Hanging on to the window sill, Peter Munk does a delicate ballet while washing windows at City Lights. Munk, who has been washing the bookstore’s windows since 1974, does a thorough washing once a month and takes extra time to clean the mosaic design at the front door entryway. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Customers browse the shelves in one room at City Lights. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Lillie Walsh thoughtfully browses beneath a sign celebrating the enterprise. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
A sign extols the meeting of reality and mind on the stairway to the poetry room at City Lights. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Tourist Nicola Tranquillino reads behind “The Poet’s Chair” at City Lights. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
A 1965 black-and-white photo of Lawrence Ferlinghetti by Larry Keenan hangs in the stairway leading to the poetry room at City Lights. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
“Johnny Woo” plays his guitar at the corner of Jack Kerouac alley and Columbus Street, where City Lights has published and sold books since 1953. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
With its Chinatown neighborhood reflected in the window, a pedestrian glances at a display at City Lights, which includes “Howl and Other Poems.” (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
“Devotion and Defiance” by Humaira Awais Shahid seems an apt title for the bookstore. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Down the street from City Lights, a colorful mural celebrates the bawdy entertainment aura of the neighborhood and a public sculpture named “Language of the Birds” hangs over passing cars and pedestrians. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Emily Brosk of Yosemite walks past the Vesuvio Cafe across Jack Kerouac alley from City Lights. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
Colorful lanterns hang across the street in Chinatown, around the corner from City Lights. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
