If you walk out of my building, take a right and walk about a block, you’ll find a trolley stop. Have a dollar bill ready and get on. Unless it’s lunch on a weekday… then… FREE!
The Riverfront trolley takes you up Main Street, past the Civil Rights Museum and the Hotel Lorraine, where Dr. King was assassinated. Then, it stops at the corner of G.E. Patterson and Main.
Get off the trolley and cross the street and you’ll be standing in front of the Arcade Restaurant.
It’s not a place where you play video games, but rather the name refers to an architectural style that incorporates arches and columns. The arcade is the oldest restaurant in Memphis and was founded by a Greek immigrant family in 1924 and is run by that same family today.
That’s my favorite part of the story of this National Historic Landmark. It was made by immigrants and it’s an integral part of Memphis history. It’s one proof of thousands, I believe, of how so many individuals have contributed to what we now take for granted as natural outcomes of being “plain, old” Americans. None of us are plain, old Americans, are we? Like the Arcade restaurant, we have a little story that somehow connects us all to some other place besides the one we now call home.
While you’re sitting in that restaurant munching on sweet potato pancakes and feeling like you’re a part of living history, it might blow your mind when someone tells you that Elvis used to chill out here all the time.
Maybe even in the booth you’re sitting in.
What a trip.
This is Memphis, baby.
Yeah.
Sweet potato pancakes. I have one word for you: share. I never met a plate I couldn't inhale, but I could NOT finish these. Very rich. But delicious.
Also delicious, but not on the menu.
Tell me about the places in your town that have stories linked to the past. Do you visit them often?
Photos taken and edited on my Motorola DROID X.
There’s an old tavern up by Yankee Stadium that has now been named The Yankee Tavern, of course. When I first started going there, it was this run-down neighborhood bar. Open year-round with a deli counter when you walked in. The kind of joint where you would order a cheap beer and a sandwich on any given afternoon. It was the place that Babe Ruth used to go to after games. Sometimes before games as well. Around 10 years ago, the owners did a complete overhaul of the place with the infusion of money they had from the Yankees winning all those championships and the resulting spike in attendance.
Sad. Because it’s really not the same joint anymore. The locals are all still there, game day or not. But the deli counter is gone and the vibe that Ruth’s ghost might be sitting next to you went with it.
Then there is Pete’s Tavern in NYC. Continuously running since 1864, it claims to be the oldest pub in the city. O. Henry was a regular there, and “The Gift of the Magi” was supposedly written in one of the old booths. That’s pretty cool.
Captain Tony’s Saloon (originally Sloppy Joe’s) in Key West has some pretty cool history too. There are at least two dead bodies in the building, if you care to look. And each bar stool is painted with the name of a famous person who sat and drank there. As of my last visit, two stools were retired and hanging from the ceiling. Papa Hemingway and JFK. Oh, and there’s a big banyan tree that grows right through the middle of the bar. Through the floor right out of the roof. Amazing, even if the place usually smells bad. Dead bodies, ya know.
Those places sound great. I’ll be in NY in August, so we’ll have to check one of these places out.
Almost nothing around here is, but there are a couple.
One is the hotel my mother worked in for 25 years. It was built in the 20s by Addison Mizner, and it WAS Boca Raton for a long time. It is gorgeous, and pink. It has hosted presidents (aside: I spent the night of my 10th wedding anniversary in that hotel, in the same bed that George HW Bush and Barbara Bush had slept in just a week before) and many other famous people. There is much of the Cloister, as the old part of the hotel was and still is, called, that is almost exactly the way it was back then.
So. I laughed at the Bush’s sleeping in the bed a week before you.
The Golden Lamb, which is actually closer to my parents, is the oldest inn in Ohio, and a great restaurant. Some famous people who’ve stayed there include 10 U.S. presidents, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens… there’s a ton of history closer to home, but that place is pretty cool.
Huh… I didn’t know Charles Dickens visited the U.S…. that’s kind of cool.
there is a paan walah outside one of the oldest hotels in Delhi, called the Imperial hotel. the “shop” is an open wooden stall with a couple of light bulbs hanging off a wire. other than the fact that his paans are SUPER DUPER, everyone from celebrities to politicians to diplomats can be found on any given evening eaten paan.
good stuff…
The question is… how come you never taken me there?! I know I’m not a fan of paan, but I could handle running into a Bollywood actor or two.
I am ashamed to say that I haven’t really explored any of the history that LA has to offer. Tuesday was my 10 yr anniversary of moving to LA and I had been planning for months to go on one of those bus tours of the city and learn more about LA’s history…but whadayaknow, I got sick on Tuesday. So, no tour.
Maybe I’ll do it for my 20 year anniversary. =)
Oh, you should do it NOW!! I grew up in Florida and just moved to Memphis. There are so many things I took for granted there because I just assumed I’d always have the time. There are about four beaches I always meant to visit. I particularly miss them right now. (It’s 20 degrees here, yo!!)
There’s a casino here that’s still around from back in the day – one of I think only 2 left – called the Nugget. In its heyday it hosted all the big name headliners, mostly the Rat Pack. It’s also where the Awful Awful was created, and where they serve the most delicious pan roast. The Awful Awful is a Reno icon; it’s a giant cheeseburger. I’ve had a grand total of one in my life because as far as cheeseburgers go it wasn’t my favorite, but you can’t live here and not have had one.
I want a giant cheeseburger now. Damn you, Lisa.
oh man, i had my first awful awful this past year and loved it! (this coming from a woman who doesn’t even like hamburgers!)
mmmmmmmmmm awful big, awful good!
I came over from Britt’s old blog and have been reading you for a while now. I love your writing and your open minded, pluri-cultural perspective. I’m a fan
That said… “Like the Arcade restaurant, we have a little story that somehow connects us all to some other place besides the one we now call home.” That sentence really hit home for me! See, I just move across the Atlantic to start a new job, and I’m still settling in and finding places like that. I’m sure there will be many. And then, there’s always museums to rely on. I love to go back again and again to see the piece I like most.. specially because the buildings themselves are so pretty as well. And The Hague has many of those, ‘Girl with the pearl earring’ included or not!
Great post, Faiqa.
PS. Btw, your shopping list post? Mad genius. I totally copied your style -sans the clipboard- and it works like a charm!
Thank you so much for commenting. I’m glad the post resonated with you. It must be exciting to live in a new country all together, that’s one of our dreams in this family. (To live in Europe for a while.)
I used to live really close to a Civil War battlefield that’s now the 2nd largest park in Atlanta. And, the largest oil painting in the world–which depicts the Battle of Atlanta from the Civil War–was in said park. A graveyard that’s the oldest in the South (I think–definitely oldest in the city) is across the street. I love walking around all these spots.
That sounds awesome! I’ll have to check it out next time I’m in Atlanta. Also, I guess you’re not counting St. Augustine as being in the South? Because I think it has the oldest cemetery in the country? I don’t know. Of course, now I have to google it.
The Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Québec (Our Lady of Quebec City) is the oldest see in the New World north of Mexico.
It is also the parish church of the oldest parish in North America; perhaps the first bodies were buried there too, who knows.
However, it’s predated by L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, where the Vikings lived in 1000 AD. May be the oldest burial of Europeans, wouldn’t you think?
when i come visit you, please take me for sweet potato pancakes.
pittsburgh has TONS of places linked to the past, but my favorite is a cemetery right smack in the middle of downtown where shawnee indian chief red pole is buried. (the french and indian war started with a dispute over the three rivers…where pittsburgh sits today. chief red pole died of (most likely) pneumonia years after it ended.)
of course volunteering at our public television station always makes me smile when i think of mr. rogers creating his neighborhood in that very building.
and walking the grounds of henry clay frick’s home, clayton, is pretty fucking cool. (frick was the founder of a coke manufacturing company and the chairman of the carnegie steel company…the predecessor to uss. he has been called one of the most hated men in history, but also was an avid art collector who amassed an impressive collection. love going to his free museum and hanging out with european masterpieces like monet and rubens, plus being able to go to the building next door and see the first car in pittsburgh, howard heinz’s panhard.)
there really is a bunch more, but i’ll stop now and unhijack your comments.