Six-year resident: what attracted Jack Kerouac to Northport Village

A prose poet, a cultural trailblazer, a restless life-seeker, a nomadic bard, a bum, a drunkard – but above all, the King of the Beats. This is Jack Kerouac, Northport’s six-year resident and seminal literary figure.

Kerouac was born in the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts and raised in a French-speaking household; the poet would not learn English until his seventh birthday and wouldn’t master the language until his late teens. On a football scholarship (the man was of exceptional physical vigor in his young age), Kerouac enrolled at Columbia University, where he would meet the minds of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs; the original triad of the Beat Generation was thus formed.

Though widely contested, Kerouac did not coin the term “beat,” or Beat Generation; the signifier was originally relayed to him by friend and contemporary poet Herbert Huncke. To Kerouac, the term “beat” was a double entendre: beat as in destitute, and beat as in beatitude – the former representing the lowest of humanity and the latter representing the highest, most sublime. As social commentator William F. Buckley summarized and Kerouac agreed, the Beat Generation simply “made a virtue out of restlessness.”

In 1957, Kerouac would embody all that is Beat when he published his book-length prose poem On the Road. A classic of postwar literature, On the Road kicked all tradition and conformity to the curb, an intention Kerouac very much had when he originally composed the piece in 1951. Just as with all great works, critics were divided, though much attention was posthumously paid to Kerouac’s style, which Ginsberg deemed “spontaneous bop prosody.” It was as if Kerouac played the typewriter like a jazz instrument. Of this style, Kerouac himself said he wanted “to be considered as a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jazz session on Sunday.”

This originality and nuance led The New York Times critic Gilbert Millstein to write a laudatory review of On the Road, plunging Kerouac into the national limelight. Kerouac, however, became much discouraged with the fame and quasi-prosperity he could now enjoy. Strangers continuously approached him, desperate to meet the novelist, disturbing his peace. As well, critics, as Kerouac saw it, had woefully mischaracterized him and his ideals, presenting him more as a radical nonconformist than an American man of letters in the tradition of Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman.

Seeking shelter from the storm, Kerouac eventually found himself at home among the hills and shores of Northport, simply because it reminded him of his childhood. Lowell, Massachusetts was very much in the same vein of the then “rough and tumble village” of 1950s Northport, as Suffolk County poet laureate George Wallace described in 2012. Like Lowell, Northport had a trolley track cutting through its streets. As well, Northport’s vicinity to New York City would allow for efficient traveling if the poet ever got the urge to do so. The town would be perfect for Kerouac and his mother to lead undisturbed and productive lives.

Things, however, do not always go as planned. A persistent stream of fans continued to disturb Kerouac, and his home’s proximity to Gunther’s Tap Room proved too tempting; frequent visits to the bar made writing difficult.

Residing in Northport intermittently from 1958-1964 (he and his mother briefly moved to Florida in 1961, returning in 1962), Kerouac lived in three Northport homes, all of which are still standing today. Kerouac’s first home, located on 34 Gilbert Street, was purchased with the proceeds from On the Road and serves as a testament to the poet’s fame and good-willed nature.

In an interview on file at the Northport Historical Society, the home’s succeeding owner, Joan Roberts, tells of her reaction as the real estate agent mentioned who she was purchasing the house from.

“Jack Kerouac, the writer?,” Mrs. Roberts questioned, to which her real estate agent quipped, “You’ve heard of him?”

According to the interview with Mrs. Roberts, the novelist was generous with the Roberts family, gifting their eldest of three children an Emmett Kelly doll, and figurines for the younger two. When the closing on the house was delayed, Kerouac permitted the Roberts’ furniture to be delivered to the house and stored there.

In October of 1959, Kerouac and his mother would move to 49 Earl Avenue, then to 7 Judy Ann Court, a home directly adjacent to Ocean Avenue Elementary School. This would be Kerouac's final home in Northport; the poet continued to be disillusioned on his quest for quiet, leading him to St. Petersburg, Florida, where he would eventually die of liquor-induced cirrhosis and internal bleeding. He was laid to rest in Lowell, Massachusetts.

The Northport Public Library has various Kerouac-related memorabilia in its possession, including “his writings, biographical and critical works, and many other materials about the author and the Beat Generation.” In this collection stands Kerouac’s original margin-scribbled manuscript for his first novel, The Town and the City. In a 2008 interview with former Northport Library employee Dot Walker, the historical society uncovered how the manuscript came to be donated to the library.

Dot worked at the library when it was located on Northport’s Main Street, in what is now the society and museum’s Carnegie Building. “It seems that Joan Roberts found the manuscript behind a radiator at 34 Gilbert after she and her family moved in,” records read. “She informed Kerouac that she had found it and suggested he might like to donate it to the library. He agreed. Dot Walker was working in the back room the day Kerouac brought in the heavily marked manuscript. The author left it at the front desk and departed, depriving Dot of her one chance to meet the author.”

Alongside this manuscript also stands an exceptional 1964 oral history interview led by Miklos Zsedely, the Library’s Assistant Director. This interview is available on the adult patron computers located in both the Northport and East-Northport public libraries.

Kerouac’s legacy remains quite intact, even after 64 years of fame and influence. Over three million copies of On the Road have been sold since 1957, roughly 60,000 copies a year. His novels are especially popular among the young, who find in Kerouac their own hedonistic and restless tendencies.

And so, the next time you enter Gunther’s Tap Room or walk across the landscape of Northport Village Park, think to yourself: the King of the Beats was here.