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Melissa Hayden's real name; chain restaurants
Dan Rottenberg
Melissa Hayden:
What's in a name?
DAN ROTTENBERG
Recent obituaries for Melissa Hayden, the vibrant and enduring star dancer of the New York City Ballet, yielded the curious information that this prima ballerina’s career didn’t really take off until she discarded her dowdy birth name: Mildred Herman. That got me to thinking of a something the Philadelphia-based (now London-based) writer Kiki Olson once said to me: “With a name like Kiki, I could never be a brain surgeon.” With a name like Mildred, presumably, you could never make it in show business.
This theory doubtless also explains why Francis L. Rizzo changed his name to Frank, and why Jim Goldman changed his name to Jim Gardner. It may even explain why Albert Einstein never made it as a nose tackle with the Eagles.
On the other hand, I recall a fellow named W. Thacher Longstreth who enjoyed a long career in Philadelphia politics despite his lack of a populist name. And there was the time years ago when my father, perceiving that both his sons intended to become writers, suggested we change the family name to something more pleasant-sounding. To his surprise, my brother and I adamantly refused: This is our name, we replied, and we’ll stick with it, whatever the consequences.
Whether our careers would have fared better with another name is impossible to say, of course. But it wasn’t until years later that I discovered that I was descended from the 13th-Century German Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg; that this rabbi had been kidnapped and martyred by the Holy Roman Emperor; and that to sustain his memory his descendants had taken the name “Rothenburg” and held on to it (or some variation, like my family’s Hungarianized version) for centuries— all of which fascinating information would have remained unknown to me had I changed my name to, say, Lance Sterling.
Melissa Hayden was a great dancer, whatever her name. It’s too bad she didn’t strike a blow for the Mildreds of the world in the bargain.
Center City's plague of chain restaurants:
Why now?
The arrival of an Applebee’s restaurant in the former Bookbinder’s building on South 15th Street caused Inquirer food critic Rick Nichols to raise a general alarm about the “ring of chain zombies” that have surrounded both the Avenue of the Arts and the Convention Center within the past few years (June 29).
“The chains have scarfed up some of the most visible frontage in Center City,” Nichols properly complains, “their deep pockets recasting the streetscape.” The danger, Nichols suggests, “is not merely the dull tread of Applebee’s, but the mighty tsunami gathering in the distance— the character-assassinating invasion of the casinos.”
Comments well taken. But Nichols avoids a fascinating question (to me, at least): Why are chains invading Center City now, as opposed to ten or 20 or 30 years ago?
I submit that, until recently, chain restaurants couldn’t survive downtown because no demand for them existed downtown. No sophisticated Center City habitué would waste his money on a cookie-cutter chain meal when he could find dozens of wonderful chef-owned restaurants within walking distance, for the same price or even less. And suburbanites— the primary market for chains— were reluctant to venture into town at night.
That has changed. The Kimmel Center, the Avenue of the Arts and the Convention Center have attracted new audiences downtown from the suburbs and other cities. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the dining tastes of these out-of-towners are less than adventurous. They prefer the familiar and the predictable, and the chains serve that need.
There’s no such thing as an unmixed blessing, but this particular curse can be solved by a vigorous publicity campaign to educate visitors to the city’s dining alternatives— assuming, of course, rising downtown property values haven’t driven Center City’s homegrown restaurants out of business before such a campaign gets off the ground.
To view a reader's response, click here.
What's in a name?
DAN ROTTENBERG
Recent obituaries for Melissa Hayden, the vibrant and enduring star dancer of the New York City Ballet, yielded the curious information that this prima ballerina’s career didn’t really take off until she discarded her dowdy birth name: Mildred Herman. That got me to thinking of a something the Philadelphia-based (now London-based) writer Kiki Olson once said to me: “With a name like Kiki, I could never be a brain surgeon.” With a name like Mildred, presumably, you could never make it in show business.
This theory doubtless also explains why Francis L. Rizzo changed his name to Frank, and why Jim Goldman changed his name to Jim Gardner. It may even explain why Albert Einstein never made it as a nose tackle with the Eagles.
On the other hand, I recall a fellow named W. Thacher Longstreth who enjoyed a long career in Philadelphia politics despite his lack of a populist name. And there was the time years ago when my father, perceiving that both his sons intended to become writers, suggested we change the family name to something more pleasant-sounding. To his surprise, my brother and I adamantly refused: This is our name, we replied, and we’ll stick with it, whatever the consequences.
Whether our careers would have fared better with another name is impossible to say, of course. But it wasn’t until years later that I discovered that I was descended from the 13th-Century German Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg; that this rabbi had been kidnapped and martyred by the Holy Roman Emperor; and that to sustain his memory his descendants had taken the name “Rothenburg” and held on to it (or some variation, like my family’s Hungarianized version) for centuries— all of which fascinating information would have remained unknown to me had I changed my name to, say, Lance Sterling.
Melissa Hayden was a great dancer, whatever her name. It’s too bad she didn’t strike a blow for the Mildreds of the world in the bargain.
Center City's plague of chain restaurants:
Why now?
The arrival of an Applebee’s restaurant in the former Bookbinder’s building on South 15th Street caused Inquirer food critic Rick Nichols to raise a general alarm about the “ring of chain zombies” that have surrounded both the Avenue of the Arts and the Convention Center within the past few years (June 29).
“The chains have scarfed up some of the most visible frontage in Center City,” Nichols properly complains, “their deep pockets recasting the streetscape.” The danger, Nichols suggests, “is not merely the dull tread of Applebee’s, but the mighty tsunami gathering in the distance— the character-assassinating invasion of the casinos.”
Comments well taken. But Nichols avoids a fascinating question (to me, at least): Why are chains invading Center City now, as opposed to ten or 20 or 30 years ago?
I submit that, until recently, chain restaurants couldn’t survive downtown because no demand for them existed downtown. No sophisticated Center City habitué would waste his money on a cookie-cutter chain meal when he could find dozens of wonderful chef-owned restaurants within walking distance, for the same price or even less. And suburbanites— the primary market for chains— were reluctant to venture into town at night.
That has changed. The Kimmel Center, the Avenue of the Arts and the Convention Center have attracted new audiences downtown from the suburbs and other cities. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the dining tastes of these out-of-towners are less than adventurous. They prefer the familiar and the predictable, and the chains serve that need.
There’s no such thing as an unmixed blessing, but this particular curse can be solved by a vigorous publicity campaign to educate visitors to the city’s dining alternatives— assuming, of course, rising downtown property values haven’t driven Center City’s homegrown restaurants out of business before such a campaign gets off the ground.
To view a reader's response, click here.
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