‘We left our hearts with him:' Fans and friends remember Tony Bennett at his statue in San Francisco

It was the kind of day Tony Bennett sang about so many times: Morning fog hanging over the Bay, and little cable cars climbing their way up California Street, their iconic bells ringing through the chilly air.

And on top of Nob Hill, at the hotel where Bennett first publicly performed the song that would forever link those images with San Francisco, a small crowd gathered to pay respects to the singer after learning of his death at the age of 96. They laid flowers at the base of the wrought iron fence surrounding an 8-foot-tall statue of Bennett on the Fairmont Hotel's front lawn.

"I think it's taller than he really was," remarked Mira Larkin, who said she met Bennett, who was 5'7", at the Fairmont in the 1980s. "I was walking in the hallway and he was going into a door. He seemed kind of tiny to me, but he was so sweet, and I said, 'Hi, Mr. Bennett!' And he said, 'Hello, how are you?' And I said, 'I'm fine!'"

Larkin was among a steady stream of Bennett's most devoted fans who left notes, trinkets and fresh flowers by the statue throughout the day. But Harold Jones had a different connection to Bennett.

"I was his drummer," Jones said, as if to explain why so many people were asking to pose for pictures with him. "The last 20 years, I've been with (Tony Bennett) on the road. We've been friends since 1968. The shows were about two hours long, and that was the shortest two hours of the day ... because, man, you were enjoying yourself so much, and everything was magical."

Longtime Bennett fan Angela Firpo arrived with flowers and memories. Firpo said she celebrates Bennett's birthday on August 3 every year with a small cake.

"They asked him, what do you want to be known for," she recalled. "He said, 'I want to be known as a nice guy.'"

Jones said Bennett accomplished that mission many times over.

"A nice guy," he repeated. "I mean, he would go into a hotel, and he would know the name of the janitor."

But asked how he'd most like to see his friend remembered, Jones had a slightly different answer.

"As a humanitarian," he replied. "I mean, he was there. He walked with Martin Luther King."

Other fans said they'd remember Bennett as an icon for the Italian American community, and as the singer who really put San Francisco on the map.

"That song — it'll probably be the last song I hear before I die myself," said Michael Muniz, a native San Franciscan of Italian descent who stood quietly at the statue for several minutes before laying down the flowers he brought.

As church bells rang out the melody of the famous song from the nearby belfry of Grace Cathedral, Diane McLeod added, "I left my heart in San Francisco because of Tony."