City Lights Bookstore celebrates its 70th anniversary of serving as a destination for literary enrichment and diversity for book lovers in San Francisco and the United States.
Founded in 1953 in the North Beach district by Peter D. Martin and Lewis Ferlinghetti, City Lights transformed the stories of authors and poets into movements that impacted people across the country.
“It is a San Francisco cultural institution that we can not live without,” said Michael Vezzali-Pascual ’88, an English instructor and House of Bolts provincial at Archbishop Riordan.
For its 70th anniversary, the bookstore held poetry readings over the summer. During the fall and winter, they will host historical talks live in Kerouac Alley, located next to City Lights later this year.
City Lights holds a history of publishing authors who wanted to revolutionize literature in the United States. Among these authors was Allen Ginsberg who wrote the poem Howl. Since its publishing in 1956, Howl has sold over 1.2 million copies across the United States.
Howl was one of the earliest publishings of City Lights and Lewis Ferlinghetti, Garnering controversy for claims that it contained obscene subject matter.
Ferlinghetti and the store manager at the time, Shigeyoshi Murao, were both convicted of publishing and selling obscene work. The municipal court held a trial for these charges and Ferlinghetti and Murao were both dismissed but above all, Howl was declared not obscene by the backing of the First Amendment.
This paved the way for the future of literature across the United States and a new exposure to unfiltered and raw pieces of work being published. “I am grateful for works like these that pushed the boundaries and set a precedent for people who wanted to read and write about previously unheard-of topics,” said Archbishop Riordan student Emilio Rocha ’25.
Vezzali-Pascual first found out about City Lights just after he discovered a newfound interest in poetry during his senior year at Archbishop Riordan.
“It was my senior English teacher at Riordan, Mr. Swanson, who introduced me to poetry. From there I learned about the Beat Poets published by City Lights,” he said.
As 2023 celebrates the 70th anniversary of City Lights, it remains a staple for San Franciscan book lovers and provides a spotlight for evolving generations of writers.
Nancy Peters, who used to work at City Lights throughout the 1970s stated, “When I joined City Lights in 1971 and started working with Lawrence (Ferlinghetti), it was clear that it had been very much a center of protest, for people with revolutionary ideas and people who wanted to change society.”
