Best Place to Channel Kerouac - 2007
The Beat Museum
The Beat Museum
540 Broadway
San Francisco,
CA 94133
415-399-9626
Map & Details>>
Perfectly situated at the nexus of Grant, Columbus, and Broadway, where Kerouac, Corso, Rexroth, and Ferlinghetti changed American literature 50 years ago, the Beat Museum celebrates those potent days when modern jazz, postwar angst, and the bohemian essence of North Beach nurtured the Beat Era into explosive existence. Books, photographs, manuscripts, and memorabilia from curator Jerry Cimino's extensive collection fill the shelves and display cases of this shrine to beatific hipstertude, including a signed first edition of Ginsberg's Howl, a mockup of a typical crash pad complete with bongo drums, a mural of the late, great Spaghetti Factory, and a vintage paperback copy of John Trinian's goatees-and-reefers expos? North Beach Girl. The museum isn't entirely scholarly: Kerouac bobbleheads and hepcat berets are for sale along with DVDs and CDs of the gang in spoken-word action. The museum is open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays; poetry readings and book-signings take place on a regular basis.
