Longtime proprietor of San Francisco's famed City Lights Booksellers and Publishers, distinguished artist and beloved poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti has died.
The bookstore, a Beat Generation culture center, confirmed his death in a post Tuesday morning. Ferlinghetti was 101. His son said he died at his home in San Francisco on Monday from interstitial lung disease.
Ferlinghetti and a partner launched City Lights in 1953, becoming the country’s first all-paperback bookstore and "jumpstarting a movement to make diverse and inexpensive quality books widely available," according to a City Lights blog post.
Essentially, City Lights was an iconic gathering place for Beats and other bohemians during the 1950s and beyond.
Its influence helped establish San Francisco as the world's literary center.
"You were sure to find a friend, plus a good book, if you were there," author and filmmaker Phil Cousineau told KCBS Radio's Rebecca Corral.
When City Lights published Allen Ginsberg's controversial "Howl" in 1957, it landed Ferlinghetti in court on charges of obscenity. As many around the world watched, the court eventually ruled in Ferlinghetti's favor, leading to the publication of previously banned books like D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterly's Lover" and Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer."
In part due to wide-ranging publicity of the trial, City Lights flourished as a creative space in the following years. Activists and free speech advocates, including some of history's most renowned poets, writers and artists, flocked to the store on Columbus Ave. that he envisioned would become a "literary meeting place."
"For me, the operative word here was liberation, that books can liberate us," Cousineau added.
Ferlinghetti, born in Yonkers, New York in 1919, authored several poetry books, the wildly popular "A Coney Island of the Mind" among them. He shared "interests whose work evaded easy definition, mixing disarming simplicity, sharp humor and social consciousness," The New York Times wrote.
"We intend to build on Ferlinghetti’s vision and honor his memory by sustaining City Lights into the future as a center for open intellectual inquiry and commitment to literary culture and progressive politics," the post said. "Though we mourn his passing, we celebrate his many contributions and give thanks for all the years we were able to work by his side."
Recently, the store was able to survive closure during the COVID-19 crisis.
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