William Cannastra (November 6, 1921 – October 12, 1950) was a member of the early

Beat Generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Genera ...

scene in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. He was a "wild man" figure that the writers in the group found interesting, similar to their fascination with

Neal Cassady Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s. He was prominently featured as himself in the "scroll" (first d ...

. Characters based on Bill Cannastra were included in both the

John Clellon Holmes John Clellon Holmes (March 12, 1926, Holyoke, Massachusetts – March 30, 1988, Middletown, Connecticut) was an American author, poet and professor, best known for his 1952 novel '' Go''. Considered the first "Beat" novel, ''Go'' depicted event ...

novel '' Go'' (as "Agatson") and

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian an ...

's ''

Visions of Cody ''Visions of Cody'' is an experimental novel by Jack Kerouac. It was written in 1951–1952, and though not published in its entirety until 1972, it had by then achieved an underground reputation. Since its first printing, ''Visions of Cody'' has ...

'' (as "Finistra"). He is also described in

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

's " Howl".

Life

William Cannastra was one of two sons born to an aristocratic mother and a machinist father who had emigrated from

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

.Online
Letters from Thomas
/ref> "The Cannastras lived at 525 Pennsylvania Avenue in

Schenectady Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

, a tree-lined street in the shadows of the Mount Pleasant ballfields. Young Bill, who had the yearnings of a career in the art world, instead placated his parents by studying at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

. In the summer of 1949, when he moved to New York City to further pursue his studies, oanHaverty went with him." Cannastra and Haverty met at an artists' colony in

Provincetown, Massachusetts Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Provincet ...

, when she was 19 years old. He was "vacationing as a scallop-boat fisherman", according to Haverty's memoir "Nobody's Wife" and biographical sketch in ''Women of the Beat Generation''. It goes on to say, "She followed Bill to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

at the end of the summer of 1949, and there she hung on to a precarious but happy existence, reveling in her seamstress job, window-peeping at night with Bill on the streets of New York ..." According to Ellis Amburn: "Joan sometimes dressed in drag as a sailor and joined Cannastra in kinky games, peeping through windows."Amburn, Ellis ''Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack Kerouac'' 1998, St. Martin's Press, p. 152. The address of Cannastra's loft in

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

(long since torn down, now a modern condominium building) was 151 West 21st Street.

Death

Cannastra died on October 12, 1950, in a drunken stunt, wherein he was trying to climb out of a subway car window just as it was pulling away from the platform and was decapitated. He was 28 years old.

refers to the subway stop where Cannastra died as

Astor Place Astor Place is a one-block street in NoHo/ East Village, in the lower part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs from Broadway in the west (just below East 8th Street) to Lafayette Street. The street encompasses two plazas at th ...

. Some other accounts, including one from the day it happened, have it as the

Bleecker Street Bleecker Street is an east–west street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was ...

stop. Cannastra was living with Haverty at the time of his death. Shortly afterwards she met

, who immediately proposed to her. It was in the loft where Cannastra had lived that Kerouac found sheets of tracing paper which he then used to write ''

On the Road ''On the Road'' is a 1957 novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across the United States. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonis ...

'' in April 1951.

Cannastra in literature

John Clellon Holmes, ''Go''

In Holmes' '' Go'', Cannastra (alias Agatson) makes his entrance to a party: Holmes discusses Cannastra in an interview in 1974:Knight, Arthur and Kit ''Kerouac and the Beats A Primary Sourcebook'', Paragon House, New York, 1988, pp. 171-2 of 1st ed. Clellon's account of Bill Cannastra's death:

Allen Ginsberg's ''Howl''

A number of lines in the poem "Howl" refer to Bill Cannastra:Ginsberg, Allen "Howl", HarperPerennial ed. published 1995, edited by Barry Miles (pbk.) p. 128-9.

who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic,
leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed
phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whisky and threw up
groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles,

Ginsberg explains the music reference:

Jack Kerouac's ''Visions of Cody''

In Jack Kerouac's ''Visions of Cody'', the character "Bill Finistra" is based on Cannastra; "Finistra" is a poet who is friends with Jack Duluoz and travels with him from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

in 1948 so they can visit a friend named "Cody Pomeroy" who is based on

. "Finistra" is an important supporting character throughout the novel.

In other literature

* Allen Ginsberg calls Cannastra the "prototype" of the Bill Genovese character in the Alan Harrington novel '' The Secret Swinger'' (1966). * Another poem by Ginsberg, "The Names", discusses Cannastra under the name "Bill King". * A third poem by Ginsberg is entitled "In Memoriam: William Cannastra, 1922-1950". * Cannastra also appears as Finistra in Jack Kerouac's '' Book of Dreams'' (1961). * Cannastra also appears as Bill Agatson in John Clellon Holmes' novel ''Get Home Free'' (1964). * Alan Ansen's poem "Dead Drunk: In Memoriam William Cannastra, 1924-1950" appeared in ''Partisan Review'', Vol XXVI, No 4, 1959. Reprinted in ''Contact Highs: Selected Poems 1957-1987'' (1989) with the date amended to "1921-1950". * In Alan Ansen's novel ''

The Vigilantes The Vigilantes was a twentieth-century American publishing syndicate. Their pamphlets and newspapers were distributed with the intention of inspiring patriotism and Allied involvement in World War I. The membership was largely composed of men, who ...

'' (1987) the character Brendan Rcheznik was based on Cannastra. *

Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Char ...

's poem "N. Truro Light - 1946" is about Cannastra. It was published in his collection ''Mirrors'' (1984). * Joan Haverty Kerouac's "Nobody's Wife" contains many chapters on Cannastra. (Creative Arts Book Company, 2000)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cannastra, Bill 1921 births 1950 deaths Harvard Law School alumni Beat Generation people Alcohol-related deaths in New York City People from Schenectady, New York People from Chelsea, Manhattan Railway accident deaths in the United States