The October 1, 1959 Trib posed the question:   “Does the Twin Cities have its share of beatniks?  The people interviewed were skeptical:

• Suzanne Wolfe said “Yes, even if the majority of beatniks aren’t serious about it.  There are a number of beatniks at the U of M.  They wear trench coats and goatees.
• Errol Kantor said “No.  Most beatniks are out in California.  The fellows at the University who wear trench coats and goatees are all pseudo-intellectuals.
• Sonja Blagen thought Minneapolis had its share but that St. Paul didn’t have one beatnik joint.
• Matthew Levison, a student at the U, said “No.  Perhaps 10 percent of those popularly known here as ‘beat’ are actually so.  The balance are nothing more than hangers-on.  Beat movement is entirely nihilistic in 20th century tradition.  Its center is New York and the West Coast.
• Bonnie Erickson made the decision unanimous:  “The concentration of individualistic existentialists, as I prefer to call the ‘beatniks,’ is definitely in Minneapolis.  Only a few are sincere iconoclasts.  Fakes who claim to be beatniks do it for attention, rather than for a purely esthetic cause.