In which city was Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti born?

Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York.

Ferlinghetti was born on March 24, 1919, in Yonkers. He later became closely associated with San Francisco, where he opened City Lights bookstore in 1953 and helped establish City Lights Publishers. That strong San Francisco connection can lead readers to mistake the city for his birthplace.

His literary career combined poetry, publishing, bookselling, painting, and political activism. His collection A Coney Island of the Mind, published in 1958, became one of the best-known poetry books linked with the Beat era. Ferlinghetti also published Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems through City Lights in 1956.

Ferlinghetti’s family circumstances were unsettled around the time of his birth: his father died before he was born, and he spent parts of his childhood away from his parents. Those early experiences preceded his later education and his move toward the literary life for which San Francisco made him famous.