The soul of the city: San Francisco honors literary hero Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The co-founder of the City Lights Bookstore had global stature but remained a neighborhood fixture

By early afternoon, a small memorial of flowers and a can of Pabst had begun to accumulate outside the door of City Lights Books, to commemorate the death of its co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

And by the evening, a vigil for Ferlinghetti, one of the last living links to the Beat generation, was being held in the adjacent Jack Kerouac Alley, a tiny side street that separates the bookstore – a tourist attraction and official city landmark for decades – from the celebrated Beat hangout Vesuvio Cafe.

Related: Lawrence Ferlinghetti obituary