8th Street Bookshop

Its first location, from 1947 to 1965, was here in the corner store with the cast-iron front.  Operated by the brothers Elias and Ted Wilentz, the 8^th Street Bookshop gained fame as a literary gathering place with close ties to the nonconformist writers of the day, whose works and lifestyle gave rise to the term “Beat Generation.”  Among leaders of the Beat movement:  novelists Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs and poet Allen Ginsberg.  In 1965 the bookshop moved to larger quarters at 17 W. 8^th Street, where it remained in operation until 1979.