Business is decidedly not booming Friday night at the Legacy. Even in mid-January, a forlorn plastic Christmas tree droops at one end of the establishment’s chipped, unvarnished wood bar, and a faded paper Santa Claus face stares through an unwashed…
Friday Facts: Streets and Bridges
:: Seventy-one percent of the surface streets in the city run within one degree of north-south or east-west. The most noteworthy exception is Algonquin Avenue, which changes direction by more than five degrees 16 times along its length. :: The…
Oh, You Never Knew It! – Jan. 10
:: Most people naturally assume that the city’s first public vending machines were the chicken leg contraptions installed along Soldier Boulevard by the Vendmate Company in 1925. Not so! Predating even those beloved tin hulks were the Vend-O salt dispensers…
When the Moving Pictures Came to Town
In the first part of the 20th century, before making the cross-country trek to Hollywood, the motion picture industry settled briefly in our fair city. During the early years of cinema, film companies were based on the east coast, centered…
Friday Facts: It’s a type of purple
:: Twice a year, under an assumed name, architect Frank Gehry sets up an office in a strip mall on Watson Glenn Road and consults with homeowners for $25 an hour. He uses the name “Arthur Gilgreen.” :: The men’s…
Briefs
Oh, You Never Knew It! Wimple and Bing, the City’s fifth-most-famous intersection, was almost known as Wimple and Porkpie! In 1903, due to inattentive aldermen, street-naming honors had devolved to the rascals of the Bottling District. A Mr. Elliott Lamb…
The City’s Most-Storied Piece of Property
Folks often wonder whatever became of Wet-Foot Field, the stamping ground of the city’s first Ethnic-League baseball team, the Blue Stockings. Well, appropriately enough, it was excavated, lined with concrete and turned into the world-famous Swimporium public indoor swimming pools…