Elaine Katzenberger was working at Bar
Vesuvio, before it became “historicized” and the muraled alley outside
was renamed as a tribute to Kerouac. She worked there alone in the early
mornings, and because there was almost no place else in North Beach
open at that hour, she met the neighborhood: poets, old merchant seamen,
flamenco dancers, alcoholics on their way to work downtown, taxi
drivers having a drink after their shift, and regular folks looking for a
good cup of coffee and a little bit of company in those hours before
the local cafés opened. And one day a regular offered her a job at a
little bookshop across the alley called City Lights. Founded in 1953 by
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a poet in his own right, the store had become a
home to literary souls worldwide. Of her first day at work, she says,
“It was like stepping into just the right temperature bath water. A
stroke of lightning. It’s been thirty years.”
Today she runs City Lights and oversees its publishing wing, the imprint that first published Allen Ginsberg’s Howl & Other Poems.
In the basement of the bookstore, there are shelves upon shelves of
books on progressive politics, labor movements, world history, even a
graphic-novel treatment of the Communist Manifesto. Above the main
floor, up a set of stairs lined with photographs of poets and writers,
is an odd-shaped room labeled poetry. Her office sits behind an unmarked
door.
*
Back in 2013, when we were all being told that books were going to
die out and all the bookstores were going to close, we had our 60th
anniversary. We’d decided to make the celebration an open house, and the
place was just roaring packed. I don’t know how many thousands of
people came through here that day over the course of four or five hours.
We had a few special readings and some party favors on offer, but
really it was just about being here. It was amazing, very celebratory.
Like you feel when you go to a protest and you’re surrounded by
thousands of people and you think, Well, thank God. At least for today, right now, I can feel okay. ... [mehr] https://lithub.com/city-lights-elaine-katzenberger-has-seen-it-all-in-san-francisco/
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