Raw States

North Beach Festival

San Francisco, CA · Festival

When

June 19–20, 2027

Where

Washington Square and Grant Avenue · San Francisco · CA

Cost

Not confirmed

Status

Approximate: based on past editions, not announced yet

Generally billed as the oldest urban street fair in the country, held in the old Italian quarter around Washington Square since 1954. Chalk artists work the pavement in front of Saints Peter and Paul, and the parish still holds its blessing of the animals during the weekend.

The history within reach

• North Beach Festivalsame spot

  Generally billed as the oldest urban street fair in the country, held in the old Italian quarter around Washington Square since 1954.

• Coit Tower murals painted0.3 mi

  Twenty-six artists were paid by the first federal art programme to fresco the lobby.

• Operation Midnight Climax0.3 mi

  As part of MKUltra, the CIA ran an apartment on Telegraph Hill where hired sex workers brought unwitting men to be dosed with LSD while narcotics agent George Hunter White watched from behind a two-way mirror with a pitcher of martinis.

• The Beat Generation at City Lights0.3 mi

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti's bookstore published Ginsberg's Howl in 1956.

• The Barbary Coast, San Francisco's den of thieves0.4 mi

  Nine blocks of dance halls, deadfalls and crimping dens where sailors were drugged and sold to outbound ships, the practice called shanghaiing.