Jack Kerouac Alley in San Francisco is a one-way lane that connects Grant and Columbus. It is named after the Beat Generation who used to frequent the nearby pub and bookstore.
Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg set the tone for the Italian enclave in North Beach during the mind-expansion sixties. It is here where the romance comedy, Stumptown Daze, has its beginning.
In 1988, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who was the co-founder of City Lights Publishing, proposed the dedication of the alley to the Board of Supervisors. The passageway is known for its colorful graffiti and engraved Western and Chinese poems. Below is a sampling of this genius.
Jack Kerouac Alley, poets and verses:
The air was soft / the stars so fine / the promise of every cobbled alley so great—Jack Kerouac.
Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imagination—Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
The free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world—John Steinbeck.