261–271 Columbus Avenue

1. 1876

   The lot was bought by Emile Artigues, a French-born market stallholder, and his brother Jean; a three-storey brick building later went up on it, at what was then 275 Montgomery Avenue. The family kept the property for 123 years.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
2. 1907

   Built.

3. 1907

   A stuccoed brick commercial building, later the home of City Lights Bookstore; the city's survey names Oliver Everett as its architect.

   North Beach Historic Context Statement, adopted 2022
4. 1907

   After the fire gutted their building, the Artigues brothers rebuilt on its footprint to designs by Oliver Everett — a two-storey stuccoed brick block with a mezzanine, on an 85-foot triangular frontage, the best of Everett's surviving commercial buildings — keeping the old basement, whose eleven brick arches under the sidewalk survive. The first tenants were Italian: A. Cavalli & Co., a bookshop, the photographer Vitalini Fotografia Italiana, and the James Fugazi-Bulotti Co.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
5. 1913

   Vitalini Fotografia Italiana occupied the upper floor here, one of at least six Italian-owned studios on the 1913 Sanborn map.

   North Beach Historic Context Statement, adopted 2022
6. 1950s

   Photographed, showing the City Lights Bookstore.

   San Francisco Subjects Photograph Collection (SFP 162), San Francisco Public Library
7. 1953

   City Lights Bookstore, founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin as the nation's first all-paperback bookstore opened here in 1953; the city's survey names it among the places of the North Beach Beat scene.

   North Beach Historic Context Statement, adopted 2022
8. 1956

   City Lights Bookstore, whose press published Howl in 1956, leading to a California obscenity trial that the publisher won.

   Donna J. Graves and Shayne E. Watson, Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco, San Francisco Planning Department, adopted by the Historic Preservation Commission November 18, 2015
9. November 1966

   Staff at City Lights Books were arrested here in November 1966 for knowingly possessing obscene matter with intent to sell, over a collection of love poems. The case became what has been described as the longest municipal court trial in the city's history, a decade after the Howl prosecution.

   Donna Graves for San Francisco Heritage, Citywide Historic Context Statement for Counterculture (1965–1975), San Francisco Planning Department, adopted 17 July 2024
10. 1982

    Recorded in the city's 1982 survey of North Beach, adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 1999, as an individually listed resource.

    North Beach Historic Context Statement, adopted 2022
11. Mar 1986

    Permit 8603091 $$$ $8,000

    Parapet reinforcement.

12. Dec 1989

    Permit 8924948 $$$ $2,500

    Remove the penthouse.

13. Dec 1989

    Withdrawn Permit 8925070 $$$ $1,800

    R-roofing.

14. Mar 1999

    Permit 9905245 $$$ $80,000

    U.m.b. seismic retrofit, alter front entryway, replace sidewak.

15. 2001

    Listed as San Francisco City Landmark No. 228 — City Lights Bookstore.

    SF Planning, Article 10 landmarks SF Planning, Article 10 landmarks North Beach Historic Context Statement, adopted 2022
16. Aug 2017

    Permit 201708296179 $$$ $18,000

    Reroofing.

2 nominal $1 street-space or sidewalk permits are omitted from the timeline. 5 expired or cancelled permits are not shown.