Boxcar
I assume I do not have to explain the motivation for including this photo on my blog to anybody who’s read ‘On The Road’ (or a biography about Kerouac), given his well-known love for freight trains and his (and Neal Cassady’s) working for the now defunct Southern Pacific railroad company.
The California Zephyr at Emeryville
Detail shot of the California Zephyr train at Emeryville (Oakland) station. I was about to start the greatest train journey of my life and one of the very best experiences of my life so far – the journey from San Francisco/Emeryville to Denver is absolutely breathtaking. And it’s forever linked in my mind with Kerouac’s … Continue reading
Tosca
After finishing watching Antonelli’s film Kerouac: The Movie (1985) I decided to post a photo of the Tosca, although I don’t know if Kerouac had a connection with it at all, or if it already existed at the time he hung out in San Francisco. In any case it’s located directly opposite the Cafe Vesuvio … Continue reading
Pic and Slim Arriving In Oakland
The inspiration for this post is the end of Kerouac’s short novel ‘Pic’, in which Pic and his brother Slim arrive to an uncertain future, without money or a job in Oakland after Slim is seeing no future for himself, Pic and Slim’s wife Sheila in New York. I don’t know the story of … Continue reading
Jack Kerouac’s Jacket
at The Beat Museum, Broadway, San Francisco The label reads: ‘This wool and cotton jacket belonged to and was worn by Jack Kerouac. The label is CPO, a brand popular in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The earth tones and broad checks reflected Kerouac’s working class aesthetic and it is the type of jacket Kerouac would … Continue reading
Neal and Carolyn Cassady’s house
These photos show the house in which Neal and Carolyn Cassady lived from 1949 to 1952. Jack Kerouac stayed with them a few times, the longest of which was a 6-month stint in which he worked on ‘On The Road’ ‘Dr Sax’ and ‘Visions Of Cody’ (according to Bill Morgan’s ‘The Beat Generation in San … Continue reading
Broadway Tunnel and Alfred’s Restaurant, San Francisco
This photo shows the Broadway Tunnel in North Beach/Russian Hill, San Francisco. Kerouac wrote about it in ‘The Subterraneans’, which was set in SF and not in New York, where the events told actually took place as well as other book(s). The yellow building in the center of the photograph shows the house in which … Continue reading
The Former Six Gallery, San Francisco
These photos show the former Six Gallery at 3119 Fillmore, San Francisco, which hosted the infamous reading of poems by Kenneth Rexroth, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Philip Lamantia and Allen Ginsberg, which lead to Lawrence Ferlinghetti offering Allen Ginsberg to publish his ‘Howl’, and the rest is history, as they say. Kerouac himself … Continue reading
Easy And Dreamlike
This photo post was inspired by chapter 1 of ‘Big Sur’ in which Kerouac describes the journey he took from Long Island to San Francisco. This photo was taken somewhere in the Sierra Nevada (‘the final mountains of California’ he meant I guess)
San Francsico Skid Row Hotel
The Chronicle Hote, on Howard Street (I believe, am not 100% sure), Civic Center/South of Market – San Francisco’s Skid Row. Kerouac wrote about the ‘Mars Hotel on 4th and Howard’ in Big Sur – which I couldn’t find, but this Hotel was one of a few I saw that looked how I … Continue reading
Retracing Jack Kerouac 