North Beach
is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco’s „Little Italy“, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It is still home to many Italian restaurants today, though many other ethnic groups currently live in the neighborhood. It was also the historic center of the beatnik subculture. Today, North Beach is one of San Francisco’s main nightlife districts as well as a residential neighborhood populated by a mix of young urban professionals, families and Chinese immigrants connected to the adjacent Chinatown.
The American Planning Association (APA) has named North Beach as one of ten „Great Neighborhoods in America“.
Beat Generation
„Zum ersten Mal traf ich Neal, kurz nachdem mein Vater
gestorben war …. Ich hatte gerade eine schwere Krankheit hinter
mir, von der ich gar nicht groß reden will, bloß dass sie
mit dem Tod meines Vaters zu tun hatte und mit dem
scheußlichen Gefühl, dass alles tot war. Mit Neals Auftauchen
begann so richtig der Teil meines Lebens, den man
mein Leben auf der Straße nennen kann. Vorher hatte ich
immer davon geträumt, nach Westen zu gehen, das Land zu
sehen, hatte immer vage Pläne gemacht, war dann aber nie
wirklich losgekommen und so. Neal ist der ideale Mann für
die Straße, weil er sogar auf der Straße geboren wurde, als
seine Eltern auf dem Weg nach Los Angeles 1926 mit ihrer
Rostlaube durch Salt Lake City kamen.“
San Francisco and the Six Gallery reading
Kenneth Rexroth’s apartment became a Friday night literary salon (Ginsberg’s mentor William Carlos Williams, an old friend of Rexroth’s, had given him an introductory letter). When asked by Wally Hedrick[21] to organize the Six Gallery reading, Ginsberg wanted Rexroth to serve as master of ceremonies, in a sense to bridge generations.
Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder read on October 7, 1955, before 100 people (including Kerouac, up from Mexico City). Lamantia read poems of his late friend John Hoffman. At his first public reading Ginsberg performed the just finished first part of Howl. It was a success and the evening led to many more readings by the now locally famous Six Gallery poets.