I turned 72 in August. I am afraid that many who had spent some part of their lives on Cedar Alley may no longer be with us. Considering especially that the war in Vietnam was raging and many were tossed into the fire. Does anyone remember Fred, the Japanese speaking man who made the coffee drinks at the Orion? How about Iris and Clarilee, who brought your order to your table? How about the jukebox that included Sergovia in its selections? Oh yeah, not to forget the coterie of chess players who’d play until closing. Those were carefree times…, memories of yesteryear. Does anyone have any fond remembrance of the Cedar Alley enclave to share?
I was an habitue of the Orion a house away from the Cento Cedar. The theater was hand built by a German couple whose last name sounded like Deadlift. The husband operated the projector and the wife sold tickets from the candy counter. The theater was picketed by the union because the projectionist was not a dues paying member. When the couple would not knuckle under, goons from the union slashed seats and threw stink bombs at least once. All the man wanted to do is to show movies that were not 20th Century Fox or Warner Brothers. Really, the two of them put that theater together BY HAND! That was a time for foreign films. There were the Larkin and Music Hall. The former is now a porno house and the latter a church. Movie goers from those houses used to take their coffee drinks at the Orion before and after performances. Yes, and the fish and chips from Old Chelsea fried up by Kathy or Scotty. It was an interesting neighborhood with the Foreign Language Book Store right at the corner of Cedar Alley and Larkin.
By the time I cam around, winner of ten-o-win were paid off in silver dollars. The usherette would scream out the location of the winner, “heeeere in the BAL-con-ny,” then ran to where the winner was, and dropped the silver dollars into a chrome plated bucket she was carrying, loud and clear. One night the winner said “thank you, Mr. McLean” to the theater owner and he told the usherette to drop more silver dollars into the bucket for him.
I turned 72 in August. I am afraid that many who had spent some part of their lives on Cedar Alley may no longer be with us. Considering especially that the war in Vietnam was raging and many were tossed into the fire. Does anyone remember Fred, the Japanese speaking man who made the coffee drinks at the Orion? How about Iris and Clarilee, who brought your order to your table? How about the jukebox that included Sergovia in its selections? Oh yeah, not to forget the coterie of chess players who’d play until closing. Those were carefree times…, memories of yesteryear. Does anyone have any fond remembrance of the Cedar Alley enclave to share?
I was an habitue of the Orion a house away from the Cento Cedar. The theater was hand built by a German couple whose last name sounded like Deadlift. The husband operated the projector and the wife sold tickets from the candy counter. The theater was picketed by the union because the projectionist was not a dues paying member. When the couple would not knuckle under, goons from the union slashed seats and threw stink bombs at least once. All the man wanted to do is to show movies that were not 20th Century Fox or Warner Brothers. Really, the two of them put that theater together BY HAND! That was a time for foreign films. There were the Larkin and Music Hall. The former is now a porno house and the latter a church. Movie goers from those houses used to take their coffee drinks at the Orion before and after performances. Yes, and the fish and chips from Old Chelsea fried up by Kathy or Scotty. It was an interesting neighborhood with the Foreign Language Book Store right at the corner of Cedar Alley and Larkin.
By the time I cam around, winner of ten-o-win were paid off in silver dollars. The usherette would scream out the location of the winner, “heeeere in the BAL-con-ny,” then ran to where the winner was, and dropped the silver dollars into a chrome plated bucket she was carrying, loud and clear. One night the winner said “thank you, Mr. McLean” to the theater owner and he told the usherette to drop more silver dollars into the bucket for him.
Thank you for the memory.