Page 196 - People & Places In Time

night in San Francisco, while on a buying trip with an employee, to destroy two marriages, to dash a dream that embodied all that I had lived for . . . to leave my life in shambles?
The City From A New Perspective
Ramona Antonioni (Toni) was a girlfriend living in San Francisco during the mid 1980s. For that year we were together I would leave my Fresno home late on most Friday afternoons arriving in the city by late evening, returning to Fresno on Sunday afternoons.
Toni and I had met through an arranged blind date facilitated by my friend David Lometti.
It was a mid-week evening and we arrived separately at “Casablanca”. A small storefront restaurant on Polk, a block off Van Ness. Named for the movie, there were no more than ten or twelve small tables and yes, a black man in a suit was seated at the white upright piano. I had driven from Fresno that after- noon and walked into the restaurant with not a clue as to the woman I was meeting. Toni was sitting alone at a table. I had to assume this was the woman I was here to meet. Dinner went well and I then drove back to Fresno. Likely one of the longest drives ever for a blind date, in the course of one evening.
Though I have never lived in San Francisco for an extended time; that year with Toni was as close as I could get. I’ve always felt as at home in the City as I could anywhere. With Toni, we explored the many neighborhoods that make the city seem smaller, and yet together they define the larger whole. Each of these enclaves become distinctive by the people who live and work there. This is not unique, a part of any city where I’ve spent time. One of those aspects I believe, that makes cities so attractive to me.
The West Portal neighborhood is located west of Twin Peaks, where Toni lived at the time, and north of Saint Francis Wood. Non-descript for the most part, it is non-the-less like any neighborhood, a reflection of the people living there. A street which could be described as the main street for this neighbor- hood, seemed so much like any that can be found in many small towns around the country. There are the family owned shops and restaurants we ate in, a small movie theater that we went to from time to time. A small town within the larger city.
Better known of course is the North Beach neighborhood. The Italian side of town hard against Washington Square and Saints Peter & Paul church. Toni is Italian, raised in Philadelphia by parents that were among the last im- migrants to pass through Ellis Island. Her first language was Italian, but she also spoke Russian fluently, having studied at the University of Pennsylvania to be- come an interpreter. One evening we had gone to a small Italian restaurant on Powell Street. On entering, Toni struck up an animated conversation in Italian
with the maître de as if to an old friend she had not seen in some time. Once seated she ordered dinner for us both from our waiter, in Italian; I felt as if in a foreign country, yet completely at ease.
Something did catch my interest half way through dinner. . . two men wearing dark grey suits, black shirt with white tie and fedoras had come in the front door, walked through the restaurant and out a door at the back as quietly as they had entered; gone in little more than a glance. I suppose the atmosphere of the evening made this moment seem more than it was, nei- ther looked like John Baluchi, so, if it wasn’t the Blues Brothers . . . . then who knows?
Turn east off Columbus Avenue onto Union Street at Washington Square, travel one block and you will find yourself at the Stockton Street inter- section and Tony’s Napolitano Pizza. I’m pretty sure this is the best place for pizza that I’ve been. Five pizza ovens
scattered about the different rooms
each oven at a different tempera-
ture for different styles of pizza. On
any given Friday or Saturday night
the wait can stretch to well over an
hour.
Continuing on Union street,
take a left onto Montgomery and
up the hill to the last segment of the
Filbert steps, which, if climbed will
take you further up the hill to Coit
Tower but that’s not where I’m
headed. For its here as the road dead
ends among a hand full of parking
spaces that you’ve arrived at Julius’s
Castle, so precariously clinging to
the steep hillside. Easily the best
view of the bay as from any other
dining table in the city (I’m aware of
the many dining rooms with a view,
just none like this one). While waiting at the small downstairs bar for our table, Toni introduced me to frozen shots of Stolichnaya vodka. Since that experi- ence, my vodka is only stored in the freezer at home. Good food, good wine and a romantic setting, in this out of the way spot, has created another endur- ing memory. Though it is a place I’ve not returned in over thirty years, I under- stand the restaurant is nearly set to reopen following its closure and extensive remodel. I would like to go back someday, but I probably can’t afford to now.
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