'The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great…' This ode by the On the Road and Dharma Bums author is embedded in his namesake alley, a fittingly poetic, streetwise shortcut between Chinatown and North Beach via his favorite haunts City Lights, Vesuvio and a stool near the golden Buddha statue at Li Po – Kerouac was a true believer in literature, Buddhism, and beer.