As with most extraordinary projects, they begin with extraordinary people and their inspirational ideas. The new Piazza St. Francis-The Poets’ Plaza has been Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s vision for decades and that vision will soon be realized in one of San Francisco’s most historic and iconic neighborhoods, North Beach, the City’s Little Italy.
The piazza will nestle between Grant and Columbus Avenues on Vallejo Street in front of the National Shrine of Saint Francis. According to Dennis Sullivan, the plaza’s architect, ground breaking is currently scheduled for October 2nd. Yes, this does mean that North Beach is changing, again, but unlike some of the more recent changes, such as the closure of Capp’s Corner and the temporary (hopefully not permanent) closure of the U.S. Restaurant, the newest change is a good thing.
Back in 2009, Poet Laureate Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded the Piazza St. Francis Association, a 501.C3 foundation working toward establishing a piazza in front of St. Francis of Assisi church on Vallejo Street. Under the plan, this iconic block of North Beach would be closed to vehicular traffic transforming the roadway into an Italian-style pedestrian plaza, a vision he says was inspired by the lovely piazzas of Italy, a public square that will be an oasis for San Franciscans and world travelers.
Lawrence’s vision statement in his own words: “This is my updated vision of the Piazza Saint Francis on Vallejo Street, San Francisco, between Columbus Avenue and Grant Avenue, with the Shrine of Saint Francis on one side and the Café Trieste on the other. I first conceived of the Piazza Saint Francis as the Poets’ Plaza in 1998, but it was not until 2002 when the architect Dennis Sullivan returned to the City that we formed a working committee of enthusiastic residents and created an architectural rendering of the Piazza as we envisioned it. We later recruited Angela Alioto as prime mover and shaker, and her leadership has been invaluable.
I conceived the Plaza as a great public space where writers from all over America could come and recite their works (with quotes from great poets incised in the paving stone) – a plaza that would become the active literary center of the City.
Inner cities around the country are tardily learning that they do not have to allow automobile and car culture to overrun them. The Piazza Saint Francis is one attempt to stem the dirty tide of cars and trucks. The Piazza will be one barrier to cars polluting our neighborhood – which hopefully will lead to Upper Grant Avenue finally becoming a pedestrian mall.”
Project plans describe the new plaza’s location as “a peaceful enclave . . . an essential link between the neighborhood major thoroughfares, Grant and Columbus Avenues, with their excellent restaurants and fine shops…situated between the landmark National Shrine of Saint Francis and the historic Café Trieste”. All of these descriptors sound quite positive indeed.
The Poets Plaza is a civic project to be created by neighborhood volunteers, donations, and community grants. Beautifully resurfaced and tiled, the street will be transformed into an inviting community park with small trees and flowering plants. The transformation will include blocking each end with movable planters to accommodate fire and emergency access, movable chairs, wood and stone benches and trees in movable planting boxes.
Much like a village square, the new piazza is envisioned as a social landscape that will incorporate a new paved surface of green and white marble bands that are inspired by Italy’s magnificent cathedrals in Florence and Siena. The alternating marble bands are intended to be timeless and will extend from the face of Saint Francis to the face of Café Trieste as a symbolic bridge that will connect and unite the history of these remarkable landmarks to the future of North Beach. It will have new deciduous shade trees and perhaps a water feature to reflect the sky and viewer.
The quotations to be incised in the paving of the piazza will be those chosen by Ferlinghetti and will include Dante Alighieri’s, “In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood…”, Walt Whitman’s, “A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.”, and Ferlinghetti’s, “Abandon all despair, ye who enter here”. Intended to be inspirational, it does seem a project befitting one of the world’s most charismatic cities, an urban space for reflective and peaceful thoughts.
It certainly seems 2015 will be a landmark year, one of many landmark years, for Mr. Ferlinghetti. His visionary Piazza St. Francis-The Poets’ Plaza will see groundbreaking on October 2nd. His new book, Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1950-2013 (highlighted in a previous article) will be released in October with a celebration to take place at City Lights bookstore on October 20th.
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