Timekeepers

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Photographer's notes: It was here, or maybe it was in the Brooklyn Diner on 57th Street (Fig 1), that the Rube learned it was no longer a good idea for him to have a cheeseburger and a malt after midnight.

The proprietor, Ellen Hart Sturum, runs 3 other restaurants together with her husband and sons. She is a former Miss Subways, hence the Redbird car embedded in the side of this building (Context).

Ellen's is a 50's style diner where the waiters and waitresses not only smile& they sing their hearts out! They're all aspiring actors, singers and performers who get the chance to try-out their voices on a live crowd of hungry eaters. Even Jim, the General Manager treated us to a duet of "Suddenly Seymour" from the movie "Little Shop of Horrors." He says Ellen's has become such a hotspot for singers waiting for that big break, that he gets 5 to 10 people a day looking for work. To get the gig, you have to audition in front of the lunch crowd and really blow Jim away. (CBS Anchorwoman Cindy Hsu, Cindycity site)

Pictures and a description of eating at Ellen's, and an entertaining and archetypal description of "How to Pretend You're in Walt Disney World While Touring the Big Apple", can be found on the AOL home page of a woman who calls herself "Iago" after the parrot in a Disney movie.

The Rube used to eat over at the Stardust on 6th Ave. (and will check if it's still there because he doesn't remember seeing it for a while ... hmmm ... it couldn't have been on 6th -- it's all corporate office buildings there ... now he's getting confused) ... among the nostalgic creations was a "Dagwood" sandwich, modeled after the creations of Dagwood Bumsted. Which, by the way, if you have happen at the library and going through the old newspapers from the 30's -- check out Blondie back then, before Dagwood and Blondie got married and had kids. Did you know Dagwood's parents were rich and disowned him for marring Blondie whom they thought was a golddigger. The Rube wishes they would reprint this period of Blondie in a book -- it was very good. Also, E.C. Segar's Popeyes from the 30's (the Rube does have all these books from Nostalgia Press) have rightly been called "Dickensian" in scope and characterizations -- this was before comics were shrunk down to 4 tiny panels where there's no space to do anything except a simple gag.