Talk:Jack Kerouac Alley

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Alley sign in movie[edit]

The street sign appears in the 1993 movie So I Married an Axe Murderer, at both the opening and end of the movie. The sign, all capital letters, says "Jack Kerouac" with "Adler" in smaller letters underneath (no parentheses as is shown in the picture currently attached to this article). On the top is mounted a smaller plate saying "End" - I do not know if what is shown in the movie is the actual sign from 1993 or a mock/set sign. Perhaps someone would be interested in verifying this and adding this reference to the article. At the time of writing, the movie is available for viewing on hulu.com; in this version the sign appears in two different shots, at 00:01:52 and at 01:29:18. Wiki4893 (talk) 00:53, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alley Redesign[edit]

Just an FYI, because I see images of these engravings so often when I search for Jack Kerouac Alley. I wonder if anyone would be interested in knowing some of the people who were involved with the redesign besides Lawrence Ferlinghetti even though we are not famous or well-known. Jasmine Kaw was the Landscape Architect for this redesign and I (Wendy A. Shanahan, artist) designed all the poems engraved in English in the road at Jack Kerouac Alley at the request of the San Francisco DPW, the Chinatown Community Development Center,and the owners of Vesuvios and City Lights Bookstore. These poem engravings were designed on Adobe InDesign in 2007 at 17 Jack Kerouac Alley. Wendshan (talk) 03:30, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

North Beach?[edit]

I removed the North Beach category, since the alley seems to be within the boundaries of Chinatown and not North Beach. Please ping me if you disagree so we can discuss further. Thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 15:51, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's North Beach, albeit on the border of Chinatown. What point would there be for an alley in Chinatown to be named after Kerouac? That would be sorta like having a statue of Ginsburg on Nob Hill. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:15, 30 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Beyond My Ken: But North Beach is north of Columbus. The alley is not. I reverted your revert of my edits. Please ping with any replies, thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 22:51, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Since your restored all of your edits without waitig for discussing here, I have reverted back to the original, long-standing version. Please keep WP:BRD in mind: when your Bold edit has been Reverted by another editor, the recommended next step, if you continue to think the edit is necessary, is to Discuss the dispute on the article talk page with other editors, but not to re-revert it, which is the first step to edit warring, a disruptive activity which is not allowed. Discussion on the talk page is the only way we have of reaching consensus, which is central to resolving editing disputes in an amicable and collegial manner, which is why communicating your concerns to your fellow editors is essential. While the discussion is going on, the article generally should remain in the status quo ante until the consensus as to what to do is reached.
Regarding your description of the boundary of North Beach: do you have an official San Francisco government source for that boundary? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:45, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The source cited in the first sentence of the lede says:

Kerouac Alley is one of those one-of-a-kind city places -- only 60 or so feet long, it connects Grant Avenue, the main street of Chinatown, with Columbus Avenue, the main drag of North Beach.[1]

I've altered the lede to reflect this. Clearly, then, both Chinatown and North Beach are acceptable categories. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:19, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • A neutral pointer to this discussion has been placed on the talk pages of WikiProject California and its San Francisco Bay Area task Force. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:47, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Beyond My Ken: My understanding is North Beach is on the north side of Columbus Avenue, but I don't care enough to go back and forth. I don't see the point in keeping the North Beach category if the alley is not within the boundaries of North Beach. Thanks for inviting others to contribute to this discussion. ---Another Believer (Talk) 14:57, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Your understanding" is WP:OR. Do you have a source?
Google maps. The North Beach, San Francisco Wikipedia article. ---Another Believer (Talk) 21:52, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
But City Lights Bookstore, which lies next to - and sparked the naming of - the alley cites its address in promotional materials as "261 Columbus Avenue at Broadway (North Beach)" [1] --JKPrivett (talk) 08:49, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Google Maps is not an official San Francisco source, and may or may not be reliable in general. WP:Wikipedia is not a reliable source. You know that. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:18, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Beyond My Ken: Ok, well, I don't know how to source the neighborhood's official boundaries, but if the neighborhood's boundaries are questionable then we should address the problem within the North Beach article, too. Currently, North_Beach,_San_Francisco#Location is entirely unsourced. ---Another Believer (Talk) 00:05, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Other things exist. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:11, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This is not productive, so I'll just let other editors decide which neighborhood category(ies) to include, thanks. ---Another Believer (Talk) 21:15, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

@JKPrivett: Thanks for contributing to this discussion. I acknowledge what City Lights' website says, but to me, this comes down to the official neighborhood boundaries, which need to be determined here. ---Another Believer (Talk) 15:46, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Another Believer: This report by the SF Planning Commission (refer to pages 13 and 52 for maps of Chinatown and North Beach, respectively) would put Jack Kerouac Alley squarely in Chinatown, but the defined southern border of Chinatown seems incorrect to me (California from Powell to Grant and Sacramento from Grant to Battery), as that puts Dragon Gate two blocks outside Chinatown. Cheers, Mliu92 (talk) 21:19, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lead image size[edit]

@Beyond My Ken: I'm not "messing around" (as you said in your edit summary). Per Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Displayed_image_size, "The lead image (appearing at the top of the page) should usually be no wider than upright=1.35 (which is the default equivalent of 300px at preference selection of "220px")." ---Another Believer (Talk) 21:54, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and added an infobox, and put the image in there. ---Another Believer (Talk) 21:57, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A stub article does not need an infobox. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:11, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There's very little point in having an image in an article if the reader can't "see" it at the size it's presented at. We should never force a reader to have to click through just to see an image clearly. If they want a better view, it's their choice to click through, and that's fine, but we should always serve our readers but presenting any information in an article -- text or visual -- in a way that makes it comprehensible to them. That's one of the many reasons that we have WP:IAR, so we don't get rule-bound.
So, yes, you are "messing around" because you're foolishly following rules instead of think of what's best for the reader, and waht's best for the article. Please stop it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:16, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever, then make the image bigger than necessary within the infobox. ---Another Believer (Talk) 22:17, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]