Thursday, December 29, 2016

The Greenwich Village Poets: Charles Kuralt Reporting

by G. Jack Urso


June 1959 CBS News radio report by Charles Kuralt on the Greenwich Village poetry scene. Here, Kuralt visits the famed Gaslight CafĂ©, 116 MacDougal Street, in the Village, which featured such poets as Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso; unfortunately, they weren’t on stage that evening and instead Kuralt happens upon the single worst poet in the city. The Gaslight operated from 1958 through 1971 – from the peak of the Beat era through its tail end when the hippies moved in on their turf. Decidedly squaresville man, but Kuralt provides a quick capture of the media's view of the Beatniks at the height of their cultural significance.

Available on Volume Three of Rhino Record’s The Beat Generation (1992) and posted from my personal archives to the Aeolus 13 Umbra YouTube channel:

                           

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