{"id":8627,"date":"2013-08-23T10:53:07","date_gmt":"2013-08-23T14:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=8627"},"modified":"2013-08-23T10:53:19","modified_gmt":"2013-08-23T14:53:19","slug":"near-east-downeast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/near-east-downeast\/","title":{"rendered":"Near East, Downeast"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 2013 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Time was, Maine nightclubbers would walk a mile for a camel\u2026because Middle Eastern decor was all the rage.<\/h3>\n

By Colin W. Sargent<\/p>\n

\"near_east_big\"<\/a>To visit the swankiest nightclub in Maine, you have to pass through a set of red doors.<\/p>\n

The Morocco Lounge was a dine-and-dance attraction in the Wadsworth Hotel on 30 Preble Street. Built in 1924, the building still stands today and is known as Wadsworth Apartments, but the Morocco Lounge is long gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandfather owned the hotel,\u201d says Dr. Kerry Citrin. \u201cMy father, Murray Citrin, was manager.\u201d From the late 1930s until the early 1950s, Murray \u201cran the nightclub and tended bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cocktails included the Magic Carpet, the Turban Lifter, and Sultan\u2019s Favorite. Anyone out there know the recipes?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother, Elinor Citrin, was the hat-check girl!\u201d says Kerry\u2019s sister Nancy Citrin Rosenberg (Deering High School, 1965) from her home in St. Petersburg, Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a happening place. We had some big names in its heyday,\u201d including the Sid Lerman Orchestra. Other nights, Murray tickled the ivories. \u201cHe could really play. Believe it or not, I have the piano still! It\u2019s dark mahogany, a Kimball from Chicago. My dad was the arranger and conductor for a good deal of the music. It\u2019s beautiful. Listen!\u201d<\/p>\n

Nancy walks down two flights of stairs and there\u2019s a pause. Then she strikes a ghostly chord that puts chills down your spine when you think of what the Morocco Lounge used to be. She\u2019s spot-on. The sound is as good as any transporter or time machine.<\/p>\n

Murray died in 1992, at age 74. Elinor died on April 14th of this year, at 95. \u201cHow she loved the Morocco,\u201d Nancy says. The memory keepers are gone, but the story lives on.<\/p>\n

Featuring \u201cdancing every evening,\u201d the supper club was \u201cdivided into the main lounge and the club section on a mezzanine,\u201d according to advertisements from the late 1940s.<\/p>\n

At just 22 in 1940, \u201cMy dad was The Man,\u201d Kerry says of Murray, \u201cbut my Uncle Mike handled the decor and the promotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike was talented, designing everything from the Moorish frescoes in the Casablanca vein to the menus and souvenir matchbooks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Morocco was very romantic. The chairs were wooden with leather seats. When you entered through the red leather doors you\u2019d see my mother at the hat check, then the polished maple bar would be straight ahead. To the left was more seating and the decor of what an idealized Morocco looked like. There was a dance floor, with the band up on a box.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had magicians and exotic dancers, women who danced with snakes. The talent agency my father used for big bands was out of Boston, Sam Rudiberg.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, the Morocco \u201cwas it<\/em>, a huge attraction for sailors during World War II\u2013you could count on maybe 100 when a new ship was in port.\u201d Visible as a series of long, dark silhouettes in Long Island Sound, \u201cthe North Atlantic Fleet was up here!<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople would dance, see the floor show, and drink. Rudy Vallee stopped by, with friends,\u201d Kerry says, \u201cbut he didn\u2019t sing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Old Blue Eyes walked in.<\/p>\n

Frankie Boy\u2026singing in the Morocco Lounge in Portland?
\nGet out of town!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFrank Sinatra was better known as the new kid with the Tommy Dorsey Band back then,\u201d Kerry says. \u201cHe\u2019d just started with them, and one night, after a playing at Old Orchard Beach Pier, he came to the Morocco. It was way before he became famous. My father heard he was there and introduced him on the microphone, and Frank just got up and did an impromptu. He sang some songs.\u201d What songs? \u201cNight and Day?\u201d \u201cUnder My Skin?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows?\u201d Kerry says. There\u2019s a devilish pause. \u201cI guess he did pretty well for himself after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 story checks out. On a thread on sinatrafamily.com, Sinatra\u2019s swing through New England is documented with the Dorseys in late August through early September: \u201c[He was in] Salem, New Hampshire, for a one-nighter with the Dorsey band on August 30, 1940. (On subsequent nights, they performed in Lynnfield, Mass.; Old Orchard Beach, Maine; and Neponset, Mass.),\u201d writes George Lyons of Malden, Massachusetts. \u201cMy Auntie Florence, 16 at the time, got her FS autograph at the 1940 Neponset gig.\u201d Lyons, a Sinatra impersonator, has kindly provided an image to show how the future Chairman of the Board used to sign his name back then.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne night,\u201d Kerry says, \u201csome sailors came in and they said they\u2019d sunk a German U-boat ten miles off the harbor. Everybody in Portland had heard the booms and explosions in the distance earlier that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seems the Morocco Lounge had a knack for being in the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n

In the lounge\u2019s twilight, \u201cI was seven, so I remember the magic feeling of walking into the club,\u201d Kerry said. \u201cMy sister was three years younger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember it was dark inside,\u201d Nancy says. \u201cI remember there was a stage where the acts used to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandfather sold the hotel in 1955,\u201d Kerry says.<\/p>\n

When we went in search of vestiges of the old Morocco Lounge, we found, after a walk through a dark basement below Down-Home Cookin\u2019 and a climb through a lost set of stairs, the original red leather doors with brass upholstery tacks spelling out \u201cM\u201d and \u201cL.\u201d They are so vivid you can nearly hear the music. The original nightclubbers would have had to have taken a left from the main lobby to reach this point, which can only be gained via the basement today. The red doors are forever locked away behind a skeleton staircase.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I have some of the tables and chairs in the basement of my house in Cape Elizabeth,\u201d says Keith Citrine, a cousin to Kerry and Nancy. \u201cThe tables have heavy metal bases. I also have some of the shot glasses, photos, and a sheaf of promo-
\ntional materials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which isn\u2019t surprising, as Keith makes his living as an event planner today.<\/p>\n

“My father was Nate Gold, of Nate Gold and His Commanders,\u201d says Scarborough\u2019s Bob Gold, who would rise from working at the Graymore Hotel across the street as a ma\u00eetre d\u2019 to one day becoming the owner of WPOR radio. \u201cNate and his band performed regularly at the Morocco Lounge for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cNate was born in Minsk, Russia, in 1912. He played trumpet\u2013extremely good\u2013I think of Harry James and Louis Armstrong. It was a combo; the drummer Bill Conley\u2019s day job was at the U.S. Postal Service. He lived up in Munjoy Hill. My father lived in Deering.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Morocco Lounge was so evocative \u201ceven the teapots\u201d carried the North African motif.<\/p>\n

The competing Graymore Hotel had a nightclub, too, \u201cbut it was more modern. The Morocco was leaning into the French Morocco\u201d sense of things. \u201cIt was intimate,\u201d Gold says.<\/p>\n

If it was so great, then why did it die?<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter World War II, something happened to Portland,\u201d Kerry says. \u201cThere were no more sailors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moor, Moor, Moor\u2013how do you like it, how do you like it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At 609 Congress Street in Portland, the interior of the State Theatre swept moviegoers away with its fanciful Moorish interior, vaulted tiled ceilings, and decorative painting. Visitors in 1929 felt as though they\u2019d walked into The Arabian Nights<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Much of this decor is still in place, though many patrons don\u2019t catch the feeling full force. \u201cI see it now,\u201d a State Theatre regular\u00a0 exclaims upon seeing our photo in this story. \u201cUsually when I\u2019m at the State, I\u2019m just thinking about the show, getting a beer, or going to the bathroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dine like an Egyptian<\/strong><\/p>\n

Up on Congress Square, the Egyptian Room, 1927, adorned the Eastland Hotel. Chief among the amusements were the spectacular wall panels [to suggest stone carvings] of King Pepi II and Queen Sebek.<\/p>\n

Frederic L. Thompson, in The Rines Family Legacy <\/em>(Acadia Publishing, 2005), cites a page from the Egyptian Room\u2019s 1936 menu, which claims that \u201cThis [Egyptian] dining room is believed to be the first, if not the only public dining room of its type in America.\u201d Thompson ventures, \u201cThe motif was an attempt to capture the excitement of the recent archeological discoveries in Egypt and to forget the horrors and sadness of the First World War.\u201d<\/p>\n

The blogger who styles himself \u201cDr. Sphinx\u201d and insists \u201cEgyptomania is a cure for boredom\u201d considers \u201ctea at the Egyptian Court\u201d at the Eastland to be the apotheosis of retro-cool. Looking for something more substantial? According to faded Eastland menus, in 1927 you could order a Lobster Newburg en Casserole for $2.25 in the Egyptian Dining Room. (No doubt, the Egyptian Room at the Eastland was the inspiration for the New Egyptian Room at the Ferris Arms Motel on 44 College Ave. in Waterville, with \u201ccocktails\u2013dancing nitely 9 to 12.\u201d This oasis reached a peak between 1963 and 1973 and featured a United Nations Buffet in the Banquet Room.)<\/p>\n

What it all means<\/strong><\/p>\n

In these enlightened times, if the idea of exoticizing the Near East makes us culturally uncomfortable, how do we account for the Tiki torches smoldering from patios all over Maine today, suggesting Polynesia?<\/p>\n

Sometimes fun is just fun. If there\u2019s anything deeper about the phenomenon, Douglas C. Towne excavates it in his wonderful essay, \u201cA Retro Magic Carpet Ride,\u201d in SCA Journal <\/em>(Spring 2009), in which he mentions Maine\u2019s largest city first as an exemplar of Arabian kitsch:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor most of the 20th century, the Near East captivated Americans, its influence extending coast-to-coast. Countless owners of motels, restaurants, and nightclubs bet their economic futures that naming their business after elements of this region would bring success. Namesakes included place names (Morocco Lounge in Portland, Maine), monuments (Luxor Motel in Danville, Illinois), historical figures (Cleopatra Lounge in Omaha, Nebraska), literary figures (Ali Baba Club in Oakland, California), and natural features (Sands Motel in Vaughn, New Mexico).\u201d<\/p>\n

Exactly when did the mysticism sweep us up? Towne traces the fascination to 1855, when \u201cthe USS Supply<\/em> sailed to the Mediterranean in search of camels\u201d\u2026for experimental use in the Southwest desert by the U.S. Army. Thirty-three were brought here, Towne reports. The project was abandoned, but the camels went wild and thrived as their legend grew: \u201cThe last camel was reportedly captured in Arizona in 1946, though some were seen in Mexico as late as 1956.\u201d (Maybe we should take another look at the Desert of Maine in Freeport.)<\/p>\n

Will the real Little Egypt please keep gyrating<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then, too, America fell in love with Egypt during the famous 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, according to Towne. \u201cThe most renowned tale\u2026was that of the dancer, \u2018Little Egypt,\u2019 who is alleged to have made her debut at the 1893 Exposition. To capitalize on the success of the attraction \u2018A Street in Cairo,\u2019 after the Exposition closed, a number of dancers, all calling themselves \u2018Little Egypt,\u2019 toured the country, performing in burlesque halls to scandalous acclaim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Pyramid<\/strong><\/p>\n

Araby was so chic \u2018up this way\u2019 that famous Maine novelist Kate Douglas Wiggin (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm<\/em>) responded to market pressures and redirected her energies to edit a new version of The Arabian Nights<\/em>, with gorgeous illustrations by Maxfield Parrish.<\/p>\n

But the cultural event that sealed the deal was the return after World War II of U.S. troops who had served in the North Africa Campaign, Towne says.<\/p>\n

Today, while Portland has a hookah club (the Purple Caterpillar on Exchange Street) and sells hookahs at Ebenezer African Grocery on Congress, the phenomenon is on the wane. We follow other stars now. \u201cPerhaps because our relationship with the culture is more problematic, influenced by the region\u2019s political issues and 9\/11,\u201d Towne claims.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Near East reverberations still direct our unconscious decisions. We have The Beans of Egypt, Maine<\/em>, Rick\u2019s Caf\u00e9 in Naples, the Sahara Club (an oasis of sobriety on Washington Avenue), and\u2026 hey, the Maine College of Art isn\u2019t called MECA for nothing!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 2013
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