City Lights Bookstore

City Lights was founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin as both an independent bookstore and a publishing house. Located at its longtime storefront, it became a central venue for the Beat Generation and published Allen Ginsberg's Howl. In 1957 City Lights and its publisher were defendants in an obscenity trial over Howl; the court concluded the poem had literary merit, a decision often cited in First Amendment discussions.