During the 1950s, many of the neighborhood's cafes and bars became the home and epicenter of the Beat Generation and gave rise to the San Francisco Renaissance. The term "beatnik" originated from the scene here and was coined in a derogatory fashion by famed San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. Many of that generation's most famous writers and personalities such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Neal Cassady lived in the neighborhood.[from wikipedia]

The somewhat compact layout of the neighborhood consists of apartments, duplexes, and Victorian homes dating from the 1920s, when residents rebuilt the neighborhood from its complete destruction after the earthquake and fire of 1906.[from wikipedia]

The North Beach Festival street fair on Grant Avenue and Columbus Avenue usually held on Father's Day weekend in June is one of the city's largest. It is also considered one of the nations oldest street fairs.[from wikipedia]

The neighborhood still retains an Italian character with many Italian restaurants, cafes, and bakeries that line Columbus Avenue and Washington Square.[from wikipedia]

Broadway east of Columbus Avenue still serves as one of the city's main nightclub districts and offers restaurants, blues clubs, strip clubs, nightclubs, and jazz clubs.[from wikipedia]

Since the 1980s, and much like Manhattan's Little Italy, due to a decrease in emigration from Italy and gentrification, the neighborhood has seen its native Italian American population rapidly shrink, while neighboring Chinatown has been rapidly expanding north into the neighborhood south of Broadway and along Stockton Street causing a major demographic shift to a mix of mostly Chinese and young professional population, although some, albeit very few, Italian Americans remain.[from wikipedia]