The Matador

[Artguy]

The City of Toronto recently condemned an age old dancing & drinking establishment , The Matador,and put up a parking lot....Leonard Cohen went drinking there and wrote the song Closing Time about the place and it's people...I ended up under a table there as a young fella...so here is my lament....

Oh sweet Matador, your legend lies in tears and concrete...Leonard sang your lament dancing on her polka dots at closing time...they've torn you down and now your gone asphalt replacing the worn wooden floor where i laid dying and drunk...and now she dances sadly...exhaust of progress stains her yellow dress... a rose between her teeth wilted she dances to the end of love...once again they have "paved paradise and put up a parking lot..."

[mtmynd]

Cheers! to the Matador. May it's memory live on.

Nicely done, artguy! Any pics

[westcoast]

good one! i live in vancouver and we're seeing the same lose of traditional haunts, especially in the lead up to the 2010 Olympic winter games. Vancouver is the host city.

~westie

[Lightning Rod]

J. Alfred's had peanuts shells on the floor
it's gone now
Gene Street is a friend of mine
he opened J. Alfred's as soon as Dallas allowed open bars.
He was obsessed with the Eliot poem.
His corporation was called The Prufrock Corporation.
I used to help him wag kegs of beer into the place.
He went on to found Chili's and Blackeyed Pea and Good Eats

The first Street-Cobb venture was overfunded. They took over the distinguished establishment on Oak Lawn Avenue known as Joe's Snack Bar in 1971 and turned that into a bar known as J. Alfred's. Initial investment outlay--six grand. Tom Garrison, who would later open the venerable Stoneleigh P., took 10 percent of J. Alfred's. "I first met Gene when I was working for a mortgage company and Gene was trying to buy his first house, which was in Hamilton Park, a predominantly black neighborhood," Garrison says. "He had a job, he had good credit. He qualified for the loan, no problem, but three or four times while we were completing the application, he'd get up and pace around and walk out of the room. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw."

Soon, Garrison would observe other eccentricities about his associate at J. Alfred's, which would evolve into a gin mill for bikers. "We had peanut shells on the floor, and every Sunday morning Gene would come in, sweep up the shells, and put them into some container, scrub and mop the floor, and then throw the shells back down. Phil and I called him Clean Gene. He also had a penny fetish. He'd pull 'em out of the cash register every 15 minutes or so. One morning I saw him driving off to the bank, and the entire bed of his pickup truck was crammed with jars of pennies."

[sooZen]

Nicely lamented K. Isn't just typical? Sad but true... Funny you would mention Leonard, Noah just sent us a dvd compilation of his songs.

Rod, First time we took Nate to a place with peanut shells on the floor, he exclaimed, "This place is a mess!" I am sure he wondered why we would want to eat there.

[Arcadia]

I guess it sounds better than the killer.... !! yes, yes... old photos, artguy!!!! (if you want!)

[WIREMAN]

great piece kurt.......old times good times gone.....

[mnaz]

Nice. It seems the sterile corporate creep is everywhere. I'm seeing an awful lot of it where I live. If I didn't quite appreciate those old landmarks before, I do now. I've no choice, really.