Jack Kerouac Alley runs one block between Columbus Avenue and Grant Avenue, connecting City Lights to Vesuvio and linking North Beach to Chinatown. The city renamed it for the author of On the Road in 1988 and repaved it in 2007 with quotations from Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Confucius, Maya Angelou, and John Steinbeck set into the pavement.
Kerouac drank at Vesuvio on one side of the alley and bought books at City Lights on the other. Read the lines underfoot as you pass, including Kerouac’s own about the soft air and the fine stars over the cobbled alleys.
Part of a self-guided walking tour
