City Lights and the 'Howl' obscenity trial

City Lights Bookstore & Publishers was founded in 1953 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin and became a central hub of the Beat movement. In 1957 the bookstore published Allen Ginsberg's poem 'Howl' and faced an obscenity trial challenging its publication; the court ultimately ruled that the work was not obscene, a decision widely cited in discussions of free expression. The store continues to be associated with Beat-era literary history and local cultural lore.