“San Francisco, Italy”: that’s what former San Francisco Italian Consul General Mauro Battocchi would call the City in his colorful blog which is still online and continues to highlight his years here.

But before “San Francisco, Italy,” we had “Little Italy”—a community sweeping down the slopes from Telegraph Hill into what is still called North Beach. That was well over 100 years ago. Now, the remarkable legacy early Italian-Americans left behind is still an amazing and important part of San Francisco’s past, present, and future.