Beat Museum a 'Howl' of a time

Content Date: 1/1/1960 Beat poet Allen Ginsberg (pre - beard) taking drag on cigarette. (Photo by Mario Jorrin/Pix Inc./Time Life Pictures/Getty Images) Ran on: 10-03-2007 Lawrence Ferlinghetti first published &quo;Howl.'' He says he sees the present situation &quo;as a repeat in spades of what happened in the 1950s.'' Ran on: 10-03-2007 Lawrence Ferlinghetti first published &quo;Howl.'' He sees FCC pres- sure on broadcasters as &quo;a repeat in spades of what happened in the 1950s.'' less Content Date: 1/1/1960 Beat poet Allen Ginsberg (pre - beard) taking drag on cigarette. (Photo by Mario Jorrin/Pix Inc./Time Life Pictures/Getty Images) Ran on: 10-03-2007 Lawrence Ferlinghetti first ... more Photo: Mario Jorrin, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image Photo: Mario Jorrin, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Beat Museum a 'Howl' of a time 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Only at the Beat Museum will you find an emergency exit warning you that an alarm "will HOWL" if the door is opened.

References to Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) and his epic poem "Howl" make many appearances besides this one in this offbeat "museum" of all things and personalities tied to the Beat phenomenon in San Francisco.

The Chronicle's own Herb Caen (1916-1997) gets credit here more than once for coining the term beatnik. (The Beat Museum has no fear of redundancy, or no confidence in the viewer's short-term memory.)

The Beat Museum's North Beach neighbor, City Lights Books, first published "Howl and Other Poems" in 1956, a year after Ginsberg's first public reading of the poem at the Six Gallery, an event regarded as the Beat sensibility's proclamation of its own existence.

A trove of memorabilia, displayed as it might be in someone's bedroom - vintage photographs, letters, magazine and newspaper clippings, books, album covers - traces the links between the Beats' rebellion and the hippiedom that followed it. With his interests in Eastern spirituality, world peace and liberated sexuality, Ginsberg makes a good hinge between the '50s and the '60s and beyond.

But the presiding spirit at the Beat Museum is the more glamorous and short-lived Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), who befriended Ginsberg long before his 1957 "On the Road" sent Kerouac's name rocketing around the world. Numerous foreign-language editions of the book fill a locked case at the museum.

Two shabby pieces of upholstered furniture draw attention to themselves and then to a small sign explaining that they specifically have no connection to Kerouac's life, they merely typify the seating the writer would have used, until the genuine article comes along.

Anyone who leaves the Beat Museum feeling cheated can demand the return of his $5 admission. But the large first-floor bookstore will more than repay the investment of time and curiosity.

Thursday: the Castro.

The Beat Museum: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Wed.-Sun., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Tues. General admission: $5. 540 Broadway, San Francisco. (800) 537-6822. www.thebeatmuseum.org.