Generación Beat
| 0: Citizen's Mission Ver detalle |
| 1: 411 21st St, Denver,CO Ver detalle |
| 2: Old St. Elmo's Hotel Site Ver detalle |
| 3: Snowden Apartments Ver detalle |
| 4: Elbert Elementary School Ver detalle |
| 5: CO State Reformatory Ver detalle |
| 6: Where Neal met Carolyn Ver detalle |
| 7: 26 Russell St Ver detalle |
| 8: 34 Beaulieu St., Lowell Ver detalle |
| 9: Site of Kerouac OTR Gas Station in Longmont, CO Ver detalle |
| 10: Kerouac House in Orlando, FL Ver detalle |
| 11: Kerouac's House in Northport, NY Ver detalle |
| 12: Neal Cassady Sr. Gravesite Ver detalle |
| 13: Jack Kerouac's Last House Ver detalle |
| 14: Neal Cassady Died About Here Ver detalle |
| 15: Vesuvio Cafe Ver detalle |
| 16: City Lights Books Ver detalle |
| 17: 6 Gallery Ver detalle |
| 18: The Beat Museum Ver detalle |
| 19: Hungry i Ver detalle |
1617 Larimer St, Denver, CO. Site of the old Citizen's Mission, home to Neal Sr. and Jr. as written in The First Third. He does not specify the mission by name or address, but this is the most likely place. From Neal Cassady, Volume 1 by Tom Christopher, p.28. http://www.zipcon.net/~tkc/nealdenver.html Tom's two volumes on Neal Cassady may be purchased at The Beat Museum, www.kerouac.com . The museum is also on this tour.
This building and the one to the west housed the Cassady's several times. The cover of Tom Christopher's Neal Cassady, Vol. 1 is of a young Neal and his brother sitting on the steps of this building. Heretofore, it was thought that the photo was from the Snowden Apartments, also on this tour. When John Cassady and Jerry Cimino were here in 2004, we played detective and even figured out which unit it was by the building detail. The owner, curious about all the flashing going on at twilight came out. He invited us in and kindly showed us around. We were walking on the same floors John's father did! Be sure to check out the whole "Tracing Neal's Roots in Denver" blog, http://www.thebeatmuseumonwheels.com/ourblog/denver.htm Scroll down, and see John sitting on the steps like his dad did!
Neal Sr. wrote a letter to his son in CA from what was a Denver flophouse on 17 June, 1961. Neal Jr. grew up with his dad in many of these old hotels torn down during the urban renewal craze of the 1960's and 1970's.
Neal and his mother and brothers lived here at the Snowden Apartments a number of times. Great descriptions of his life at the Snowden are in The First Third. One great life forming event was playing on the fire escape and discovering one of his friend's parents "doing it." Across the street is a small building that they lived in, too. The large building diagonally across the street is the Puritan Pie Company. Neal's older brothers thought that the smell of baking pies would hide the smell of their moonshine production! This saellite photo was shot was the corner was a vacant lot as it stood for many years. I was driving by fall 2006 and what a surprise! Condos, with intentonally rusting steel siding.
This is where Neal Cassady attended elementary school, walking from downtown as described in The First Third.
Now known as the Buena Vista Correctional Facility. Neal spent time here in 1944. The facility is within some few hundred yards of my sticky pin. It's been a couple of years since I was up there and I don't remember exactly where it was, but this is close. If you ever have a chance to visit Buena Vista, don't miss it! Rafting on the Arkansas, hot springs, mountains, ghost towns to the west.
Denver's venerable Colburn Hotel and Charlie Brown's Grill. Although the hotel is now section 8 housing where they met, the restaurant and bar is still a very popular place. It may be reasonably surmised that Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Hal Chase, Ed White, and the original gang met here as funds permitted. Pictures of the hotel and more may be seen at http://www.pbase.com/pzo/beat_tour
This is the Cassady home of the fifties where so much took place. Jack Kerouac lived here for awhile and was Carolyn's lover, much to Neal's chagrin. You can't do better to understand the background of the Beat characters than reading Carolyn Cassady's OFF the Road. We tend to think of our heros as moving from one cosmic moment to the next. This book reminds us of the ordinariness of most moments of their lives. Carolyn Cassady is a great story teller. I reccomend it highly.
The Kerouace family lived here in 1926. It is the home where his brother Gerard died. Jack was about four.
By the time the satellite snapped this shot, the gas station made famous in On The Road had been saved from the developer's bulldozer and moved.a mile or so south. For pictures of the station taken by pure happenstance shortly before it was moved, go to http://www.pbase.com/pzo/kerouac_gas_station_longmontco
Jack and his mother lived here from July 1957 to spring of 1958. The address is 1418 Clouser Avenue, Orlando. The house is now used for a writers in residence program. Jack was visiting New York when OTR was published.
This is the house Jack and his mother lived in in and around 1965. The address is 7 Judy Ann Ct.
The father of Neal Cassady is buried in the Mt. Olivet Cemetary at this location. It is unmarked. For photos and more info, go to http://www.pbase.com/pzo/ncgravesite Update, 11/2006: I have just found out that Neal Sr's wife Maud and her first husband James Daly are also buried in Mt. Olivet, Wheatridge! I will try to add photos to the above URL and coordiantes soon.
5169 10th Ave. North, St. Petersburg, FL Jack also briefly owned and lived in the house one door east, 5155. For photographs and more commentary, go to http://www.pbase.com/pzo/jacks_house
Somewhere between San MIguel Allende (top) and Celaya (bottom), Neal Cassady died of exposure on February 3, 1967. The black line is the RR track.
This world-renowned San Francisco cafe located in North Beach just across from the infamous City Lights Bookstore, was first established in 1948 and remains an historical monument to jazz, poetry, art and the good life of the Beat Generation. Vesuvio attracts a diverse clientele: artists, chess players, cab drivers, seamen and business people, European visitors, off-duty exotic dancers and bon vivants from all walks of life. On October 17, 1955, Neal Cassady, the real life Dean Moriarty of the quintessential Beat classic On the Road, stopped at Vesuvio on the way to the now legendary Six Gallery for a poetry reading, and the place has never been the same. It became a regular hangout of Jack Kerouac and other famous Beat poets and has become ground zero for pilgrims on the Beat trail ever since. It was here that Jack Kerouac once spent a long night in 1960 when he should have been on his way to Big Sur to meet with Henry Miller. Miller had written Kerouac that he enjoyed reading The Dharma Bums and would enjoy a visit from the emerging writer. Kerouac, however, had other plans. He continued to hoist drinks and called Miller every hour telling him that he was just a bit delayed in leaving the city. The two would never meet that night.. Thank you "Coastal Access" for this great script!
A cultural icon in San Francisco, City Lights was the focal point for the "beats", writers and poets in the 1950s, and remains a unique book shop to browse and soak up the local history and ambience.
3117 Fillmore Street, San Francisco. On the night of October 7, 1955 the SF poetry scene was created here. Although b illed as 6 poets at the 6 gallery, Jack Kerouac declined reading. Allen Ginsburg, 29 and unknown, floored the audience with Howl, even though incomplete. Today it is a furniture store and hair salon. Oh, the ghosts!
540 Broadway. Say "Hi!" to Jerry Cimino, owner and Beat Fan of the First Order and All Around Good Guy. Buy something! Jerry also supports the Beatmobile, bringing Beat history and culture to schools all over America. http://www.thebeatmuseum.org/ http://www.thebeatmuseumonwheels.com/
The famous nightclub site where so many notables got their start or recorded there in the sixties. Do not confuse this address with the one on Broadway! The latter bought the Hungry i name and it is a strip club!