged. "You know, I never really came here growing up," Sanchez said. "It seemed too touristy. I coupled it with Fisherman's Wharf and Chinatown." Nicol nodded in agreement. These days, though, he's employed at a social service agency that provides assistance primarily to the people of Italian descent who remain in the area. "Working here, the difference is night and day. It's a completely different neighborhood," Nicol said. "There really is a community." Other neighborhoods singled out by the association include Park Slope in Brooklyn, San Diego's Hillcrest district and the Pike Place Market neighborhood in Seattle.

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