The Queens Historical Society will run a guided trolley trek past seven sites, including Kerouac's Cross Bay Blvd. apartment, on Sunday. Above, the apartment where Kerouac lived for 6 years. Ward for News
Preservationists are capitalizing on a tour of endangered Queens historic sites - inspired by a Daily News series - to push for landmarking of the Ozone Park walkup where Jack Kerouac planned his iconic 1957 novel "On the Road."
The Queens Historical Society will run a guided trolley trek past seven sites, including Kerouac's Cross Bay Blvd. apartment, on Sunday. The tour will be followed by an hour-long talk about the voice of the Beat Generation.
On display at the society's Flushing base at 143-35 37th Ave. - where the tour will depart at 1 p.m. - are rare artifacts and photos relating to Kerouac, alongside parts of The News' "History in Peril" series, which ran last year.
Kerouac scholar Patrick Fenton, who will lecture Sunday about how the author's work was shaped by living in Ozone Park during the 1940s, slammed the city for not landmarking the site.
"They don't really know the history of Jack Kerouac in Queens," said Fenton, 68. "If they knew it, I think they'd run to his house to put a plaque up."
Fenton accused the city of anti-Queens bias by recently landmarking the childhood home of novelist Henry Miller as part of a historic district in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, before designating Kerouac's apartment.
Miller lived in the three-story brick building for less than a decade in the 1890s, leaving years before penning his signature works, "The Tropic of Cancer" and "The Tropic of Capricorn."
Kerouac, meanwhile, planned one of the most famous road trips in literary history at his mom's walkup in Ozone Park - and embarked on it from there in 1947.
Marisa Berman, the historical society's executive director, said the full slate of "History in Peril" tour stops merit landmarking "if a site with such a small connection to [Miller] is eligible."
A spokeswoman for the city Landmarks Preservation Commission - which is reviewing the Kerouac walkup - insisted the 29 rowhouses that compose the Williamsburg district were designated for architectural reasons.
"It most likely would have been included even if Henry Miller hadn't lived there," said spokeswoman Lisi de Bourbon.
Only five city landmarks were recognized solely for cultural significance - the designation that seems most fitting for the Kerouac home.
To get tickets for the tour, call the Queens Historical Society at (718) 939-0647.
