It was in and around Columbia that the lives of those who would become the core group of Beat writers intersected, primarily at Joan Vollmer Adams apartment. It was at Joan’s, located at 419 West 115th Street, and later at 421 West 118th Street, that many of the early discussions, love affairs, friendships, and associations that would brew into what would later become a counter-culture phenomena, manifested.

Ginsberg was studying at Columbia, planning on becoming a lawyer to defend the less-fortunate, while Kerouac was there on a football scholarship. The law thing didn’t work out for Ginsberg and Kerouac broke his ankle. The rest is history.

The area was fairly cheap to live in at the time, occupied primarily by Columbia University students. Today real-estate is pricey, which is unsurprising considering the beauty of the area. Columbia is bordered by the wonderful Morningside and Riverside Parks, while the main commercial part of the area is dotted by cafés and bookshops.

Joan Vollmer:

She was one of the most important female figures of the early Beat Generation.

Both apartments that she occupied in the area at different times were legendary in the early formation of the Beats; the marathon discussions on 115th Street and 118th Street acted like the crock pot from which the Beat Generation began to emerge.

Jack Kerouac first met Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs at the apartment on 118th Street - Kerouac and his wife Eddie Parker were living with Joan at the time. There was also a lot of chaos that took place in these settings, with various people coming and going.

Joan Vollmer became involved with Burroughs and they later became common-law husband and wife. Burroughs accidently killed her in 1951, while apparently playing William Tell at a party above an American-owned bar in Mexico City called “Bounty-Bar”. Burroughs had tried to shoot a glass off her head. He missed.

Burroughs gives an account of the event and the aftermath, documented in With William Burrough: A Report From the Bunker by Victor Bockris.

Joan’s death had a heavy impact on Burroughs. He had been confronted by what he referred to as the “Ugly Spirit”, which he believed stalked him his entire life. He became a dedicated writer in an attempt to write his way out of hell.

The Kammerer Murder:

The early circle of Kerouac’s friends included Lucien Carr and David Kammerer. Carr was instrumental in introducing Ginsberg, Kerouac and William Burroughs to each other. It was also through Carr that Ginberg, and likewise Kerouac, would discover the bohemian society of Greenwich Village.

When Carr came to NYC from St. Louis to attend Columbia, he was followed by David Kammerer, who a few years earlier, became infatuated with the then 14 year-old Carr, and  had befriended him while leading Boy Scouts on Nature walks each week.

Though Kammerer was part of the circle of friends in NYC, his sexual advances towards the heterosexual Carr increasingly strained ties between the two men. On one particular evening, after drinking in the West End bar, there was an altercation between the two and Kammerer ended up being stabbed by Carr.

Carr dumped the body into the Hudson River. When he went to see Burroughs for advice, Burroughs told him to get good lawyer and turn himself in. Carr eventually did the next day; however, he first went to see Kerouac who was staying with his girlfriend Eddie Parker, at the apartment she shared with Joan Vollmer.

Kerouac helped Carr dispose of the murder weapon down a sewer in Harlem and bury the victim’s glasses in Morningside Park. They spent the next day wandering around New York  City and watching a movie before Carr turned himself in.

Kerouac and Burroughs were both arrested and detained as a material witnesses. Though Burroughs was bailed out after a short time, Kerouac was not so lucky. His parents, especially his father, disapproved of the friends he had made while at Columbia and washed their hands of the entire business. Eddie Parker’s family agreed to provide the bail money on the condition that the two get married.

Carr plead guilty to manslaughter, but received a rather light sentence of only two years, while Kerouac and Burroughs received little penalty. After his release from prison, Carr became involved in publishing, and had a long successful career; however, for most of his life he refused to talk about the murder.

Impact:

The incident became a defining point in the history of the Beat Generation, as it brought negative mainstream focus onto the bohemian culture of the Beats, and the perception that they were immoral and violent.

The West End Bar:

The West End was one of the most popular bars in the area. Even though it was far north of Greenwich Village, it had a similar feel to Village bars, and was very popular amongst the Columbia student crowd as well as aspiring writers and artists. Kerouac and company spent a lot of time here, in fact this was the place that Hal Chase (friend of Kerouac & Ginsberg, and fictionalized as Chad King in On the Road), first introduced Neal Cassady and his new bride Luanne Henderson to Ginsberg. The meeting itself was apparently less than monumental, but the future proved otherwise. Today the bar doesn’t resemble much of what it once was, in fact, every time I visit NYC it seems to have changed facade and name.

There’s a faint echo in this neighbourhood, something I find inherent to most university areas; so many footprints covering multiple eras. The Beat Generation is merely one level of history amongst so many.

I prefer the area around Columbia in the winter. The parks are empty and lonely but in a nostalgic way. I like wandering through large urban settings with few people around; with the noises of the city off in the distance - everything slows down.

I’ve completed an undergraduate degree at a “prestigious” university, but when I’m on the Columbia University campus I feel like I’m on a real university campus. Walking up the stairs and into the Low Library building, I almost feel like I was entering the senate building of Imperial Rome.