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Vesuvio Cafe
Vesuvio Cafe is a historic bar in San Francisco, California, United States. Located at 255 Columbus Avenue, across an alley from City Lights Bookstore, the building was designed and built in 1913 by Italian architect Italo Zanolini, and remodeled in 1918.
1. History
The bar was founded in 1948 by Henri Lenoir, and was frequented by a number of Beat Generation celebrities including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Neal Cassady. Former part-owner and manager emeritus Leo Riegler died in 2017. The common alley shared with City Lights was originally called "Adler" but was renamed "Jack Kerouac Alley" in 1988. The alley was refurbished and converted to pedestrian only in 2007.
1. References
1. External links
Official website
Nearby Places View Menu
18 m
City Lights Bookstore
City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected titles related to San Francisco culture. It was founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin (who left two years later). Both the store and the publishers became widely known following the obscenity trial of Ferlinghetti for publishing Allen Ginsberg's influential collection Howl and Other Poems (City Lights, 1956). Nancy Peters started working there in 1971 and retired as executive director in 2007. In 2001, City Lights was made an official historic landmark. City Lights is located at 261 Columbus Avenue. While formally located in Chinatown, it self-identifies as part of immediately adjacent North Beach.
26 m
Jack Kerouac Alley
Jack Kerouac Alley, formerly Adler Alley or Adler Place, is a one-way alleyway in San Francisco, California, that connects Grant Avenue in Chinatown, and Columbus Avenue in North Beach. The alley is named after Jack Kerouac, a Beat Generation writer who used to frequent the pub and bookstore adjacent to the alley. The alley continues across Columbus Ave, but the name changes to William Saroyan Alley there, named after another famous resident writer of San Francisco, who won the Pulitzer Prize as well as an Academy Award.
39 m
Specs' Twelve Adler Museum Cafe
Specs' Twelve Adler Museum Cafe (also known as "Specs") is a historic bar, located in the North Beach district of San Francisco. The bar is known to be "home to a menagerie of misfits, from strippers and poets to longshoremen and merchant marines." Notable patrons have included Thelonious Monk, Jack Hirschman, Warren Hinckle, and Herb Caen.
54 m
Big Al's
Big Al's was one of the first topless bars in San Francisco and the United States since the mid-1960s. It was the first full nudity bar in San Francisco.
It is next to the Condor Club, where the strip-club phenomenon began, and as of 1991, it claimed to be one of the largest porn stores in San Francisco.
The adult book store closed its doors in 2009. It was later replaced by a sandwich store, and is currently a cigar shop. Both businesses kept the venue's name and iconic neon sign. A San Francisco landmark, the site has been featured in several films and TV shows, on postcards, and in tourist brochures.