The chimney sweep dance in “Mary Poppins,” led by Dick van Dyk’s likeable all-rounder Burt, is reminiscent of typical blackface motifs, claims a scientist.

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies at Linfield College in Oregon, explained in a New York Times article that the sequence in PL Travers' book meant “race panic.”

Pollack-Pelzner simply refers to the scene as “blacking up,” and while this may seem harmless, it has other, more disturbing connotations.

“This might seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers' novels did not associate the chimney sweeps' blackened faces with racist caricatures,” he writes.

“'Don't touch me, you black heathen,' cries a maid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943), as a house broom extends its dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: 'If that Hottentot goes into the fireplace, I'm going out the door,' she says, using an archaic insult for black South Africans that recurs in book and screen.

“The 1964 film re-enacts this racial panic in absurd fashion. As the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step onto a roof in time, a naval buffoon, Admiral Boom, shouts 'We are being attacked by Hottentots!' and orders his cannon to be fired at the 'insolent devils.'”

“We're in on the joke for what it is: these aren't real black Africans, but grinning white dancers with blackened faces. It's a parody of the black threat; it was even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film's racial hierarchy. And it's not just fools like the Admiral who use this language. In the 1952 novel Mary Poppins in the Park, the nanny herself says to an exasperated young Michael, 'I understand you're acting like a Hottentot.'”

Pollack-Pelzner also pointed to other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers' Poppins books, which in one case even led to her books being banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins, Jane and Michael Banks are abducted to a South Sea island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase “pickaninny” and speaks in a racially charged South American dialect.

However, she later said that this was “not an apology for anything I have written, the reason is much simpler: I don't want to see Mary Poppins hidden in a closet.”

Disney has not yet commented on the matter.

But in an online post after the Times article was published, Pollack-Pelzner explained: “The main reason I wrote this article was in the hope that a Disney executive would read it, take another look at the upcoming Dumbo remake and ask if there was anything in it that was even the slightest bit racist that he should perhaps reconsider before it goes on the screen.”

“After writing this article and receiving tons of hate mail in response, I learned one thing about the alt-right: Mary Poppins definitely suits them very well!”

Read more
Duncan Jones criticizes David Bowie film
Russell Crowe transforms into Roger Ailes
Zombieland 2 first poster

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims educational appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Mary Poppins (Source: Disney)

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk's affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, is reminiscent of blackface themes, one academic has claimed.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies at Linfield College in Oregon, said that the sequence in PL Travers' book means “racial panic.”

Pollack-Pelzner simply calls the scene “blackout,” and while it may seem harmless, it has other, more disturbing connotations.

“This might seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers' novels did not associate the blackened faces of chimney sweeps with racist caricatures,” he writes.

“'Don't touch me, you black heathen,' screams a maid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943) as a sweep extends his dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: “If that Hottentot goes down the chimney, I'm going out the door,” she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that appears repeatedly on page and screen occurs.

“The 1964 film recreates this racial panic in a bizarre tone. When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps appear in time on a roof, Admiral Boom, a naval fool, shouts: “We are being attacked by Hottentots!” and orders his cannon to be fired at the “insolent devils”.

“We’re in on the joke such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; They are grinning white dancers in blackface. It's a parody of The Black Menace; It is even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film's racial hierarchy. And it's not just fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel “Mary Poppins in the Park,” the nanny herself says to the upset young Michael, “I understand that you are behaving like a Hottentot.”

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed out other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers' Poppins books, in one case her books were actually banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins, Jane, and Michael Banks are transported to a South Seas island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase “pickaninny” and speaks in a racially charged South American dialect.

The story goes on

However, she later said she “didn't do this as an apology for anything I've written, the reason is much simpler: I don't want to see Mary Poppins hidden in a closet.”

Disney has not yet commented on the matter.

However, after the Times article was published, Pollack-Pelzner posted online: “The main reason I wrote this article was in the hope that a Disney executive would read it, take another look at the upcoming Dumbo remake and ask “If it was there.” If it was all a bit racist, maybe they should think again before it hits the big screen.

“One thing I learned about the alt-right after writing this article and receiving countless hate messages in response: They really like Mary Poppins!”

Read more
Duncan Jones hits David Bowie film
Russell Crowe turns into Roger Ailes
First poster for Zombieland 2

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims tutorial appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk's affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, is reminiscent of blackface themes, one academic has claimed.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies at Linfield College in Oregon, said that the sequence in PL Travers' book means “racial panic.”

Pollack-Pelzner simply calls the scene “blackout,” and while it may seem harmless, it has other, more disturbing connotations.

“This might seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers' novels did not associate the blackened faces of chimney sweeps with racist caricatures,” he writes.

“'Don't touch me, you black heathen,' screams a maid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943) as a sweep extends his dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: “If that Hottentot goes down the chimney, I'm going out the door,” she says, using an archaic insult to black South Africans that appears repeatedly on page and screen occurs.

“The 1964 film recreates this racial panic in an absurd tone. As the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step onto a roof in rhythm, a naval idiot, Admiral Boom, shouts: “We are being attacked by Hottentots!” and orders his cannon to be fired at the “insolent devils”.

“We’re in on the joke such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; They are grinning white dancers in blackface. It's a parody of The Black Menace; It is even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film's racial hierarchy. And it's not just fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel “Mary Poppins in the Park,” the nanny herself says to the upset young Michael, “I understand that you are behaving like a Hottentot.”

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed out other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers' Poppins books, in one case her books were actually banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins, Jane, and Michael Banks are transported to a South Seas island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase “pickaninny” and speaks in a racially charged South American dialect.

However, she later said she “didn't do this as an apology for anything I've written, the reason is much simpler: I don't want to see Mary Poppins hidden in a closet.”

Disney has not yet commented on the matter.

However, after the Times article was published, Pollack-Pelzner posted online: “The main reason I wrote this article was in the hope that a Disney executive would read it, take another look at the upcoming Dumbo remake and ask “If it was there.” If it was all a bit racist, maybe they should think again before it hits the big screen.

“One thing I learned about the alt-right after writing this article and receiving countless hate messages in response: They really like Mary Poppins!”

Read more
Duncan Jones hits David Bowie film
Russell Crowe turns into Roger Ailes
First poster for Zombieland 2

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims tutorial appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Mary Poppins (Source: Disney)

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk's affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, is reminiscent of blackface themes, one academic has claimed.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies at Linfield College in Oregon, said that the sequence in PL Travers' book means “racial panic.”

Pollack-Pelzner simply calls the scene “blackout,” and while it may seem harmless, it has other, more disturbing connotations.

“This might seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers' novels did not associate the blackened faces of chimney sweeps with racist caricatures,” he writes.

“'Don't touch me, you black heathen,' screams a maid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943) as a sweep extends his dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: “If that Hottentot goes down the chimney, I'm going out the door,” she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that appears repeatedly on page and screen occurs.

“The 1964 film recreates this racial panic in a bizarre tone. When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps appear in time on a roof, Admiral Boom, a naval fool, shouts: “We are being attacked by Hottentots!” and orders his cannon to be fired at the “insolent devils”.

“We’re in on the joke such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; They are grinning white dancers in blackface. It's a parody of The Black Menace; It is even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film's racial hierarchy. And it's not just fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel “Mary Poppins in the Park,” the nanny herself says to the upset young Michael, “I understand that you are behaving like a Hottentot.”

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed out other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers' Poppins books, in one case her books were actually banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins, Jane, and Michael Banks are transported to a South Seas island, where the nanny uses the offensive term “pickaninny” and speaks in a racially charged South American dialect.

The story goes on

However, she later said she “didn't do this as an apology for anything I've written, the reason is much simpler: I don't want to see Mary Poppins hidden in a closet.”

Disney has not yet commented on the matter.

However, after the Times article was published, Pollack-Pelzner posted online: “The main reason I wrote this article was in the hope that a Disney executive would read it, take another look at the upcoming Dumbo remake and ask “If it was there.” If it was all a bit racist, maybe they should think again before it hits the big screen.

“One thing I learned about the alt-right after writing this article and receiving countless hate messages in response: They really like Mary Poppins!”

Read more
Duncan Jones hits David Bowie film
Russell Crowe turns into Roger Ailes
First poster for Zombieland 2

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims educational appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Mary Poppins (Source: Disney)

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk's affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, is reminiscent of blackface themes, one academic has claimed.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies at Linfield College in Oregon, said that the sequence in PL Travers' book means “racial panic.”

Pollack-Pelzner simply calls the scene “blackout,” and while it may seem harmless, it has other, more disturbing connotations.

“This might seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers' novels did not associate the blackened faces of chimney sweeps with racist caricatures,” he writes.

“'Don't touch me, you black heathen,' screams a maid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943) as a sweep extends his dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: “If that Hottentot goes down the chimney, I'm going out the door,” she says, using an archaic insult to black South Africans that appears repeatedly on page and screen occurs.

“The 1964 film recreates this racial panic in a bizarre tone. When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps appear in time on a roof, Admiral Boom, a naval fool, shouts: “We are being attacked by Hottentots!” and orders his cannon to be fired at the “insolent devils”.

“We’re in on the joke such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; They are grinning white dancers in blackface. It's a parody of The Black Menace; It is even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film's racial hierarchy. And it's not just fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel “Mary Poppins in the Park,” the nanny herself says to the upset young Michael, “I understand that you are behaving like a Hottentot.”

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed out other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers' Poppins books, in one case her books were actually banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins, Jane, and Michael Banks are transported to a South Seas island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase “pickaninny” and speaks in a racially charged South American dialect.

The story goes on

However, she later said she “didn't do this as an apology for anything I've written, the reason is much simpler: I don't want to see Mary Poppins hidden in a closet.”

Disney has not yet commented on the matter.

But after publishing the article in the Times, Pollack-Pelzner posted online: “The main reason I wrote this article was in the hope that a Disney executive would read it, watch the upcoming Dumbo remake again, and would ask if it was there.” If it was all a bit racist, maybe they should think again before it hits the big screen.

“One thing I learned about the alt-right after writing this article and receiving countless hate messages in response: They really like Mary Poppins!”

Read more
Duncan Jones hits David Bowie film
Russell Crowe turns into Roger Ailes
First poster for Zombieland 2

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims tutorial appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Mary Poppins (Image: Disney)

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk’s affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, goes back to “blackface” tropes, claims an academic.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, Professor of English and Professor of Gender Studies at Linfield College, Oregon, said the sequence in PL Travers’ book means “Racial Panic”.

Pollack-Pelzner flatly calls the scene ‘blacking-up’, and while it may seem harmless, it has other more disturbing connotations.

“This could seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers’ novels didn’t associate the blackened faces of the chimney sweeps with racist caricature,” he writes.

“’Don’t touch me, you black pagan,’ yells a housemaid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943) when a wave extends his dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: “If this Hottentot goes into the chimney, I’ll go out the door,” she says with an archaic bow for black South Africans that keeps coming back on the page and screen.

“The 1964 film repeats that racial panic in a comical tone. As the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step on a roof in time, a sailor’s car, Admiral Boom, shouts, ‘We are being attacked by the Hottentots!’ and orders his cannon to be fired at the ‘cheeky devils’.

“We’re kidding the way it is: They’re not really black Africans; they are grinning white dancers with black faces. It’s a parody of the black menace; it is even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film’s racial hierarchy. And it’s not just fools like the admiral who refer to this language. In the novel Mary Poppins in the Park, published in 1952, the nanny herself said to an angry young Michael: ‘I understand that you are acting like a Hottentot.’ “

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed to other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers’ Poppins books, where her books were actually banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

The story goes on

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book in which Poppins and Jane and Michael Banks were transported to a South Sea island where the nanny used the offensive term “Pickaninny” and spoke in a racially charged South American dialect.

However, she later said that she “did not do this as an apology for everything I wrote, the reason is much simpler: I do not want Mary Poppins to be hidden in a closet”.

Disney has not yet commented on this.

However, Pollack-Pelzner posted online after the article was published in The Times: “The main reason I wrote this article was to hope that a Disney manager would read it, re-see the upcoming Dumbo remake, and ask if it’s there was all just a little bit racist that you might want to reconsider before it hits the big screen.

“After writing this article and receiving tons of hateful messages in response, I learned one thing about the alt-right: They like Mary Poppins!”

Continue reading
Duncan Jones meets at David Bowie Film
Russell Crowe transforms into Roger Ailes
Zombieland 2 first poster

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims educational appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Mary Poppins (Image: Disney)

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk’s affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, goes back to “blackface” tropes, claims an academic.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, Professor of English and Professor of Gender Studies at Linfield College, Oregon, said the sequence in PL Travers’ book means “Racial Panic.”

Pollack-Pelzner flatly calls the scene ‘blacking-up’, and while it may seem harmless, it has other more disturbing connotations.

“This could seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers’ novels didn’t associate the blackened faces of the chimney sweeps with racist caricature,” he writes.

“’Don’t touch me, you black pagan,’ yells a housemaid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943) when a wave extends his dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: “If this Hottentot goes into the chimney, I’ll go out the door,” she says with an archaic bow for black South Africans that keeps coming back on the page and screen.

“The 1964 film repeats this racial panic in a farce. As the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step on a roof in time, a sailor’s car, Admiral Boom, shouts, ‘We are being attacked by the Hottentots!’ and orders his cannon to be fired at the ‘cheeky devils’.

“We’re joking as it is: They’re not really black Africans; they are grinning white dancers with black faces. It’s a parody of the black menace; it is even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film’s racial hierarchy. And it’s not just fools like the admiral who refer to this language. In the novel Mary Poppins in the Park, published in 1952, the nanny herself said to an angry young Michael: ‘I understand that you are acting like a Hottentot.’ “

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed to other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers’ Poppins books, where her books were actually banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

The story goes on

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book in which Poppins and Jane and Michael Banks were transported to a South Sea island where the nanny used the offensive term “Pickaninny” and spoke in a racially charged South American dialect.

However, she later said that she “did not do this as an excuse for everything I wrote, the reason is much simpler: I do not want Mary Poppins to be hidden in a closet”.

Disney has not yet commented on this.

However, Pollack-Pelzner posted online after the article was published in The Times: “The main reason I wrote this article was to hope that a Disney manager would read it, revisit the upcoming Dumbo remake, and ask whether it’s there was all just a little bit racist that you might want to reconsider before it hits the big screen.

“After writing this article and receiving tons of hate messages in response, I learned one thing about the alt-right: You like Mary Poppins!”

Continue reading
Duncan Jones meets at David Bowie Film
Russell Crowe transforms into Roger Ailes
Zombieland 2 first poster

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims tutorial appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Arna Kimiai, who refused to wear a mask, appears to be reaching for the mask of driver Subhakar Khadka while driving in San Francisco and allegedly deliberately coughing at him

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THREE WOMEN IN UBER COUGHES OVER THE DRIVER AND STOLE HIS MASK IN THE SHOCKING CLIP

A woman accused of coughing up an Uber driver without wearing a mask was charged with assault following the alleged attack.

Arna Kimiai seems to have grabbed the mask of the driver Subhakar Khadka and is said to have coughed on him while driving in San Francisco, USA.

She is accused of yelling and laughing during the alleged attack, as it is said in the United States.

The shocking clip – which also appears to show her trying to grab the driver’s phone – went viral last week.

Kimiai has since been charged with attempted robbery and once assaulting a transport driver.

In addition, she faces a transport driver’s battery charge and a Covid health protocol violation.

Arna Kimiai faces multiple charges after the incident in San Francisco
(

Picture:

KPIXtv / Twitter)

See a doctor for headache or bruising after Covid vaccination, regulator warns UK death toll rises by 95 as government admits vaccine supply problem

If convicted, she could face up to 16 years in prison and fined $ 3,000 (£ 2,150), the New York Post reports.

Mr Khadka, 32, believes the passengers molested him because he is a South Asian immigrant.

He told CBS, “I never said bad things to you, I never swore, I wasn’t raised that way. I don’t hit people, I wasn’t brought up that way, so they didn’t get out of my car. ”

When asked if he had a message for the women, the driver said, “Since you were born and raised here in the US, you don’t think the other person is any less human.”

According to US reports, Arna Kimiai faces up to 16 years in prison
(

Picture:

KPIX5 / CBS)

Kimiai was filmed grabbing the driver’s mask
(

Picture:

DionLim TV)

Boris Johnson says vaccines are safe and the “roadmap” for lockdown is still on the right track

The Mirror previously reported that the victim claimed their behavior occurred after refusing to be their driver because they weren’t wearing masks when he picked them up in San Francisco on Sunday.

There was almost a beating when he took his cell phone out of the hand of one of the women.

He claims that after the stubborn passengers finally got off, the woman, dressed in red pepper spray, drove into his car through a crack in the window.

The spat escalated when one of the women was accused of saying “f *** the masks” after demanding that they wear face coverings.

The video seems to show her then coughing at him, causing one of her pals to burst into laughter and make fake spitting noises.

A third passenger does not appear to be participating as she sits between the two.

An Uber spokesperson told KPIX 5, “The behavior seen in the video is terrifying. The passenger no longer has access to Uber. “

The post Lady accused of coughing on Uber driver throughout ‘racist assault’ charged with assault appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

For a while, the most exciting evening in San Francisco was a human chicken coop.

To get there, you had to drive to the edge of town, where the Pacific crashed against the banks of a huge amusement park. Near the screaming roller coaster, below the Cliff House, a giant neon rooster waved.

The exterior of Topsy’s Roost on the Great Highway in San Francisco, circa 1930.

OpenSFHistory / wnp66.041.jpg

Under the “Topsy’s Roost” sign were 11 larger-than-life chickens, neat and white, all in a row. Fifty cents half-fried chickens! To dance! proclaimed the sentences painted on the outside. Once inside, first-time guests must have caught their breath in the surreal scene in front of them.

Topsy’s Roost was an arena-sized wooden barn with rafters overflowing with “coops”. On a busy Saturday – they regularly served 900 people a night on the weekend, even during the Great Depression – the stalls were full of people, all of whom ate chicken, cookies and salad with their hands (no utensils allowed, house rules). After finishing their famous roast chicken, eager dancers skipped the stairs on the top floor: their stables were connected to the floor by a slide. Squeaky ladies slid onto the dance floor at regular intervals.

A postcard from the 1920s showing San Francisco’s Topsy’s Roost chicken restaurant. Postcards were sold in the restaurant and could even be given to the waiters to mail.

Public domain

Though it’s hard to see beyond the garish chickens and bright banners, Topsy’s wasn’t the quirky palace it appeared on colored postcards. His aesthetic – and his name – were shaped by the racism and slavery that were characteristic of the time.

Topsy’s Roost was the brainchild of the Whitney brothers George and Leo in the 1920s who made Playland at the Beach a national sensation. The name comes from a character from the novel “Onkel Toms Hütte” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The little black girl became her own kind of spin-off sensation, and white companies used her image and name on products they thought were “popular” or somehow resembled the Antebellum South.

The Whitneys did a lot of advertising, almost all of which featured minstrel cartoons of black girls. A car that drove through town, built like a basket and covered with chickens, also contained several depictions of black children with large, white-rimmed eyes, exaggerated mouths and bare feet. In Topsy’s, almost obscured by the spread of chickens, similar caricatures could be seen near the roof. The pictures were so popular that a 1930 chronicle profile of the illustrator said he was famous for drawing “the goofy little negroes in Topsy’s Roost ads.”

Playland at the Beach’s Leo Whitney drives his Topsy’s Roost car and promotes the restaurant-nightclub on the Great Highway in 1935.

OpenSFHistory / wnp37.02165.jpg

The racist issue was extended to the restaurant’s menu. The Whitneys also ran the Cliff House, a more toned type of night; They billed Topsy’s as a budget option for families in San Francisco. The food was “Mediterranean” – a synonym for cheap – and was made by “only the best colored chefs”. A 1940 menu shows that half a roast chicken was only 50 cents, a piece of “Mammy’s Apple Pie” was 15 cents and if for some reason you wanted a bowl of just chicken broth, you could get it for 15 cents.

In 1930 the Whitney brothers signed what was then known as “the largest chicken contract in history”: 163 tons of chicken to serve the restaurant for the next year. An ad in the Examiner with Topsy was titled: “BAD NEWS FOR CHICKENS!”

The concept of the Topsy was hugely popular for both its theme and its prices. The Whitneys opened new stores in East Bay (on San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito) and in Los Angeles on Long Beach Boulevard. It became known for its musical guests; Topsy’s had a regular radio hour with his house band over the weekend, and Duke Ellington even performed in LA. “Topsy’s is considered the largest and most unique company of its kind in the world,” said a 1930 advertisement.

Cheap and loud made for a strong combination. An expansion project in 1930 gave them the opportunity to “comfortably” serve 1,200 customers at the San Francisco location. When the ban ended in 1933, the Whitneys took a half-page ad in the examiner entitled “So what?” To reassure patrons about its alcohol policy.

“We were always against the 18th amendment,” said the ad. “… We never interfered in the personal rights of patrons who” brought their own “.”

Another shot of the exterior of Topsy’s Roost, seen in July 1934.

OpenSFHistory / wnp66.414.jpg

Perhaps their BYOB policy explains why there were so many classifieds in the 1920s and 1930s looking for items that had disappeared on Topsy’s. Among them were countless pins, watches and rings, a “dark blue envelope wallet” and “2 clarinets” that the owner would take back “without asking”.

However, by the late 1930s, Topsy’s time was already running out. Visitor numbers declined during World War II, tastes changed and George Whitney annoyed that the sleeping place was always moments before disaster.

“My father was always terrified of fire,” George K. Whitney Jr. said in a 2002 interview. He remembered Topsy’s opening night that a fire started in the deep fryer.

“The fire department came in and drove people around very quietly and so on. … and practically nobody knew that such an event had taken place on the opening night. But from that moment on, my father was always afraid of fire. … It was an old wooden structure, the whole building. “

A look at Topsy’s Roost in Playland at the Beach in 1937.

OpenSFHistory / wnp14.4313.jpg

Topsy has escaped a fiery ending, but in 1946 it was announced that the restaurant would be demolished. A $ 300,000 ($ 4 million, adjusted for inflation) theater-skating rink-bowling-lane restaurant called Edgewater was planned in its place, funded in part by radio star and future Kids Say the Darndest Things creator Art Linkletter .

When Edgewater opened in July 1946, it was the exact opposite of Topsy’s Roost. It hosted well-known acts like Tommy Dorsey, lured dancers with a “floating maple floor,” and had a “coke bar” (the drink, not the drug) for teenagers. “A really nice place to dance,” promised a 1946 advertisement.

But it seems that the Franciscans wanted strange and cheap, not elegant and noble. Edgewater closed within the decade, and the building went through a few more iterations before being completely demolished. Today it’s vacant lot on the neat row of condos overlooking the Great Highway.

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The post San Francisco’s rowdy and racist chicken-themed restaurant: Topsy’s Roost appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The family of the 84-year-old San Francisco man who was killed in a seemingly random attack believe the act was racist.

Vicha Ratanapakdee, a native of Thailand who, according to his family, emigrated to America to live with his daughter and son-in-law, died days after the attack on Thursday morning.

His daughter, Kim Ratanapakdee, told KTVU that her father was targeted because he was an elderly Asian man. She added that she has received racial harassment and verbal abuse since the pandemic began.

“To the [the suspect] from across the street, “said son-in-law Eric Lawson in an interview with KTVU,” what else could have motivated him? “

Two people were arrested in connection with the death on Saturday, Antoine Watson, 19, and Maylasia Goo, 20, who both live in Daly City. Watson was arrested on suspicion of murder and abuse of the elderly; Goo was arrested on suspicion of being an accessory.

In an alarming video, Watson is seen running across the street in San Francisco’s Anza Vista neighborhood and knocking Ratanapakdee to the ground. Watson then flees the scene.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said in a statement to the KTVU that his officer would “hold the person who committed this senseless violence accountable”.

“I would like to extend my deepest condolences to the Ratanapakdee family for their loss. This was a brutal, random, unprovoked attack,” he said in the statement. “My heart goes out to the entire AAPI community for the pain they have experienced as a result of this tragedy and too many others over the past year.”

The San Francisco Police Department and Boudin’s office did not immediately respond to requests from SFGATE for comment.

The Bay City News Service contributed to this report.

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