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OT - RIP Bag your own Whopper

No one's mentioned the "Big Pickle" yet. This was during the "you must order food with liquor" years, so 10 of us would go there, order one pizza and pitchers of beer.
You, apparently, missed the thrill of the drive to Howard Street. Ah, Marie's, heaven on earth. The only thing to eat was pickled eggs and maybe beef jerky. Oh, and salted beer nuts.
 
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You, apparently, missed the thrill of the drive to Howard Street. Ah, Marie's, heaven on earth. The only thing to eat was pickled eggs and maybe beef jerky. Oh, and salted beer nuts.
Yeah, not so much Howard Street for me. But I do remember watching the sun rise from the Howard Street el platform.
 
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I was in the NU apts. all four years undergrad, and was a "BK Lounge" regular. I'm not sure when you were there. Did they still throw open windows and do "the scream" during finals when you lived there?

I was only there for freshman year (80-81). The next year they transitioned to Kellogg housing.

Don't recall the primal scream there. Loved living there however.
 
I figured you were younger than me. By the time I came back for my MBA, I lived there again as a Kellogg student.

I don’t know when it started, but during finals week, it became a tradition to open a window toward the courtyard at midnight and take a break to scream at the top of your lungs for a few seconds. We thought it was hilarious, but I’m sure The Orrington didn’t see it that way.
 
You want to tell us about it?
I went with a bunch of friends to a disco on the north side called Sundance during disco’s heyday. As a music major, I wasn’t a fan of the music, but as a guy with a girlfriend who loved to dance, I was all in.

Back then, discos stayed open waaaaay late, and we would close the place. I remember watching the sun rise at the Howard el station, sleeping for an hour and a half back at my place, driving up to my job at Great America for a 10 hour shift, then playing a gig that night at a fraternity with my rock band. Man, were those fun days (and nights)!
 
I figured you were younger than me. By the time I came back for my MBA, I lived there again as a Kellogg student.

I don’t know when it started, but during finals week, it became a tradition to open a window toward the courtyard at midnight and take a break to scream at the top of your lungs for a few seconds. We thought it was hilarious, but I’m sure The Orrington didn’t see it that way.

Yup, we did that at the Plex, too. How could you not scream during finals week?
 
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No one's mentioned the "Big Pickle" yet. This was during the "you must order food with liquor" years, so 10 of us would go there, order one pizza and pitchers of beer.
Theta Delt special -- hot dog and a pitcher of beer. Though the best was when we had a fraternity monopoly on the cooks and waitresses at the Pickle. Small cheese pizza came out as the largest monstrosity they could make.
 
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Yes I did. But I do remember returning from a late-night Chicago gig and running into someone trying to break into a subway ticket booth!
My enduring member of the BK Lounge was eating a crispy chicken sandwich, and then nearly dying--or at least that is how it felt. I began urinating out of the other two improbable orifices, and spent a night in the clinic, at which point I thought I had Dengue fever, botulism, and giardia. I never went back.
 
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My enduring member of the BK Lounge was eating a crispy chicken sandwich, and then nearly dying--or at least that is how it felt. I began urinating out of the other two improbable orifices, and spent a night in the clinic, at which point I thought I had Dengue fever, botulism, and giardia. I never went back.
I had a similar experience from a burger at the late night deli on I believe Clark Street which was the only late night place to get food in my day. I started to feel really sick and I drove myself to Evanston Hospital, fell out of my car and proceeded to crawl across the parking lot like a sun parched soul lost in the desert reaching for the mirage I perceived to be an Oasis. They found me passed out with my arm reaching up on the glass door to the emergency room.
 
There used to be a greasy spoon on the corner (I think Sherman Street) where I would get breakfast before my class at Kellogg. I also ate many lunches at the Burger King. Sorry to see it go.
 
When I lived on Noyes I would walk down the street into all the lobbies of the apartment buildings collecting the 99 cent whopper coupons that were dropped off ($1.24 w/ cheese). Always had to have a stash - couldn’t have kept the weight on with them (pizza helped too!)

Sounds better than my "milk contract" with the frat house I lived in. Unlimited milk 24/7.
 
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Isn't Stub and Herb's kind of considered the iconic Gopher hangout?

My favorite is Sally's. Minnesotans complained that Sally, a cartoon gopher on their street sign, was dressed too risque with toes and cleavage showing, so they had to give her gym shoes and a sweater.

They've changed her again into a cowgirl gopher wearing boots. That's terrible. Bring back smoking Sally!

jmh9DJzk_400x400.jpeg



Sally used to be a hottie...http://www.twincitiesfun.com/images/est/002326/002326_logo.jpg
 
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My favorite is Sally's. Minnesotans complained that Sally, a cartoon gopher on their street sign, was dressed to risque with toes and cleavage showing, so they had to give her gym shoes and a sweater.

They've changed her again into a cowgirl gopher wearing boots. That's terrible. Bring back smoking Sally!

jmh9DJzk_400x400.jpeg



Sally used to be a hottie...http://www.twincitiesfun.com/images/est/002326/002326_logo.jpg
If you live in outstate, you might as well live in South Dakota. Just trying to be inclusive.
 
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Thinking back I'm actually surprised how little I went there considering I lived in NU Apartments freshman year.

We were too lazy at the Plex to walk a few blocks to BK.... ordered pizza delivery instead. Loved that thin crust, NY style, super greasy pizza at 1 am. One of my favorite college memories.
 
When I lived on Noyes I would walk down the street into all the lobbies of the apartment buildings collecting the 99 cent whopper coupons that were dropped off ($1.24 w/ cheese). Always had to have a stash - couldn’t have kept the weight on with them (pizza helped too!)

I used to live in one of those Noyes apartments - THATS where my coupons went!
 
We were too lazy at the Plex to walk a few blocks to BK.... ordered pizza delivery instead. Loved that thin crust, NY style, super greasy pizza at 1 am. One of my favorite college memories.
If only US News & World Report knew about the students behind their statistics..
 

It is amazing that something that unappealing operating for as long as it did, feeding unappealing food to unsuspecting college kids
Location, Location, location.....For LU kids IHOP was big and Deweys CHili parlor (8 stools) Clark and Devon. But I lost my fair share of spare change and some bodily fluids in the parking lot at BK. Good NU friend lived above a drug store if I remember correctly and a Chinese restaurant just down the block. Always hate to see landmarks go....where was the Evanston Historical Society on this one!
 
Before BK, a trip to Gulliver's was the go to food choice. Jerry always greeted us like he had never seen us before. Senior year Talbot's was the watering hole of choice with "caveat" from higher ups not to wear your letter jacket
 
And in somewhat unrelated news...
Demolition is now underway on Anchorage's historic Art Deco 4th Avenue Theatre. Anyone who watched the made in Alaska "Big Miracle" saving the whales movie will recognize it as the backdrop as Drew Barrymore's character stood on the steps of the Federal Courthouse. The filming even included interior scenes.

"A few blocks down the street, outside of the historic 4th Avenue Theatre, film crews set up and shot scenes while eager onlookers snapped photos with their smartphones. Fourth Avenue is just a block from the Westmark and offers many great Alaska souvenir shops, delicious restaurants and numerous savory food carts that serve Alaska favorites like reindeer sausage. And this isn’t too far from where, just a couple of years earlier, Alaskans flocked to see superstars like Drew Barrymore and John Krazinski film the family-friendly Big Miracle."


4th Avenue Theater sign on 4th Avenue in Anchorage, Alaska. Westmark Hotels



https://www.westmarkhotels.com/blog/about-alaska/hollywood-in-alaska/
 
With Burger King closed, do current Northwestern students have any 24-hour options within walking distance of campus?
 
I just clicked on the link to "Big Miracle" in the above quoted article. It takes you to the trailer for the movie. If you watch it you will see a clip from the scene that was filmed inside the historic 4th Avenue Theatre. It is where the governor shakes hands with a blue whale mascot. Pause the trailer and take a look at the impressive Art Deco furnishings. The ceiling was noted for having small lights replicating stars to include The Big Dipper of Alaska flag fame.

One of the things I recall that was unique to the 4th Avenue Theatre were its spaced out double seats in which you could snuggle up close to your date. The theatre itself has been closed for decades and efforts to save it as an historical treasure failed.

Like Evanston without Burger King, Anchorage without its 4th Avenue Theatre will never be the same.
 
And in somewhat unrelated news...
Demolition is now underway on Anchorage's historic Art Deco 4th Avenue Theatre. Anyone who watched the made in Alaska "Big Miracle" saving the whales movie will recognize it as the backdrop as Drew Barrymore's character stood on the steps of the Federal Courthouse. The filming even included interior scenes.

"A few blocks down the street, outside of the historic 4th Avenue Theatre, film crews set up and shot scenes while eager onlookers snapped photos with their smartphones. Fourth Avenue is just a block from the Westmark and offers many great Alaska souvenir shops, delicious restaurants and numerous savory food carts that serve Alaska favorites like reindeer sausage. And this isn’t too far from where, just a couple of years earlier, Alaskans flocked to see superstars like Drew Barrymore and John Krazinski film the family-friendly Big Miracle."


4th Avenue Theater sign on 4th Avenue in Anchorage, Alaska. Westmark Hotels



https://www.westmarkhotels.com/blog/about-alaska/hollywood-in-alaska/

Here are a series of photos capturing the iconic 4th Avenue Theatre building as it once was through the stages of ongoing demolition:

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Note in this below photo are pictured the (old) Federal Courthouse steps on which Drew Barrymore stood with this view of the 4th Avenue Theatre in the background in the period movie "Big Miracle" attempting to replicate Anchorage during the Reagan era when the Soviet's assistance in rescuing the whales trapped in Alaska's ice symbolized the thawing of The Cold War:

IMG_6099_(1).jpg
 
And this photo was from this morning:

IMG_6135_(2).jpg


FWIW the demolition of the 4th Avenue Theatre building has been ongoing now for several months as it is pecked apart by the single piece of heavy equipment.

In the background one sees a tall grey building. Reportedly that will be the first building to be taken down by explosives in the State of Alaska. (Almost the entire block is being rebuilt with a high rise office complex.)
 
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