Little Italy Is the Light of the Night
— 2019

The Little Italy Is the Light of the Night explores the History of San Francisco’s North beach through a system of three cohesive icons. San Francisco is a city full of life, passion, love, and exquisite history which has shaped by many people, and during the 1950s and 1960s in San Francisco, Beatnik and Jazz culture took over North Beach. During the early 1900s, North Beach was an actual beach located on the northern end of San Francisco.  The beach drew in Italian American immigrants in the early twentieth century, and the neighborhood became known as Little Italy. The Beatnik generation is still celebrated in Little Italy today, and embodies the Italian culture with its restaurants and cafes. Poetry and performance was brought into the cafés and streets of North Beach, which were heavily influenced by swing and predominantly jazz music, which was infused into the poetry. This also allowed for dancing as a form of self expression and freedom.