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(More customer reviews)I lived in The City from '67 to '73 and was there during the heyday of Haight Ashbury and the mammoth explosion of all that was pre-Altimont but for some strange reason Beat San Francisco was far more important in my memory than The Haight. The reasons probably have much to do with why I finished Morgan's short book in only a day because I became so involved in his descriptions of the places that I considered my San Francisco-all of Upper Grant after it crosses Columbus with Caffe' Trieste and the New Pisa and of course City Lights, Discovery and Vesuvio with Tosca watching from the other side of the street.
Even though I now live on the other side of the planet, these places are burned into my memory. They're memories of cold winter evenings searching for the inevitable bargain in Discovery and then going next door to City Lights to troll through its basement looking at all the titles that I wanted but couldn't afford as a student. And on Saturday afternoons going into Trieste and buying a cafe' and knowing that not so many years ago this place was the epicenter for guys that wore old berets, had beards and thought.
I am indebted to Bill Morgan for writing such a heartwarming look back at a time and place that will go on in the hearts of Americans that realize there was a recent time when things could have gone another way. It didn't happen but with people like him keeping the memory alive and people who care enough to take pictures of City Lights for people like me who remember- perhaps all has not been lost.
Buy the book and revisit these modern American icons before they are redeveloped.
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A blow-by-blow unearthing of the places where the Beat writers first came to full bloom: the flat where Ginsberg wrote "Howl;" Gary Snyder's zen cottage in Berkeley; the ghostly railroad yards where Kerouac and -Cassady toiled; the pads where Jack & Neal & Carolyn lived; Ferlinghetti's favorite haunts. This meticulous guide also brings to light never-before-heard stories about Corso, Bob Kaufman, DiPrima, Kyger, Lamantia and other West Coast Beats. A entertaining read as well as a practical walking (and driving) tour that covers the entire Bay Area. With an introduction by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.Bill Morgan is a painter and archival consultant working in New York City. He is the author of The Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac's City.
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