City Lights Bookstore
Bookstore, Store

© Stephen Saks Photography / Alamy Stock Photo
Probably the most famous literary landmark in San Francisco, City Lights Bookstore is located on Columbus Avenue in the North Beach neighborhood. The bookstore is owned by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and is famous as a meeting place for the generation of Beat writers, including the likes of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. City Lights is also a publishing company, known for publishing Ginsberg’s Howl, a poem that took the company through a widely publicized obscenity trial. Today, browse through the bookstore’s crowded stacks to find a variety of new and used treasures.