Jack Kerouac stayed here, in the attic of the Neal and Carolyn Cassady’s house “two-storey crooked, rickety wooden cottage in the middle of tenements” while writing On The Road in 1951.
Although Neal did not publish much during his life time he was the inspiration behind the Beat movement. Kerouac called one of his letters "the greatest piece of writing I ever saw" and said he got the idea for On The Road from Neal's letters.
He lived for a while with the Grateful Dead, taking the stage with them on multiple occasions. Jerry Garcia wrote that "he was a huge influence on me in ways I can’t really describe…attitude…rhythm, you know, motion, timing. He was like a 12th-dimensional Lenny Bruce” . The Dead dedicated their 1968 Valentine's Day show to Neal.
Carolyn had very strong views both on the Beat generation (she thought it was made up by Alan Ginsberg with media collusion) and on Kerouac, possibly because she was raising three children while Neal traveled. You can learn more about these in Love Always, Carolyn (2011) as well as in Heart Beat (1980), which is based on her memoirs.