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Saturday, March 30, 2019
Friday, March 22, 2019
Queer Days at North Catholic Philly
There is a Facebook page of Old Images of Philadelphia River Wards. It posted an old picture of the exit of students from my old high school around the early 1970s etc. Well someone had to mention some of the abuse stuff the other day, recognized so in hindsight. A moderator, I was surprised and relieved to know that his statement let me know that the same things happened to others etc. As for S***** S****, the old fag priest is still alive and in retirement down south. I could not, would not repeat what that priest said to us in Senior religion class, as least not repeat them on FB or in that context, off topic. S*>&&# told us in "religion" class that "a few blow jobs don't make you queer". Thought then that he was talking about forgiveness. Did not realize he was fishing for young partners. Pervert.
Name Redacted - FB Member : "Father ***** and another priest physically attacked me because I had no interest in becoming a priest during "holy week." I was suspended for fighting them off but I came back the next day and they just looked and never said a word. My parents confronted Fr. "S*****" S**** because of his advances towards my brother. Holy Name (a parish) had some priest and a Brother that sexually assaulted kids."
[Dark side to that school. I was always aware of it through an incident with my older brother etc.]
Just like with cardinal Spellman, being queer right out in front and public and exclaiming that "they would never believe it." if they were told, ( except if the NYT reported it and the NYT never did report on Spellman's taste for Broadway chorus boys. etc.)
(try to let go of this and am reminded of it on FB. sorry for all the recycled words above. tired of addressing this sick subject of Sacred Tradition Catholic dogma.) .
23rd Street Bar and Grill - Klube's Restaurant - St.Blaize Hotel - 158 E 23rd Street
I thought they tore it down. When I knew it, it was dba the "23rd Street Bar and Grill", a yuppie's hangout in the early 1980's in amongst the various Baruch college buildings in the neighborhood. An assortment of old, new, and in between in terms of architecture.
I loved the woods in the bar, and pictures and tile floor which looked original and dating from the 1890s.
Looking things up I discovered that it did not disappear under an apartment building as of the 2017 Google photo above. Memory going. Duh.
In various articles the building goes back to 1840s. It had a stint as a Raines Law Hotel whereby you could open your bar on Sunday after the 1896 "reform" law designed to shut down Democratic politics and liquor on Sundays, with a loophole that you could sell liquor in a hotel on Sundays. So saloons suddenly became hotels with "rooms for rent" upstairs in order to stay open on Sundays. Which meant that you needed 10 rooms for rent, as in a hotel, which meant that this building as a bar on the ground floor had partitions in rooms upstairs to make 10 rooms and of course hookers found these cheap unwanted living spaces dba "hotels" a great place to haunt off the streets. This one law IMO destroyed the character of the Bowery overnight turning it into a red light district because of all the bars already in existence, now hotels, in that neighborhood.
As a Raines Law Hotel selling liquor on Sundays, Freight Car super-salesman Diamond Jim Brady used to bring his out of town buyers to a NYC convention, show them a good time on the town and land up here in the "St. Blaze Hotel" for drinks and sex on his business expense account. The story sounds legit since this was in the neighborhood of the old Madison Street Garden, a favorite haunt of his famous parties on the roof top garden etc.
Then in 1911, it became Klube's Restaurant, a place for German style food. It had close to 30 years as that and later an assortment of tenants as steak houses and bar and grills like the 23rd Street Bar and Grill. Supposedly some scenes were shot late one night for the movie "Cotton Club" which may or may have made it in the movie for a few seconds, the bar room shots that is in the movie.
When I frequented the place, the bartender was an actor waiting for his next big part in cinema. But years later I see that he dropped out of "Hollywood" and never made another movie, except for some bit part in Firestarter with Drew Barrymore.
Glad to see that the building has survived. Have some fond memories of the place.
Friday, February 22, 2019
Facebook Remarks by Myself re: Neil Diamond 21 May 2011
I love the rich mellowness of his voice and the simplicity of lyrics. He says a lot with very little.
I never went to any Diamond concert but here I go with my story about Neil Diamond. I used to start work at 7AM in Rockefeller Center. On some days I would get off the express bus and walk over to 48th to a particular deli “Scott’s” that served a very tasty and cheap bacon and egg sandwich to go. This was in I think July 2001. Well anyway Scott’s is just off NBC’s glass front on the street for the Today Show. Well on this day at 6:30 the plaza was packed with 1,000 people and Neil was doing a warmup for the Today show at 7 AM. The crowd was absolutely on top of every music note and lyric, screaming, clapping, jumping. I stood across the street and listened for a bit and then sadly had to get to work three blocks away.
I remember walking along dark streets and hearing echoes of “Cracklin Rosie” bouncing off the walls of skyscrapers and remember it because it happened a couple of weeks before 911. I remember Neil Diamond with not only a fondness for his music but the memory I have of him in NYC before NYC changed on 911. Whatever.
Facebook Remarks by Myself re: Neil Diamond 21 May 2011
Facebook remarks by myself re: James Baldwin 21 March 2017
Baldwin was an interesting dude. Remember reading his autobiographical novel Notes Of A Native Son at Temple. Can't remember if it was for Eng Comp. or Poli Sci.. One interesting note was that I was having a late Christmas dinner with friends up around 112th and Broadway when I lived near Columbia around 1981. It was a Chinese restaurant. At the next table was Baldwin chain smoking, his presumed male spouse and a drunk giggly French girl in her twenties, a college reporter I think, she breaking in from time to time in French and English. I remember when he died, His memorial service at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine down the street drew record crowds in excess of 3,000 people in attendance.
...
Some of what he wrote sticks with me. His being a kid outside the public library at 42nd and 5th Ave and a nasty Irish cop telling him he didn't belong there. He belonged up in Harlem. Oh yeah? Yeah right. As a kid when an adult tells you that you can't do something, something in the species or genes that wants to prove the old cracketr wrong. lol
Facebook remarks by myself re: James Baldwin 21 March 2017
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