An effort to rename an alley after San Francisco's poet laureate, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, stalled when opponents said the notion was the wrong idea in the wrong neighborhood.
For starters, Hamlin Street is not in North Beach, where the patriarch of the Beat Generation opened his City Lights bookstore 40 years ago. It is a mile up Russian Hill and is a cul-de-sac off Green Street near Leavenworth.The 74-year-old poet and publisher led a successful campaign in 1988 to get the city to rename a dozen streets after famous San Francisco literary figures of the past.
Most of the alleys are in North Beach and Telegraph Hill, and writers posthumously honored included Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac, Jack London and Dashiell Hammett as well as sculptor Beniamino Bufano and dancer Isadora Duncan.
Ferlinghetti would be the first living honoree of the program he began.
After hearing an hour's testimony pro and con, committee chairwoman Carole Migden delayed a vote until May 20.
Ferlinghetti himself was in Florida and could not be reached for comment.