While you check out the luxury apartments in San Francisco California, you may also want to spend some time exploring the city. It is true San Francisco is a shopping Mecca. It is also a wonderful place to enjoy the scenic views of mountains and, of course the Pacific Ocean. Yet, the city also has a literary and artistic side. For those who are aware of the 1960s and Haight Ashbury, this should come as no surprise. Yet, before that, San Francisco was making a name for itself in something called the Beat Generation.
The Beat Generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of artists and writers who became disillusioned by the events of World War II. They began to seriously question the entire political movements as well as mainstream culture. Among them were poets:
1. Allen Ginsberg
2. Gary Snyder
3. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
4. Gregory Corso
Although the movement began on the West Coast, it did not take hold in San Francisco until the 1950s when several poets and writers set up residence here. Not for them to make luxury apartments their homes. They stayed in many of the houses and apartments in the city. They gathered at cafes and even in a now famous bookstore.
Beat Generation Hangouts in San Francisco, California
If you want to follow the path of the Beat Generation, it is often easiest to start with the author most familiar to Beat and Non-Beat fans. This is Jack Kerouac. He coined the name in 1948. His home in San Francisco was a shared residence at 29 Russell Street in the Russian Hill section of town. However, the center of all activity was on North Beach, specifically Columbus Avenue. It had been where Italian immigrants settled in the 1870s but its bars, restaurants and cafés became home to the Beat Generation in the 1950s.
Visit the following places in the area:
1. Caffe Trieste (1956) – A hangout for local Beat jazz musicians and writers
2. The Beat Museum at Broadway
3. City Lights Bookstore (1953) – It was originally owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, one of the first Beat poets to arrive in San Francisco California
4. 1010 Montgomery St. (1955) – This is the former residence of Alec Ginsberg. Within these four walls he penned “Howl”
If you are a fan of the Beat Generation and/or respect their work, moving into one of the finest luxury apartments in San Francisco California would allow you to follow their trail. You can discover what they saw in the city and compare it to the city is today.
