the simple joy of really big fun. ♪ up next on a second look, they called him mr. san francisco. for 16 years, cain kept his finger on the pulse of the bay area. the life and times of herb cain and the city he loved straight ahead on a second look. >> hello everyone i'm frank somerville and welcome to a second look. tonight we're going to remember herb cane and -- herb cain and the san francisco where he not

only lived but he wrote a column. for years, once the footstepped out of the front door, the first place where people looked was the column written by cain folks learned the gossip. cain began his column in 1938 and wrote it almost to the day when he died in 1967. it was on that day that bob mackenzie brought us the life of mackenzie. >> god i love this town. >> reporter: and the town loved him as the city devoted a day of appreciate to the columnist. 1966 was cain's best year and worse. he find out that he was dying and how much he was loved. >> what makes herb cain so

special? >> i think primarily it was the fact that he loved the city, loved the people and would not desert them for anything in the world. he could have taken a lot of jobs in the world. he chose to stay right here and did a great job for the city. i can't wait to read the chronicle tomorrow morning to find out what happened here today. i've been sitting behind some character in a brown hat and haven't been able to see a thing. herb and i, herb and i met 53 years ago in london in world war ii, and i would like to take you through our 53 years

today year by year. you know, we fellow journalists who love both san francisco and herb cain might with whisper among ourselves that there's something uncomfortable about this premier newspaper man's association with his city. to love san francisco is certainly understandable, in fact, it's almost inevitable. but to have san francisco love you the way san francisco loves herb cain, this columnist, herb cain orders on the unlikely on the truly incredible. but i shall go forth from this place to testify that i've seen it with my very own eyes. this permanent recognition of herb cain's contribution to his

city and this great manifestation of this town. >> doesn't anybody work in this town? i mean who's running the town? we have five living mayors here. obviously the grand jury hasn't been doing its job. six- >> in april, his fellow staffers roared their applause as cain was awarded the highest honor in journalism. the pultzer prize. >> i guess i have to go on, i don't know how much longer i can go on but as long as i can, maybe i can win the nobel. >> reporter: cain had already told close friends he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. the word was around in the newsroom. soon enough the news appeared in the column. everything in herb's life found its way into the column, in some ways the man and the column were one. >> not only the did he convey the imagine of the city i think he created the imagine of the city. in great part i think we owe

what we see, san francisco to be. i think, i think we see what herb saw san francisco to be. and i miss the fact that he more than perhaps anyone else gave us our identity. >> reporter: it was also in 1996 that he celebrated his 80s birthday. in a way, everybody celebrated it. >> every day is the same, it's deadline, deadline, dead line: we just live from deadline to deadline, it's not the same. >> it's not getting any easier? >> no it gets harder because one gets more critical of one own's work. i'm very critical of what i do. >> reporter: the it was the year herb married his long time partner. >> i think when you get to

those pearly greats, they're going to tell you your sins and what you did not take advantage of. >> and this is the intersanctum where herb wrote. this is the first time i've been in here that herb was not in here too. he would go through the papers that he had typed for himself the day before. he spread those out on his desk, something like this. and he would turn to his trustee old royal typewriter and write the column. on a good day it would take him about 20 minutes. he stayed with an old manual typewriter. herb cain knew it didn't matter what you typed the words into if they were the right words.

in almost 60 years of ever scarily ever missing that deadline, they were always the right words. >> he looked around and said it ain't bad but it ain't san francisco. still to come on a second look, the city celebrates herb cain day. one of the people carol doder shares her recollection of san francisco and how she helped start the topples era of san francisco. herb cain takes us on a walking tour of san francisco. %

sweetheart. we need to talk. i've seen your stunts online. i can explain... jumping a ramp in a shopping cart. so 2005. wait, what? and only 3 likes? honey, it's embarrassing. carol's son got over 12 million views on that dancing squirrel video. don't you want that? i...i suppose. now go make your dad and me proud. try something funny. [ male announcer ] now everyone's up to speed. get high speed internet for $14.95 a month for 12 months

with a one year term. at&t. tonight on a second look, we remember herb cain's san

francisco. carol dodda, cain mentioned almost daily in his column. >> since when have you known herb? >> since 1964. >> has he ever come to see any of your shows. >> has he, yes he has. walter cronkite walked in with him one time. >> reporter: carol dodda is someone cain loved to talk about. she pushed the envelope of social acceptable. back in 2000, bob mackenzie told us the story of the woman who became a major attraction on broadway for years. >> reporter: they called it body broadway. a sleazy, flashy mumble of lights offering the oldest attraction ever known. in 1964 carol dodda was a

cocktail waiter at the condor. every now and then she amused the customers by getting up on the piano and danced. then the club owner got an idea. >> basically here's your new costume. i said, oh, okay. great a new costume. i go upstairs and in the bathroom, i put this on and i noticed i said, this is a strange costume. so i go down and i said, you know, i don't think i can wait on tables anymore because they won't be grabbing the change, they'll be grabbing me. >> reporter: when she got up on the piano that night, rose nburg was ready with the photographers. topples entertainment was born. >> there's this doctor doing these silicon injections maybe you should check it out.

i said i guess he's trying to tell me something. i was only a 36b cup. so i went, i didn't know that you just go every week and you get injections. so every week you get bigger and bigger and bigger. so people would just come in to see me grow. >> reporter: while carol was growing, so was topples. a year after the debut, police raided the joint. police brought cover ups for the women. carol and the other dancers were indignant at what they called a slur on the artistic integrity of their performance. the judge laughed and tossed the case out in the street. the raid and the ensuing publicity made the street world

famous. tourists flocked to broadway and they weren't there to see the gay man 90. those owners decided to move out of the area. >> i would say it's some what of a sex pool. >> reporter: but randichi spoke up for topples dancers and the american way. >> i think it belongs and it should be here. i think people are overdoing it when they say isn't that terrible of what's happened up in broad -- broadway. it's not terrible. >> carol didn't want to think as just the person who took her top off, she danced. she knew her way around a stage. today there are still strip joints and topples parlors but

the excitement is long gone. the condor is a sports bar. carol will still put on a show to anyone who wants. and at her own store she can wear whatever she wants. >> it doesn't stop sofia loren or jennifer lopez. yeah. >> if you've got it flaunt it. >> and that's how a girl who got up on the piano made her mark on the 20th century. when we come back on a second look. the changing face of north beach where herb cain spent a lot of his time. and how willie mays remembers herb cain.

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welcome back to a second look. tonight we're remembering the late san francisco columnist herb cain. a man who wrote about the city

he loved for over 60 years.over the years many of cain's anecdote came from the time he spent in north beach. first at places like enrico then the wash bag as he called it. years later, mackenzie walked through the area and told us how the area changed. >> reporter: of course some had seen the end of north beach in 1969 when enrico banducci was forced to close the hungry eye. the club that had given breaks to barbara strisand as well as a new hip comedians led by mert

sal and lenny bruce. at that time, banducci blamed the high cost of doing business. >> it's not very feasible to sit there with a $500 a week act and trying to discover it and still have expenses of $8,000 a day to keep the doors open. you can go broke very quickly. >> reporter: ever since the turn of the century when italian immigrants picked it as their neighborhood because it was the sunniest part of town. they named their boats after their wives or girlfriends or their hometowns. in the early decade of the century, north beach became known as little italy. >> a popular spot among italians is bochy. a rolling game imported from the old country. >> reporter: a new population invaded north beach.

they were writers, poets, artists, impoverished and proud of it. thaerp called the beat generation or beat necks. you can still find a few beats around the area. odenten myers, remembers the excitement of being young and creative in north beach. >> someone that immediately helped you find your place. where you could eat and take the left over home. or the plates were inexpensive. everyone when people could not pay the rent there was a rent party. people helped each other. someone would sell something. it worked. >> reporter: ed moose who sold the washington square bar and

who know owns the upscale restaurant mooses says the creative spirit that bubbled in north beach is gone. >> we're getting another kind of humor, genre of an attempt to entertain, shock value or you know even wonderful old pinnochios had to close because they weren't shocking enough. >> reporter: not that moose is not in the neighborhood, he lives around the corner from his restaurant. we entered a historic accomplishment, enrichos. hi talked about north beach and the days when he was young and hungry. >> you could feel it as you walked down the street. you would walk to a little place on grand avenue where

someone lived, you would hear music coming out. jazz. >> reporter: cafe tres hasn't changed a stick of furniture in 44 years. and banducchi says the neighborhood isn't finished yet. >> i see a plant that's sitting there and the leaves are dried up. showing it's limping a little bit. the flower is looking down but there's juice in that stem and it's going to grow up and explode. >> reporter: north beach is always changing, but there's something about it that seems to stay the same. a certain adventure-somenes or change of spirit. change of spirit. willie ness shares

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for nearly 16 years, herb cain made everybody feel like an insider. mixed in all the columns there were a lot of politics. when the giants moved to the bay, -- no one was a bigger celebrity at that time than the giant center fielder willie mays. >> in 1958 when i came out here, herb broke me in very cleanly. ever goal i had it was in the paper the next day. i didn't know how he knew. i was wondering what this man was all about because i was out here to play baseball not to have a love affair.

and i got to be very good friends with herb in the last four or five years. and if you notice, last four or five years you haven't seen my name in the paper. but it's just so wonderful to see all the people in san francisco come out to honor a man that has a pen. that would do just about anything to get a joke. and i think it's wonderful that the people understand that the things he writes about it's not to harm people, it's just something that he had too and he does it, very, very well as you well know. but i think about the athletes when you say about what did he do for the athletes. i think he made all of them get married very quickly. >> herb cain was a guest on mornings on 2. he reminisced on his years in san francisco. >> he's been called witty,

wise, poet and much worse. >> i've been called ven era ble too. not too happy about that. >> mr. cain has a new book out, the best of herb cain. very modest title. >> were those the best years of herb cain. >> probably. in retro spect. they were some of the best years in san francisco. it's beautiful up here. it's historic. and i've been looking around in the corners and remembering the floods and the crockers and the huntingtons and the stan fords and all the thins that went on out here -- stanfords. so the history is what makes me fascinated about san francisco. not what's here necessarily. >> everyone though herb cain

was born after the fire, the life he lived was very impacted by that occurrence. >> reporter: each year before market street is awake they meet here at loudes market which survived the fire. they call themselves the south of market boys. they gather at the exact moment the fire struck. >> san francisco, open your golden gates. >> why to commemorate this city, to keep the name out. to show the people in the city always lived up to that old slogan, san francisco is a city that knows how. this city was in ashes, it was all in ruins when you're looking around here now and

they built it up and brought it back to what it is today. >> we have decided on the morning on april 18th, we are going to have a mammoth celebration right here outside of city hall. >> friends, enemies, chronicle readers and illit era ts. this is the kind of event that separates from the men from the idiots. good morning fellow idiots. >> san francisco, open your golden gate ♪ >> i hear more from the survivors. they ought to be up there talking. the memories get better every year. they have great memories to tell. mr.borreli's is playing the accordion the way he always

does. a little off tune but the way he always plays it. that does it for this week's second look. i'm frank somerville. we'll see you here next week. so owning a durango means you now have the responsibility to go dirt biking, a.t.v.-ing, motorcycling, boating, jet skiing and show a ford explorer a thing or two about what it means to have best-in-class towing. the s.u.v. is back.