Great, long one from The Old New York Page:
1968
Leonard Cohen, 33, was staying at RM 424 at Chelsea Hotel in the Spring of 1968. He would order a root beer float with chocolate ice cream ("Choc In"
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Soda Jerks had their own 1930s-40s lingo for orders at candy stores and drug stores all over the City. Jamaica Ave in Queens had 1940s-50s soda fountains and ice cream parlors on every block.
In soda jerk slang, a simple float could be ordered as "burn it and let it swim!"
"Burn it all the way" meant a Chocolate Malted Milk and Chocolate Ice Cream. "All Black" was a Chocolate Soda with Chocolate Ice Cream.
If you used egg instead of ice cream that could be ordered as "twist it, choke it, and make it cackle." Coca-Cola flavored with cherry might be "shoot one in the red."
If you did not want ice..."hold the hail." Large drinks were "stretched." Small drinks were "short" like at Starbucks.
Milk might be "cow juice," "bovine extract," "baby," or "canned cow." Different locations had localized lingo. It was not universal. Franchises today would never allow this kind of local independence at the workplace.
Water could be "aqua pura," "city cocktail" or "Hudson River Ale."
Other soda jerk slang included: "Scandal Soup" (tea), "Draw Some Mud" (Coffee), "Black Cow" (Chocolate Milk), "Yum Yum" (Sugar), and "Choker Holes" (Donuts). "95" noted a customer walking out without paying.
Neighbors gathered at walkable soda fountain destinations for community news. Lunch counters were added for light meals, ice cream sodas, egg creams and sundaes.
The Soda Fountain was first patented in 1819 by doctor Samuel Fahnestock in Lancaster, PA. Soda fountains first aimed to replicate mineral water bubbling from underground.
Mineral water was believed to cure diseases, first bottled in 1621 in Europe. It was first bottled commercially in America in 1767 at Boston's Jackson's Spa. Soda was believed to have medicinal properties like hot springs.
New Yorker and Englishman John Matthews' lower-cost 1832 machine made soda fountains profitable in drug stores.
Yale chemistry prof Benjamin Silliman had also popularized soda in the US in 1806, first at New Haven. He expanded into New York and Baltimore. American Soda Fountain Company (est. 1891) later monopolized the industry.
Louis Auster served possibly the first Egg Cream at his 1892 Brooklyn candy shop. Egg cream has carbonated water (seltzer water), Fox's U-Bet chocolate flavor syrup and milk.
Egg Cream was popular with Yiddish-speaking Eastern European immigrants during their 1880-1924 immigration wave. It had no egg or cream. Egg possibly came from the Yiddish echt ("genuine or real" . So Egg Cream essentially meant "good cream."
The reason why there was no egg or cream? Supposedly Egg Cream was the less expensive imitation version of an 1880s drink that had chocolate syrup, cream, raw eggs and soda water.
Egg Cream was sold in poorer neighborhoods like the Lower East Side. Auster's Egg Cream (1900s-1974) later opened at 2nd Ave and 7th St, where Kiev Restaurant (117 2nd Ave) later opened 1978-2000.
Louis Auster's landlord was Ratner's Dairy 1905 co-founder Harry Harmatz. Louis sold up to 3000 Egg Creams daily, mostly to Jewish customers at first, until he died in 1955 at age 97. Son Mendy Auster took over, later supported by his son Stanley Auster in 1974.
Soda Fountains at first used ice (no refrigeration yet, so ice harvesters cut ice from frozen lakes and ponds stored in summer ice houses).
In 1904, the first "iceless" fountain arrived using brine. In WW I, soda fountains had hybrid half-mechanical refrigeration. The 1920s saw ammonia refrigeration.
Soda fountains would spread into pharmacies, ice cream parlors, candy stores, dime stores, department stores, milk bars and train stations.
But in the 1950s, Walgreens started to erode community soda fountains with full self-service drug stores. So did the 1950s family car in suburban homes. Dairy Queen (est. 1940) also rose to prominence along with drive-ins and drive-thrus. Out of the way shopping malls and highways became popular. Local soda fountains dissipated.
The pedestrian soda fountain disappeared altogether on Jamaica Ave by 1980s. That's when Schmidt's Candy (est. 1925) at 9415 Jamaica was the last to sell its own ice cream.
The store facade and tin ceiling then got damaged by fire. German immigrant and founder Frank Schmidt's son Frank Jr decided not to restore the soda fountain and passed away at 64.
Frank's granddaughter Margie Schmidt took over Schmidt's Candy in 1986, still making chocolates and candies by hand. She turned 60 in 2019.
Photo by Roz Kelly, who later starred in Happy Days as Pinky Tuscadero. While stringing for New York Magazine, she worked as a server at Cafe Feenjon (105 MacDougal) in Greenwich Village. Finjan/Feenjon is an old Turkish coffeepot with a long stem.
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