San Francisco’s Beat Museum Welcomes You

“Everything happened here,” says founder, Jerry Cimino, dramatically. “We call this intersection, Broadway and Columbus, the center of the universe.”

Through the museum’s quirky collection of more than 1,000 photos, rare books, paintings, records, posters and artifacts, visitors learn about the cold war context of the Beat Generation’s emergence, the importance of jazz to their writing, their rejection of the status quo and their influence on the counterculture of the 1960s. There are also biographical displays on each of the major figures, including Kerouac, Cassady (the charismatic ex-con who was at the center of the movement), the poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the novelist William S. Burroughs. Artifacts include a plaid jacket worn by Kerouac and the referee shirt that Cassady wore later in his quirky career, when he drove the novelist and counterculture figure Ken Kesey’s bus, Furthur.

Thanks, BJ