Transcript of interview with Arne Rosencrantz by Claytee White, February 9, 2010

An Interview with Arne Rosencrantz An Oral History Conducted by Claytee D. White Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ? Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood University of Nevada Las Vegas Libraries 2010 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries, Director: Claytee D. White Project Creators: Patrick Jackson and Dr. Deborah Boehm Transcriber and Editor: Laurie Boetcher Editor and Production Manager: Barbara Tabach Interviewers: Suzanne Becker, Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White ii Recorded interviews, transcripts, bound copies and a website comprising the Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood Oral History Project have been made possible through a grant from the City of Las Vegas Centennial Committee. Special Collections in Lied Library, home of the Oral History Research Center, provided a wide variety of administrative services, support and archival expertise. We are so grateful. This project was the brainchild of Deborah Boehm, Ph.D. and Patrick Jackson who taught at UNLV and resided in the John S. Park Neighborhood. As they walked their community, they realized it was a special place that intersected themes of gender, class, race/ethnicity, religion, sexuality and gentrification. Patrick and Deborah learned that John S. Park had been listed on the National Registry of Historic Places and that original homeowners, local politicians, members of the gay community, Latino immigrants, artists and gallery owners and an enclave of UNLV staff all lived in the neighborhood. Therefore, they decided that the history of this special place had to be preserved, joined with the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries and wrote a grant that was funded by the Centennial Committee. The transcripts received minimal editing that included the elimination of fragments, false starts and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the narrative. These interviews have been catalogued and can be found as non-circulating documents in Special Collections at UNLV's Lied Library. Deborah A. Boehm, Ph.D. Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholar 2009-2010 Assistant Professor, Anthropology & Women's Studies Patrick Jackson, Professor John S. Park Oral History Project Manager Claytee D. White, Director Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries iii Interview with Arne Rosencrantz February 9, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee White Table of Contents Introduction: Father George Rosencrantz was a professional violinist through the Great Depression and into the 1940s, then owned a small business in Portland. Met and married his wife Betty, then moved to Longview, WA, where Arne and his older sister Rhoda were born. Moved back to Portland when Arne was two years old, then to Las Vegas when Arne was four. Father opened Hollywood Furniture (ca. 1953) and played in the Sahara Hotel and Casino orchestra. 1 Memories of entertainers Arne saw at the Sahara. Entertainment in Las Vegas in the 1950s. 2 Lived on Beverly Way in John S. Park Neighborhood (1954-70). Attended Fifth Street School and John S. Park Elementary School. Grew up with many children in the community. Very interested in sports: Joe W. Brown, Leo Kirkendall, and their sponsorship of youth sports in Las Vegas. Children's activities yesterday and today. 3 Memories of families and friends who lived in the John S. Park Neighborhood. Connection between John S. Park residents and the Las Vegas Strip. 5 Father's history of furniture store ownership in Las Vegas and Henderson, NV. Began working with father at Garrett's Furniture (1969). Various locations of Garrett's Furniture through the years. 9 Retired from Garrett's Furniture (2001). Got a real estate license and worked for R.L. Moore and Associates. Now retired again. 10 John S. Park Elementary School as a focus for community activities. Religious influences in the community: Mormons, Catholics, and Jews. Closure of the LDS chapel in the John S. Park Neighborhood. Memories of principal and teachers at John S. Park Elementary School. 11 Memories of the John S. Park Neighborhood in the 1950s: large lots, small houses, no fences, friendly community. Memories of local businessman Art Lurie and his influence on local youngsters. 14 Neighborhood and downtown businesses patronized by the John S. Park community: groceries, drug stores, clothing stores, drive-ins, restaurants. 15 Attended John C. Fremont Middle School and Las Vegas High School (graduated 1965). 17 Why many politicians and community leaders came out of the John S. Park Neighborhood: not many schools in Las Vegas in the 1950s, John S. Park was a very good area, parents were interested in the education of their children. 17 Description of childhood home on Beverly Way: 1500-1600 square feet, three bedrooms, two baths, kitchenette and small dining room, lathe-and-plaster walls, nice-sized back yard, good location. Parents added a pool. 18 Memories of Helldorado in the 1950s. 19 iv Childhood in 1950s Las Vegas: hunting for rabbits and lizards in the nearby desert. City did not expand much into suburbs until the 1970s. Has visited the John S. Park Neighborhood in last few years. Changes are selective: his childhood home has changed, but some houses in the community look fine. People who still live in the neighborhood. 20 What the John S. Park Neighborhood meant to him: character-building. Background in family life, education, and civic engagement. 21 Entertainment: the Sahara Hotel and Casino and movie theaters in the 1950s. 21 Race relations in Las Vegas in the 1950s and 1960s: racial segregation. Influence of local businessman Lloyd Katz in the fight for racial integration. Remembers Hispanic and Asian children at John S. Park Elementary School, and African- Americans at Las Vegas High School. Recalls Watts riots and activation of his National Guard unit here in Las Vegas. Remembers marches on the Strip in the 1970s. 22 Attended Santa Monica City College (CA) in the 1970s, then returned to Las Vegas to attend NSU. 23 Conclusion: names of people to interview for Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood. 24 V Preface Arne Rosencrantz remembers living on Beverly Way from 1954 to 1970. Like so many others from that era, he attended Fifth Street School, John S. Park Elementary School, John C. Fremont Middle School and graduated from Las Vegas High School. As a Jew, he was in a small minority, but fondly recalls growing up in the dense Mormon population of John S. Park Neighborhood. As a youngster, life in Las Vegas was filled with fun. The desert provided opportunity to hunt lizards and rabbits. Kids walked to school without concern. They played ball and found the Strip casinos welcoming to locals. He tells how the social issue of segregation of the 1960s did not affect him personally, but how local movie theatre owner Lloyd Katz fought to make his Huntridge and Fremont theatres integrated. He also reminisces about his father opening Hollywood Furniture and later Garrett's Furniture, which Arne operated until retiring in 2001. During the interview, he lists other furniture companies and the strong assortment of other retailers and restaurants that served the neighborhood. vi Interview with Arne Rosencrantz February 9, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee White This is Claytee White. It is February 9th, 2010, and I am in the home of Arne Rosencrantz. I'm interviewing him this morning in his home in the Summerlin area of the city. So how are you today? I'm fine, thank you, Claytee. Great. I want you to tell me a little about your childhood, where you grew up, your parents, what they did for a living. I was born in Longview, Washington, a small town about eighty miles north of Portland, Oregon. Don't have very much memory of that. I moved to Portland, Oregon when I was two years old and left there when I was four. My early memory is of a really indistinct Portland, although I think I have a lot of memories of it because it was our summer vacation every year. We moved to Las Vegas when I was four, and we drove from Las Vegas to Portland every summer, and we spent a lot of time there; so my memories are probably past my first four years. But I have great memories of Las Vegas and growing up here. Where did you move [to] when you first moved to Las Vegas? We moved to the west Charleston [Boulevard] area, and I think we were in a rented home for about a year. My father [George Rosencrantz] was a professional musician (he was a violinist), and as he got a little older, work became harder to get (as his hair got gray). He played through the [Great] Depression into about the Forties. But as he was getting older, he wasn't working the same as he did earlier. So he decided he'd go back to Portland and 2 start a little business. He did that and that's where he met my mother [Betty Rosencrantz], They got married and moved to Longview because that was sort of an up-and- coming town and there were more opportunities there. He lived there probably about six years. My older sister [Rhoda Rosencrantz Sherman] was born there. She lives in Los Angeles [California] now. She spent four or five years there; she's four years older than I am. And I spent the two years in Longview. We moved to Las Vegas when I was four, and he opened a furniture store [Hollywood Furniture] here. Along with that, he played at the Sahara Hotel [and Casino] in the orchestra. Whenever they had a singer and they needed a violinist, they used my father, which he enjoyed very much. He did it for several years. My sister and I and my mother enjoyed it too because we got to see all the entertainers who were there during those years. Who are some of the people that you remember seeing? Oh, Donald O'Connor. Victor Borge. I think he played with him. I'll have to think about the people who played the Sahara. We saw shows all over. In those days, Las Vegas was a place where you could go and be entertained very inexpensively in the Fifties. A lot of the shows were free, or [you purchased] just a Coke or a drink. A very interesting time. Certainly different than today. And children could go in the showrooms with no problem. No problems. None that I can remember. Of course they never took me anywhere that I probably shouldn't have been, but no, there were no problems. We went to a lot of shows. Dinner shows, where they served dinner and then you got to see an act. It was very good. It was a very nice way to live. 3 Where did you go to school? When I lived in west Charleston, I think I was five that year, and I went to Fifth Street School, which is now gone, except I think it's a museum. I was there for my kindergarten year. Don't have too many memories of the school. I do remember being in the school but I don't remember individual things that happened. But it was nice. And I remember I had to take the bus there. It was about a half-hour drive or a twenty-minute drive to get there. One day I was late and I missed the bus and my mother was so upset. I was walking home, I was five years old, [and] she was very angry with me. That was one of my distinct memories of going to school at Fifth Street. After that one year of renting a home, we moved to a really nice neighborhood in central Las Vegas at the time, which would be Beverly Way. We lived in that home from 1954 to about 1970. [That] was in the John S. Park [Elementary] School area. What was the name of the neighborhood? They didn't call it John S. Park. I don't think they really had names for neighborhoods. They did for some but I don't think for that one. Beverly Way is on the corner basically between Fifth Street and Sixth Street off of Oakey [Boulevard]. So yes, you were in that neighborhood, definitely. Did you continue to walk to school from there? Yes. Oh yes, I was able to walk from my home to John S. Park [Elementary School]. My memory is I did it probably from the time I was in first grade. There were a lot of children in our neighborhood, a lot of kids that I grew up with, so we walked together. In those days, you know, people weren't worried about that. I had free rein. I remember living in the neighborhood and going trick-or-treating when I was a young boy, and our 4 parents never really had to go with us, and I came back with bags of candy. It was the greatest thing. We started early and ended late. There was never any fear of being out, in those days in Las Vegas. It was a very safe place, and a really good place and neighborhood to grow up in. What kind of recreation do you remember you and the other kids having? We were very interested in sports in our neighborhood, lots of sports, especially baseball and basketball. I played Little League baseball, which I do have this picture of, too. [Displaying photograph] This is from probably sixth or seventh grade. The team was the Horseshoe Club, sponsored by Joe W. Brown who was running it for Benny Binion when Benny Binion was in prison, I believe. Joe Brown liked the youth of Las Vegas and he built a baseball field for us where the Las Vegas Hilton [Hotel and Casino] is now. There was a racetrack there at the time. This team, the Horseshoe Club, had its own baseball field to play on, and we got to practice there. We didn't use it for games but it was a practice facility and it was really very nice. I think this team went undefeated for three years. We were coached by Leo Kirkendall. He was the police chief at the time. He was an ex-FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] agent, I believe. He liked coaching children and that's what he did. So we played a lot of baseball. We also played a lot of basketball, and then the typical dodge ball and those kinds of things that kids played. I thought about that when I pulled this picture out the other night, Claytee, that it's different now. My kids are in their thirties, so it's a little bit different. But kids, when I was young in Las Vegas, were outside, and they weren't at the computer, they weren't at the cell phone, they weren't at their desks. We were outside doing things. I don't remember staying inside. We didn't 5 have television when I first moved to Beverly Way in the John S. Park area. I had probably one of the first televisions in Las Vegas. My father was in the furniture business when he moved here, as well as being an orchestra leader. We had one of the first TVs. When we turned the TV on, the pattern would be on. I think it was there for six months before we ever got a picture, before anything ever happened. I was in a great neighborhood with lots of kids and we had a wonderful, wonderful time. Same children from the time I was in first grade all through high school. They pretty much were there the whole time. Do you remember any of your close friends? Oh yes. I wrote the names of the parents down, but if you want the children.... Both. I want both. Mr. and Mrs. Phil Spencer. He owned an appliance parts store, I believe. Their family was Darrell and Barbara and Christine. I don't believe any of them live in Las Vegas anymore. Darrell is an English professor now in the Midwest. He would love to come back to Las Vegas. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts and their daughter Sheila and I think there was a son as well. They owned Roberts Roof and Floor [Inc.], which is still one of the oldest businesses in town. I don't believe they own it anymore. One of my best friends was Bill [William] Griffiths, who's the dentist in Portland that I talked about. His father owned a pharmacy, the first pharmacy at the original Landmark Hotel [and Casino], They had a retail plaza at the base of the Landmark and Mr. Griffiths owned a pharmacy there. 6 Herb Jones was a partner in [the law firm of] Jones, Jones, and Vargas [actually Jones & Jones, then Jones, Jones, Close & Brown. The merger with the Vargas law firm did not occur until the 1990s] and his brother [Clifford A. Jones] was the lieutenant governor of Nevada [1947-54], He had a great family, five or six children who are almost all still in town except for the daughter (who I was very good friends with) who was unfortunately killed in an accident coming back from college one year; that was really hard for them. The Jones house was a house that everybody went to in the neighborhood. They had a lot of children and they were very welcoming to the whole neighborhood, so we were there a lot. There were the Knollers: they called him Doc Knoller. I think he was a chiropractor who didn't work as a chiropractor but owned a shoe store in town called Las Vegas Bootery, which was the place for guys to go for shoes. It was a men's shoe store downtown. It was not any bigger than this little room that we're in right now. He sold so many shoes, it was unbelievable. His son's name was Randy [Knoller], Randy is still in town. There were the Singers: Ed [Edward] Singer was a hairdresser, and he owned the hairdressing salon at the Sahara Hotel. His daughter's name was Shari. He was a Holocaust survivor, I believe. He came from Romania, I believe is where Mr. Singer was from. There were the Warren Rollins family. The Rollinses had a large family as well. They were LDS [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]. He owned the camera store at the original Vegas Village, actually. He had a camera store and [did film] developing. My dad's really good friends were Harry and Kay Wallerstein who lived just up the block from us. Harry owned a furniture store as well [Tineh Furniture], and Kay was very involved in the Jewish community. They were wonderful people. He was my dad's best friend here in Las Vegas. Max Goot, which is maybe a name that you've heard of, he was a furniture store owner also. He was partners with Harry Wallerstein [in Tineh Furniture in downtown Las Vegas] at one time. They had two children, Steven and Joel. Joel still lives here in town and Stephen lives in Atlanta [Georgia]. Hank and Barbara Greenspun lived in our neighborhood a little later on in the years. They had four children, so we were all friends. Phil [Philip] Engel, who owned a CPA company, he and his wife Adele had two or three children. My interesting neighbor was Chester Simms. Chester Simms was the casino manager at the Flamingo Hotel [and Casino] for many, many years. His son was Doug [Douglas E. Simms, president of the SIMMS Foundation] and his sister was Dawn. They were great neighbors. They only lived next door to us for a year, but after that year, or two maybe, then they moved to Sixth Street. They built a house on Sixth Street and they were there for years. The Petersen family from Westward Ho [Hotel and Casino]: Faye Petersen, Dean Petersen, and Murray Petersen all lived in the neighborhood. Murray Petersen, who was much younger than my father, loved my father. They were in the real estate business, not in the hotel business at the time. My dad had made him a loan and Murray confided to my father about every detail of his business. He absolutely loved my father. He was a real 8 idol to me. He was a real man's kind of man. He could do everything. He was a real nice-looking man. He was the brains of the family. He got electrocuted on his boat in the early Sixties and passed away. So Faye and Dean ran that business by themselves, and moved into hotels as you know, with the Westward Ho. So they were very, very interesting people and we were very good friends with them. And then in the neighborhood on Sixth Street, the person that I remember was Bill [William J.] Moore. He was the original owner of the [Last] Frontier [Hotel and Casino] and the Showboat Hotel [and Casino], He had two daughters and a son who I still am in contact with. The son lives here and the daughters live in Arizona. The Woodbury family, where Bruce [Woodbury] grew up. Now Bruce is a couple of years older than me. Certainly when you're in eighth grade and he's a sophomore, you probably didn't say anymore than hello, but we've become friends since. The Urga family (Bill Urga) lived in the neighborhood, real close to John S. Park [Elementary School], actually even closer than I did. I don't know if you've heard of Chuck Minker or not. I think Mr. Minker was a manager of some sort at the Stardust Hotel [and Casino]. He had three very, very bright sons: Allen [judge and journalist], Jeff [Jeffrey], and Chuck. Chuck was the youngest. Chuck stayed in town; the other two brothers didn't. Chuck became the head of the Nevada Athletic Board [Nevada State Board of Athletic Trainers, or NSBAT]; he was the executive director and very well thought of. He unfortunately passed away at a relatively early age from lung cancer. The guy had never smoked a cigarette, never did anything besides take care of himself. Very unfortunate. He lived in our neighborhood. 9 I'm looking at this connection with the Las Vegas Strip [Las Vegas Boulevard]. This is amazing. I didn't realize that there was such a [connection]. You've talked about the Stardust, the Westward Ho, and so many others. You've done a fantastic job. I really appreciate that so much. Who were some of your best friends? Well, Darrell Spencer [and] Bill Griffiths. Neither of those two men live here anymore. Craig Rollins, from the Vegas Village stores: he was a very good friend. I think those were probably three of my best friends. And Buzz Shaffer lived in the John S. Park district too. Mrs. [Joan] Shaffer is still living; she's got to be in her nineties, I believe. Her husband [Leonard Shaffer] was affiliated with the Dunes Hotel [and Casino], Buzzy lives here and is in real estate now. Did your mother ever work outside the home? She worked a little with my father at the furniture store, but not really. I'm surprised at the number of furniture stores here early on. Yes, well, it was a small community and we didn't have a lot of furniture stores. When my dad got here, he thought they ought to organize a little association, so he was the organizer of an association and they all became friends. My father had Hollywood Furniture; he probably opened that in 1953, and he sold it to his partner in 1957 or '58. He opened a store in Henderson [Nevada] which he ran until he had a heart attack in 1961, when the doctors told him he needed to retire because he wouldn't be able to work again. He was in the hospital with a heart attack for six weeks in those days. He sold his business to McMahan's [Furniture] and retired for about a year or so, and opened Garrett's Furniture, which is the store that I worked at with him, in 1961, at the age of sixty-one, I believe he was, which was pretty old to open a new business. I'm impressed 1 0 as I think about it now. Garrett's Furniture in 2000 was the oldest furniture store [in Las Vegas], So we were the newest furniture store in 1961 and the oldest furniture store when we quit in 2000. How many locations are there? Well, when I started with my father in 1969, we were on Main Street in a store there that we leased from Dr. Coatlands, who was a city commissioner who lived in our neighborhood as well. I don't know if you've heard about Dr. Coatlands. A very interesting city commissioner for a couple of years. I don't think [he was] real popular but he was a very interesting man. My dad leased the building from him and then in 1969 we moved to the location downtown on Fremont Street and Maryland Parkway, which was a beautiful building owned by the Franklin brothers who came to Las Vegas [and] worked on the Hoover Dam. They came from Georgia on a freight train. (I think we gave you that name, a lady that you should interview, the son-in-law, George Cox. [They have] a lot of information about them.) So we were in that location, then we had a fire and in 1983 we decided not to re-lease the building and moved to our own building which we built on Tropicana [Road] in 1984. My father had retired by then. I was operating the businesses. We opened another furniture store on Tropicana down the street. It was exclusively a Thomasville and Drexel Heritage store. And then we had a warehouse store. So we had three locations at one time. I retired from that business in 2001, after forty years. So what did you retire to? 1 1 Well, for the first couple of years, I sold my real estate that I owned, and decided I liked the real estate business and I got a real estate license and then I went to work at R.L. Moore and Associates, a commercial real estate company in town, and I worked for Rob [Robert L. Moore] for a few years until he sold his business. Now, with economic conditions the way they are and the real estate business being the way it is, I'm back to sort of being retired again. OK, good. When did you move out of the [John S. Park] community? Well, I moved out when I was young. Let's see. I lived there until 1970,1 think. I went away for college, [and then] I came back and went to Nevada Southern University [NSU] [now the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or UNLV]. I left in about 1970.1 bought my own condominium in 1970. So I was there from 1954 to 1970. We didn't call it the John S. Park district; we called it the John S. Park [Elementary] School. But I would say a lot of activities were at John S. Park. It's not built like schools today. It had a very big field alongside of it. We were there after school, we were there on Saturdays, we were there all the time, playing. They had basketball courts outside; it didn't have any inside courts. It was the place to go. The school was sort of laid out similar. I think the buildings were even older than they are today. I mean they were really old buildings at the time. I think they've remodeled. I mean it was quite a school because, as you know, a lot of Las Vegans went to John S. Park. Amazing. Tell me about the religious influences in the community. You mentioned that there was a Mormon family. There were a lot of Mormon families in our neighborhood. A lot of the ones I mentioned were LDS. In my particular neighborhood, especially when I was younger, I was the only 1 2 Jewish boy growing up in that neighborhood that I can think of, and my friends were all LDS. The only difference was that I was busy on Saturday mornings and they were busy on Sundays. Other than that, I had a wonderful time and a great relationship. The families were all very good. I had the only swimming pool in the neighborhood too, so now that made a big difference. I had a lot of friends because of the swimming pool, especially in the summertime. [Laughter] The LDS had a ward right next to John S. Park. That also was obviously a very busy place because a lot of the children who went to John S. Park were LDS. The population in the early days seemed to me to be very heavily LDS. There was St. Anne [Catholic Church and Elementary School] where a lot of kids went to school. I didn't know too many of those kids. It wasn't too far away from me but I knew more LDS kids. The Catholics were a big influence, and the Mormons. The Jewish population in those days was very small. We had the one synagogue. It was on Carson [Avenue] and Fremont Street, down in that area, when I was growing up. It was a small facility. So I don't think there were a lot of Jews. There weren't a lot of affiliated Jews, but there were a lot of Jews in the gaming industry in those days. Most of them worked for whoever they were back East. They were the people who ran the hotels. Did you hear that the LDS church [in the neighborhood] was taken down probably about a month ago? Oh, the one next to John S. Park? No, I did not know that. I haven't driven by in a few years, so no. I'm sorry to hear that. Are they going to rebuild? 1 3 No. They haven't decided yet what to do with the property. It was closed for a period of time, and then they took the building down completely; so there is a vacant area there. As an aside, I was probably in second or third grade and I was late coming home from school, and my dad said, Where have you been? And I said, I went to Primary. My dad said, What's Primary? And I said, Well, it's at the church right next door to school, and all my friends are going, so I went to Primary, and they were happy to have me. They were very nice. And he said, Well, I don't think it's a good idea that you go to Primary anymore. And that was my last time at Primary. But I mean the influence was very [strong], I think that the Mormon Church did a really good job and they still do of placing their places that are convenient for their kids to go to church, and they go on a daily [basis]: they go to Primary, they go to Seminary, so they're busy, and they do a really excellent job of getting their kids to where they want them to be. And the family: the family having Family Nights and all of that. I just love that. Yes, it's very nice. My experience was great. I must tell you that as a little boy, you know, I went to John S. Park from first grade to sixth grade, which was 1954 to 1959. Ruby [S.] Thomas was the principal, and I'm sure you've heard of Miss Thomas; there's a school named after her [Ruby S. Thomas Elementary School]. I do remember her and I remember some of my teachers. They were really very special. I have my report cards but I'm not going to show them to you. [Laughter] 1 4 That's fantastic. You shared those two photographs with me. When you have those done, we would love to have those. I certainly will. In those days, Claytee, it was a great, friendly neighborhood. There weren't any fences in the neighborhood. We had to have a fence around our house because there was a pool, but typically you could walk from Beverly Way to Sixth Street just walking across the side yards, so there weren't any fences. You know, it's interesting, I just went back to Kansas City in October, and in a lot of their areas they don't have fences either, and I like the look of that, not having fences. Of course the lots were a little larger in those days, although our house was a very small house on Beverly Way. But it's just a nice neighborhood. I have to say this. One of the people who lived in our neighborhood was Art Lurie. I don't know if anybody has ever talked about Art Lurie, but Art Lurie was the general manager of a grocery, Market Town, which was on Oakey and Las Vegas Boulevard. It was owned by the Adelsons. [Irwin] Molasky [and Merv] Adelson was the connection. Adelsons owned it. They were in the grocery business in California, I believe. Art became the manager. He was on the Nevada Athletic Board and he owned Wonder World [Discount] Liquors. He had a lot of different businesses. I think Art is in his nineties, but he's pretty sharp mentally and if you haven't done an interview with him, you should. When I was maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, Art hired me at the grocery store to be a box boy. The grocery store was only four blocks from my home. Not only did he hire me but he hired every kid that ever came to him and asked him for a job. So I would get twelve hours a week and somebody else would get twenty. It was amazing. Ron Lurie, who was his son, who was the mayor, he worked at the grocery store 1 5 as a produce manager for a number of years when I was there. My point is, he was just one of the kind of people who cared about kids and he was very interested in athletics, especially boxing, and a great guy. He did live in the neighborhood as well. We should get an interview from him. OK, that's good. I like it that you're talking about all the businesses, and some of the businesses were right there in the neighborhood. Right. The ones I've talked about so far really were. There were a lot of businesses that kids in high school [patronized or worked at]. There was a drugstore next to Market Town on Fifth [Street] and Oakey called White Cross Drugstore. The Myers Market next door was Market Town; Market Town has changed names several times. That and White Cross Drugs was connected and of course when I was a box boy I remember going in there. I'd work from eight to midnight when I was fourteen years old. But it was so safe. I'd walk home at twelve o'clock midnight. In that neighborhood [now], you wouldn't do that anymore, but you certainly could in those days. So it was very interesting. But I was sort of reminiscing about some of the businesses