{"id":10987,"date":"2015-10-02T12:11:46","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T16:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=10987"},"modified":"2020-12-23T11:35:42","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T16:35:42","slug":"1980s-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/1980s-redux\/","title":{"rendered":"1980s Redux"},"content":{"rendered":"

October 2015 | View this story as a PDF<\/a><\/p>\n

Starlight memories of the go-go days.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Olivia Gunn<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"OCT15-The-80s\"It\u2019s a Saturday night in 1985. In his weekend best pulled together from Material Objects, 25-year-old Sid Tripp locks the door of his Exchange Street apartment at the Old Port Arms and heads down to see what the rest of Portland has been doing since Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe went out almost every night of the week,\u201d Sid says during our interview in his West End townhouse. \u201cSunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. On Monday we\u2019d do laundry. Wednesdays we\u2019d stay home to watch Dynasty<\/em>\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sid is a graduate of the University of Maine who, like many of his friends, made a bee-line for Portland after graduation. He first took a job at F. Parker Reidy\u2019s, where you could go for a great steak. Today, Sonny\u2019s sits in its place. <\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long before Sid was working on Congress at an advertising agency, making more money than a 20-something knew what to do with, and simply going out on the town.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe all had full-time jobs. And we\u2019d be out until one, two in the morning. We\u2019d be drinking all day. Drinks were cheap, food was cheap.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hot Spot<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

For their first stop, Sid\u2019s group, which from what I can gather was the<\/em> group, would first head downstairs and hit HuShang on Exchange Street for appetizers. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Szechuan- and Hunan-style restaurant originated on Congress and was owned by the Ng brothers, Ken and Henry. With a line outside every night, Eddie Fitzpatrick, former editor of the Maine Sunday Telegram<\/em> once told Portland Magazine<\/em> it was \u201c\u2026the first good Chinese restaurant in Portland. Ken Ng had the ability to remember names. You\u2019d dine there and then go back a year later, and he\u2019d call you by name. HuShang was always full.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Susan Hellier, who arrived in Portland in 1981, tended\u00a0 <\/span>bar there after having worked her way up the ranks in Ken Ng\u2019s troops.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI started as a dishwasher [at the Congress Street location], and I\u2019d get stoned every day between work. I\u2019d leave one job, go behind the dumpster, take a couple hits of a joint, get into my overalls and do dishes at HuShang.\u201d She sighs. \u201cHuShang. I\u2019m sorry you missed it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Though Sue would one day manage the Lewiston location, she laughs at the thought of her first promotion. \u201cI wanted to bus tables, but Ken said, \u2018No. You are number one dish girl. Plus, you don\u2019t dress good.\u2019\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

After a promise of finding another supreme dishwasher and taking a comb to her curly hair, Sue was promoted to bussing at the second HuShang on Brown Street, where she eventually became a server before tending bar on Exchange.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Sue poured me thousands of drinks,\u201d says Sid at the mention of her name.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lure of the Bright Lights <\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sue first came to Portland when she was 21 years old, for a house-sitting job and a helluva good time as promised by a friend from Orono. \u201cI was going to go to Boston, but Julie said, \u2018It\u2019s going to cost us 70 bucks a month to live in Portland between the three of us.\u2019 You say \u2018yes\u2019<\/em> to that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But when the girls arrived, the woman they were to house-sit for had postponed her trip\u2013leaving them no job, nowhere to live, but a future wide open. <\/span><\/p>\n

They rented a room at the Eastland Hotel, which in Sue\u2019s words was the skeeviest place in the \u201980s. \u201cIt was a lot of people just moving through. When you flushed the toilet, it sounded like the room had exploded.\u201d Even so, her eyes light up talking about the summer it all began.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Way It Was<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

As Sue would pour to the sounds of DJ Kris Clark, Sid and friends would decide whether to stay or move on to Squire Morgan\u2019s for free chicken wings and then to Moose Alley or Kayo\u2019s for one of the many live bands Portland had to offer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou could go anywhere and see friends of yours playing,\u201d says Sue. \u201cAll of my friends at the time were musicians. Charlie Brown, he was an amazing keyboardist, he had a band called Vito and The Groove Kings.\u201d She stops to make a mental checklist. \u201cThe Clouds, Buffalo Chip Tea. See, now I\u2019m going to forget someone\u2019s band and they\u2019re going to be pissed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If you were truly in<\/em> in the music scene, you might find yourself at a tiny hole in the wall on Brown Street called Geno\u2019s. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou had to know somebody to get in, and if they didn\u2019t know you, you\u2019d have to say who you were with,\u201d says Sid. \u201cPunk rock had a home there at that point\u2013the really early punk rock.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sid adds a fun fact. \u201cWhere they are now used to be a porn theater. The State Theater was a porn place, too.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Wait\u2013according to Google Maps, the city had two porno spots 230 feet apart. Does that mean Portlanders only had two dirty movie houses to choose from? <\/span><\/p>\n

Art-House Heaven <\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Obviously, pornography wasn\u2019t the only thing available in the cinemas. In 1980, Steve and Judy Halpert took over the Movies on Exchange, which offered independent, foreign, and documentary films to a town that craved it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a real need for it,\u201d says Steve.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThere was a group of people who wanted to see those movies, so we could really do just about anything we wanted to do. There was no competition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Films such as 1985\u2019s Buddies<\/em>, said to be the first to tackle the topic of the AIDS pandemic, brought the Exchange Street audiences the same films that were current in\u00a0 <\/span>New York and L.A. Portland welcomed films that touched on controversial\u00a0 <\/span>subjects\u2013and foreign films. The Halperts sought the \u201cricher films with sophisticated characters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI came to the theater, and an hour early, they\u2019re lined up Exchange Street to see The Seven Samurai<\/em>,\u201d Steve recalls. \u201cI thought how starved people are\u2013how many are lined up to see Kurosawa, and it\u2019s not even a new movie.\u201d [The Japanese classic dates to 1954.]<\/span><\/p>\n

The Halperts ran the Movies for more than three decades. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery six months, you could play Casablanca<\/em> or The Maltese Falcon<\/em>. You could still get an audience because there was no other source. You couldn\u2019t watch them on television, you couldn\u2019t rent them and take them\u00a0 <\/span>home,\u201d says Steve. \u201cThe big, big change came when cable and videotape made these [films] readily accessible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What may once have been a threat to movie theaters in Portland\u2013video rentals\u2013has had to face its own obsolescence. In recent weeks, Portland said goodbye to a long-standing landmark, Videoport. Owner Bill Duggan acknowledged online streaming and a changing market as contributions to the closure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Movies on Exchange survives in the form of PMA Movies at the Portland Museum of Art, where Steve runs the weekend screenings. And today you can find 18,000 former Videoport relics available to rent at the Portland Public Library.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finishing Out The Night<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By 11:30 p.m., Sid Tripp and his crew would have been making their way down to the place close to all of their hearts, Three Dollar Deweys.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deweys wasn\u2019t at its current spot on Commercial Street then. Once upon a time, at the spot where the nightclub Pearl sits today, Three Dollar Deweys was the place to be if you were anyone in Portland\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d always try to make it there before 11 o\u2019clock, because there\u2019d be a line out the door,\u201d Sid says.<\/span><\/p>\n

He describes a bar we all hope to know at one point during our drinking years. Cheesy maybe, but it was<\/em> the place where everybody knew your name. And if no one knew your address, they could send your post to Deweys.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know the old Deweys?\u201d Sue asks me over a beer at Sonny\u2019s. I shake my head. \u201cOh, my God,\u201d she says. \u201cDeweys was awesome. It was all benches. You were forced to sit next to people you didn\u2019t really know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Siri, Take me to Memory Lane<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was Cheers<\/em> before Cheers<\/em>,\u201d says Sandy Flanagan, a bright, warm woman with red hair to match. She\u2019s brought out a giant scrapbook created by Dewey\u2019s regular Roland Waddington Jr., who\u2019d visit every Saturday and sit at the back table and hold court.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was kind, wonderful, interesting, and he loved people. Roland drew everyone together.\u201d The book is filled with pictures of Roland\u2019s friends, postcards, newspaper clippings\u2013and not a single selfie.<\/span><\/p>\n

She points out a note written on a napkin from local writer Al Diamon, promising to bring Roland back a bottle from England.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sandy flips through the pages, inviting me into a warm, friendly, bygone bar to meet the likes of Manny Verzosa, Claude Von Schmutz, even Breakfast Club<\/em> star Judd Nelson. Also floating in: rockers like Tom Petty, Metallica, and a kilt-wearing French artist who\u2019d left his goose farm behind for a new start in Portland.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deweys was opened by a man named Alan Eames, who Sandy describes as a brilliant shyster.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe made up these fantastic stories,\u201d Sandy laughs. \u201c\u2018This is the story. I know it\u2019s not true,\u2019 he\u2019d say. Or, \u2018This is all a lie.\u2019\u201d She grins. \u201cThree Dollar Deweys came from the Gold Rush. It was the name of a bar whore house. One dollar lookey, two dollar touchy, three dollar dewey. Completely made up by Alan Eames.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Though Eames was the owner and mastermind behind Portland\u2019s favorite bar, he wasn\u2019t often seen there. Sandy says Eames would come in, clean, make chili, and return upstairs to his loft and hit his punching bag. That is until one Sunday morning a U-Haul pulled up front of the bar. \u201cHe left Portland with a U-Haul, basically escaping.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

[Eames ended up in Brattleboro, opened another bar, and became known as the Beer King. He died at age 59 in 2007.]<\/span><\/p>\n

The Eames-era Deweys was filled with welcoming faces. \u201cThe employees ran the place. And that\u2019s what was so good about it. People trusted one another, people were kind to one another. There were so many artists. They worked there, hung out there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Musician Manny Verzosa was a name most everyone knew. He\u2019s described as a \u201crising star\u201d in a worn Press Herald<\/em> clipping Sandy proffers. Manny died in a car accident at 30 on his way home from California.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sandy\u2019s voice still carries a twinge of pain when talking about him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe wrote a song, and I have it here,\u201d she taps her heart. The song is about Portland and the Longfellow monument. \u201cWhen I come home to my city by the sea, I\u2019ll sit by you and I\u2019ll talk of places I\u2019ve seen\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sandy describes Manny as having the gift of making everyone feel like the most special person in the world. \u201cHe was also a pain in the ass,\u201d she smiles affectionately.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou had to sit with somebody if you wanted to sit,\u201d says Sandy. \u201cYou had to talk to the person next to you, across from you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She describes Claude Von Schmutz, one of the bartenders who squatted across the street in an abandoned building.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe first night we met, he pulled off one of my turquoise boots and drank champagne out of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Why? <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he was French, damn it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Closing Time<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

From what Sue, Sandy, and Sid can all remember, Portland bars closed at\u00a0 <\/span>1 a.m. But in 1985, that didn\u2019t necessarily mean the parties were over. Back then, after-hours clubs would open around midnight, and if you brought your own booze, the party would last till dawn.<\/span><\/p>\n

These clubs\u2013The Maxx, Back Street\u2013are described to me as places out of Saturday Night Fever<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Maxx was located on York Street near where Portland Pie is today and was what Sid remembers as the after-hour club for straight people. It was the place to go to meet someone and leave with someone, even if you only made it to the parking lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sandy\u2019s sister, Nancy Guimond, describes The Maxx as having no windows and a fog machine on the dance floor.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sisters crack up as they\u2019re swept back to the glory days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019d come out of there at six in the morning, it was like being a vampire,\u201d Nancy howls, covering her eyes as Sandy laughs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut we looked good,\u201d says Sandy.<\/span><\/p>\n

In those days, we\u2019d get dressed to the nines,\u201d says Nancy. \u201cYou weren\u2019t allowed in if you weren\u2019t.\u201d They reminisce about their get-ups and walking down fire escapes in platforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe might fall, but we looked good going down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Oasis, The Underground, Page 1, The Maxx, the list goes on. All places to go and dance. Imagine that. People actually dressed up, went out, and danced. Together.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so glad I grew up then,\u201d Nancy sighs as the two come down from their laughter high.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sid, Sue, Sandy, and Nancy\u2013each offers me a piece that, once put together, build a beautiful puzzle of a city I don\u2019t recognize. <\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s okay. It wasn\u2019t my city then. It wasn\u2019t my time. But after hearing the stories of what Portland once was, who roamed its streets, and laughed in its bars, I\u2019m making a promise to love what Portland has become. Hopefully, just maybe, when I revisit the memories years from now, I can laugh just as hard.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a young person\u2019s town,\u201d Sue smiles before we wrap our interview. \u201cIt still is, but I mean, in the \u201980s it was great to be 20 in Portland, Maine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Is It All Gone?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The good beer and music gave Deweys its charm, but it was the people who gave it the heart so few places have today.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now we have so many places to choose from. If you want a hometown dive, head to Ruski\u2019s\u2013oh wait! They opened in 1987. A younger scene? Walk along Wharf Street and you\u2019ll find 20-somethings with their game faces on at Bonfire, Oasis, Foreplay\u2026<\/p>\n

Cocktails\u2013Hunt+Alpine, Sur Lie. Craft Beer? Check out the breweries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our options are becoming endless, and we\u2019re told it\u2019s great for business, but I wonder if there\u2019s something we\u2019ve lost that many of us never knew we had. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 2015
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