City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

City Lights Booksellers & Publishers was founded in 1953 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin in the North Beach neighborhood. The store created the Pocket Poets Series and published Allen Ginsberg's Howl in 1956. The publication led to a 1957 obscenity trial in San Francisco that concluded the work had redeeming social importance; the bookstore remains a landmark of the Beat Generation and local literary culture.