Jack Kerouac. “Face of the Buddha.” Pencil on paper, 1956(?). NYPL, Berg Collection. Jack Kerouac. “Stella by Jack.” Pencil on paper, 1966(?). NYPL, Berg Collection. To help commemorate the 50th Anniversary of On the Road, the NYPL has put together a great exhibit titled Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac on the Road. The exhibit explores the work and life of the Beat writer and showcases "the three extant typescript drafts of the novel, including the......

Expect some changes at the Museum of TV and Radio. Today the museum announced it will not only no longer be referred to as a museum (the word didn't test well with the under-40 crowd!), but that it's throwing the "TV and Radio" out of its moniker for good, too. Good-bye, MTR. Hello, The Paley Center for Media. From the press release:The thirty-one-year-old institution will be renamed The Paley Center for Media to better......

Jacob Burckhardt is a second generation observer of New York life. His father, Rudy Burckhardt photographed and made narrative films during the '50s and '60s of city life and his New York School artist friends. In '84, Jacob made a fiction film about his bohemian life in Brooklyn casting the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and Beat novelist William S. Burroughs in small parts, as well as a young neighborhood thespian named Vincent D'Onofrio as a......

The below is from a BBC documentary on the Hotel Chelsea, it includes footage of Andy Warhol (inexplicably wearing headphones) sharing a meal with William S Burroughs and Nico singing "Chelsea Girls". It was filmed inside the Chelsea Hotel in 1980, and the hotel's blog has more insight in the form of a letter from Joe Bidewell (who plays guitar in the background as Nico is singing) on what went down during filming: "Nico's performance......

While you’re touring New York’s Beat Generation landmarks, drop by the Grey Art Gallery to find out what the “community of disaffiliates” were doing out in San Francisco. You’ll discover through Semina Culture that they were hanging out with Wallace Berman. Instead of cutting up and rearranging his own writing like William S. Burroughs was doing, Berman published a cut-and-paste-style arts journal called Semina that showcased his friends’ talent alongside found objects. “Semina was sent......

To correspond with its 50th anniversary celebration reading tonight, the 92nd Street Y Blog created this map of Beat Generation spots. The map is based on a Post article from Saturday that mentions addresses and events in the history of "all those crazy hepcats who turned postwar America on its head." It's a very cool map, but it's missing one thing (perhaps because the article didn't have it): A marker for where Lucien Carr......

The New York Public Library announced that it bought the archive of writer William S. Burroughs, including his letters and drafts of Naked Lunch. This makes the NYPL's collection of Bea-era materials the most comprehensive, since it already holds the Jack Kerouac archive. The NY Times story about the acquisition had the interesting sidenote about how Allen Ginsberg wanted the NYPL to buy his collection, but since he wanted to sell it quickly, the NYPL......

Don't get confused – today is Friday. Gothamist has been a bit under the weather, hence our little weekend movie preview showing up today rather than on its usual Thursday. And while we all anxiously count down the minutes until Monday's Golden Globes, there are a lot of great movie options available without even considering all the 2005 films hoping to take home a prize. Some Quick Gothamist Picks: One of the best places to......