More Problems At The Village Voice

Here’s how you go about building the myth:

Echoing the wanderlust of the author who spent 11 years in Queens, a group of historians and aficionados held a private tour of Jack Kerouac’s old stomping grounds Saturday on the 50th anniversary of the publication of “On the Road.”

Organized by the Central Queens Historical Association, it highlighted the group’s efforts to convince the borough to install a series of plaques at the sites.

Jeff Gottlieb, president of the historical association, and Patrick Fenton, a writer and Kerouac enthusiast, are calling for a “literary trail” of plaques commemorating these spots. A small plaque already hangs outside the former Kerouac apartment on Crossbay Boulevard.

But Gottlieb believes getting the rest of the plaques will be an uphill battle. Queens is a conservative borough, he said, and Kerouac’s legacy might be too racy. Though there has been talk about renaming Smokey Oval Park for Kerouac, he said it will probably be named for late Yankees legend Phil Rizzuto instead.

The tour Gottlieb outlines is not for the casual walker. Logistics, half a century of changes to the area and Kerouac’s tendency to wander long distances on foot make seeing the sights difficult without a car.

The second floor of the building at 133-01 Crossbay Boulevard, the first apartment shared by the Kerouac family in Queens, is no longer a residence. The Queens Ambulance Service now staffs an office where Kerouac once played show tunes on the family’s old box piano, Fenton said.

The children’s library at 95-16 101st Ave. where Kerouac mapped out “On The Road” has long since closed. The building has been gutted and turned into a church, Fenton said.

The Richmond Hill house on 134th Street which Kerouac and his mother inhabited for six years is still standing. Fenton said Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was a frequent visitor there. But, he added, the current owner of the home, located on a cramped block of single-family houses, does not welcome Kerouac devotees. The tour group was small, but it was a dedicated bunch. Two of six participants had written plays about the renowned Beat author.

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Fenton, a retired court officer who has been writing about Kerouac since 1989, may be indirectly responsible for adding one more Queens location to the maps of hard-core Kerouac followers.

A speculative short story he wrote, “Drinking with John Kerouac in a Rockaway Bar,” places the writer in a tavern that Fenton said did not exist during Kerouac’s lifetime. He said the story may have been what caused the Village Voice to list the bar in its NYC Guide as a “Rockaway dive” that has been “canonized (mildly) as the one-time hangout of Jack Kerouac at the depths of his depression.”