Michael Ambrosino's Show; 119; Inman Square

How many times have you. Passed somebody's neighborhood and not even given a second chance. This is in men's wear. You know what that is. You've probably been through it. Lots of time. And I've noticed. This is a neighborhood a little village. Place where you can buy shoes for a dollar. Second hand furniture. For the kids can wait. Till their mommies drive. Where the USNS. Delicatessen restaurant only serves sandwiches on the pokey. Where you can buy all paintings right inside. Shops sell. Everything. Haven't you. Every. Afternoon. Where. I'm like. Like Charlie. We've been here for 41 years. Still selling got 40 kinds of beer. Ever had beer. It's. Not a new area. One of the

areas. Where barbershop looks like something that you haven't seen. Unless you were. There for $2. And they. Give you a shave. Who. Had a. Right to Know the street. Garbage truck caught on fire. Dump the whole load. It wasn't too bad though because the. Fire alarm Center for a few. Stores. Only two trucks. Now they've moved to Main Street. No. ONE else is in the square. Well. Traffic

lots of impossible travel. Here because they don't know how to regulate it. Jimmy the Greek still selling. Candy for a nickel. Chemicals kosher meat market. Sam like his father before set up a. Kosher market. And they sell. Kosher. Meat. As you know. Only the fourth quarter. They can. They will soak it for you if you water. I have a. Legal Seafood. I. Heard of it. And the proposition. Probably one of the heroes. A. Group. Of Tory acted and set up a group cross the country. Where you probably know. The propositions here. This is another part of. The.

Strange. Aryan. Very to on the church today. They have their daughter visiting with their sons a graduate student at MIT daughter's day. How can you fail with a name like that except the building's been empty for years. I knew part. Let's just represent. The good food restaurant. Coming Soon an organic restaurant. So no. Essence for a square used to this is it going to end up looking like our square. But it square is not just the collection of buildings. Traffic problem.

With business is old and new. Inman Square. It's been. There all kinds of people around here we have the type of which you can link up regular people. And. Just thanking people. And we got a break in Amman Square. Jimmy did pretty that's my name. It's never been a busy square but it's made up for him. The closeness of the of the people. Making a living and that's what a nice people. I love it. If it be the very night. And I draw in a lot of things but the people I meet. The placement of the square place you get to know them you know the famine you know everybody. Language spoken around the spores you find most problems you know they come here live here while everybody works together. Then eventually. Just

something. I don't. Buy the whole. Time. Most of their sons are all the way I guess most of them. Are college educated. Lol I'd love. To hear any other. Section in the way. I think you know there's no problem no national problem. Rob loves to have my home my family and I belong to the Legion sables American veterans. I am friends who never. Think. This is. What I like and I have to I mean business. But you do have many people when you say Inman Square they say oh that place you've got I mean big big just the small local store a robot but the government think that everybody can use and here it's amazing the camaraderie in never actually. You might leave this square physically but mentally and. It's special to me because.

I think it really changed you might be disappointed. This is you know how long has the store been here. Well it was from the 1940s. This was a building and this was something like that. And this was a and it went to become Charlie's in.

1920 with the name. It was Charlie's until. This has been in 1949. That's right. I like. Very. Very prosperous. Traffic. Now there's a tough thing like the way it. Is good. It doesn't seem to be a swell place. Other parts of Cambridge have become but it seems to be moderately prosperous how oppression. Is oppression. Quite a few people did lose money. I remember one incident perhaps a week or two after the banks are closed but.

The manager of the trustee of the bank Mr Lynch by name would have an office across the street from us. And. Those people who lost money in the bank would line up in front of a store and look across the street to Mr Lynch just staring and saying anything. And it got so bad that he finally had to move his desk back beyond the window so he can be viewed from the street as a got to. Do it. At the closing of a bank of people figure that he did you know there are people lining the street all during the day today. He seems to be the warm part of the street and it seems to be sort of a warm street itself. This is this is an interesting neighborhood. What's it like running a neighborhood store in a place like this. Well you know practically all your customers in fact you know him by name. Quite a few of them are married. It's amazing you see some. Boy

pushing baby carriages in. Times gone by fast. Joe you're running the store Now John you're teaching you're coming in on weekends and whenever I can after school have you seen much of a change in the neighborhood. The camaraderie it's still a very friendly neighborhood. And I think the main reason because we haven't any parking in the square. We have to be neighborly because it's like a closed shop and we've tried to get packing in the city fathers figured that we're not busy enough to warrant the shop in the square necessarily of the square. And we know one another. And now as of late we have been getting an influx from Harvard Square because of the housing condition and the surprise to the students and so forth are starting to become a very stable member of our community where before they were just

on through. But it's always been you know in square where is that and I always have to come up with the cliche where is between the bus line and nobody would ever know women Square. And it's been here as I say since 1888. Steve represents another generation will the store continue do you think there's a future for a neighborhood store. If you're willing to put the time and it's time consuming. What sort of time should mean should mean anything if you don't look at the clock when you have a neighborhood store. You just have to reasonably long. And. It's just a lot of work but it's enjoyable. Something I enjoy very very much in fact there were times when we go beyond the closing hours because you get so involved in what you're doing. And a

little of everything. People come in and enjoy the trust they place in you in a store like this. If you tell them it's good it's good. Most of them really take a word. They know if they come back and tell us where is the change. Everything is in a package and the close communication between person to person is just lost. And people like to talk like that. That was just delicious. Can I say something. They picked up rather than We've recommended your apple is delicious. And we maintain his reputation all these years of quality this was my father's big thing it was the fruit was his baby and he always pride. We used to call them Charlie because we would be down here and it's always said it was you know the impulse thing. But he always maintained his reputation would continue to

carry on. And he's branched on into other fields too. And he's maintained that reputation in the liquid Department as well as in the fruit. So they come down here on hesitatingly they say what do you recommend. And it's always a surprise when they come back as it just right. Hi. Hi Charlie. Thank you.

George I was born and brought up in the ocean but I don't know a thing about fish I don't know when I'm getting good fresh stuff. First of all in Boston this is was mostly officially ends of the North Atlantic. You can tell a good fish the way I talk a good fish. By smelling it when I buy fish I get on the fish if I want to check a shrimp for instance

I open a box up and they look good sometimes they have a phone and a funny order or turn it down. What should it smell like. Good fish. For example has no water whatsoever and you know it just smells the wax in the wax paper more than the fish. Well. If you leave them like that for two or three days and smell it we don't have it we don't have any really old fish it has an iodine a very heavy just so bad you couldn't cook it you really couldn't fish coming in every day in Boston and every day not too much of it but every day you can buy patience is expensive. Getting up there but you can buy fish every day and we kind of should I be looking out for in Boston well up until this month had it was a was a big product and they still bring in Haneke. They closed off I think Georges Bank and also Browns bank up in Canada but there are still those that are fishing and bringing in Haneke.

You've got a few things in here that look like striped bass I recognize one of the others. Right here not sure the difference these look very similar to the shape of stripes of black bass. Here's a black bass. This looks more like the Japanese kites that I recognized in the autos but at the most the people behind the Chinese people are steaming fish down Chinatown and the biggest selling fish they have down there. Both these can be filleted as well as what's the big one in there. This is you know this is what the Jewish people use like a pill to fish. And the part about where we are in Cambridge and we sell more to Hindu Indians and this is the fish that comes out of the rivers of India and this is a fish they stew. They come up to have a cup in small pieces and they come to the point now when always if we want to come small pieces Indians that we just put in the Indian style and what they do is they come in very very thin steaks I also noticed that you got a lot of Japanese people coming in here.

The Japanese people are like great fish eaters as you know and probably the most delicate. Item for the Japanese people. This is model doesn't show the Japanese word for tuna fish and this is the raw tuna that they cut up in the sashimi. Mike if you're like me you made a mistake. This is fine this is tuna fish and bass which they call Suzuki. You're a brave man we believe we can hear you give our all. Leaving Iraq. I haven't had this I was in Japan about 20 years ago. Now this is got to be extremely good. To eat in the raw state because it's a very delicate flavor. Any role whatsoever in the Chinatown this is well this is how we have to get all the Japanese people. What about the other things that I've got to be aware of. How do I know when I'm getting good clams or oysters or lobsters what about these monsters over here.

If they're good and strong they will up their claws and they sort of stand up like the proud of themselves. Pretty strong if there is any weakness at all in the clause in the time. Maybe I should stay away from them. They will need is good I don't think the one thing that having the fresh fish and squares done is I've noticed in the other stores Japanese Japanese beer selling in the liquor stores. It's seems to be that this is become a center now for for another culture. You're very much part of Inman Square what he think's going on here. Well it's an interesting place with such a heterogeneous neighborhood. We have MIT we have and we have Mass General Hospital and they all want something a little bit different and we we start to carry the

Japanese fish and one Japanese fellow came in one day and told me he'd like to have Japanese grocers go along with it. So I decided on New York and I bought a lot of imported Japanese groceries and I got the point now where we're listed in the the tour of Japan and it's wonderful because we met some wonderful people really have. How's it going you think things are going up there seem to be enough people in here as well. Well it really is. We have a proposition next door and we have a number of really good very deceiving brides who are in a square where I think what. The people were very different. You like the people they're very nice very nice people want to. Know. Harvard Square gets all the attention. Central Square is probably number two. This gets the least attention of any square in the city.

I think you know we have new where Enterprise is sort of around now and brings more people here. It's coming up fast. I see a lot of traffic a lot of strangers but the trouble is that housing is very poor around here and they charge a high rent say for. College students from MIT Harvard and the split to rent and they can afford to pay a hundred fifty. Two hundred dollars which the House is not what. It seems pretty high rents in every city for a fighter as read and I pay under 25 and. The poor people. You old people are still here. They can afford that. Who is going to build a school an apartment because he is just buying all the houses around the neighborhood. It's going to tear them all down when the time comes. They come in a buy a $3 item and they get a $5 tag and they probably won't come back again and this has been our problem.

It's going to be able to pay a lot of the kids won't be able to play as many games to be able to. There are a great many people are criticized and they said the proposition was going to bring in a load of hippies a proposition was going to bring in a lot of these big guys it was going to cause a tremendous lot of commotion in this area. At first it was like my goodness all these characters. But then you know it's just part of the square again people like to go into it because as nice people and I know that people from down these you know neighborhood things and they've gone you know two and three or four times the police were still on me. They call up and and and say. And I ask if the place is safe around if that neighborhood is a mushroom it's really good to help the square has brought people to the square. Really heroes in the square area.

Now the proposition is here. People know that it's here. Do any of you live here. I do I do. What's it like living here. It's very it's very contained everything that a square should have Indian food poisoning and fish food poisoning and Italian food poisoning Jewish food poisoning a lot of different things going on. Did you think you were coming in when you started out. This is a mistake we were supposed to start out in Kendall Square but a few days before the proposition opened there was a terrible fire and we were forced to move. And we found this place with the help of George Berkowitz from Legal Sea Foods and we clean this place up in about three days and didn't have our licenses until the night we opened. And we've been running here ever since which is great because what it used to be used to be a bakery and everything but the ovens were here when we came including corroded flour dough. It was all over the floor hard love it used to be the bakeries garage which is sort of

still is except we have pictures hanging on the walls. You're running a house of 160 How are things going. It's going very well. We have full houses. Friday Saturday and Sunday sometimes on Thursday. Seven shows seven. You've taken the show to New York once so you. Will probably take it again in September I think the thing is that most people around him in square haven't seen it really. Some of the business people have most of the people who live around here at least the natives of the square have ever been to the show. Bar patrons park in their driveways and in front of their driveways on Saturday night which they don't like too much and they sort of know what's around the streets but we are an entirely foreign element. I think from what people around here we're used to. When the place came in the Indian restaurant came more of people who looked like us started coming so I think it's become a liberalized at Harvard residences and moved out this way too. They've had two and Somerville of course just a block away so it's much cheaper than living near Harvard

Square. The whole complex has changed in two years. It is changing for the good. Oh definitely. Oh I'm not sure which university realty moving in I'm not sure that's a change for anybody but it's certainly improved in in terms of much more student residence and things like that but it still doesn't house the Portugese Italian Jewish flavor which it was 50 years ago. Do you think that you can survive easier in this sort of a neighborhood or is it a warmer place for you all to operate in. I think that it is. We deal with the local ANP and the fish market and everyone is quite warm and very nice. And it's goods cheaper than anyplace else we could go to. It started in Harvard Square we wouldn't have made it I don't think we could've afforded it it was the first couple months were actually very good for a beginning theater but fortunately the rents here are so much lower for us in the space that we have than it would have been anywhere in Auburn square that the distance we used to have of a phrase that we used in our ads said obscure entertainment in an obscure location. And it really worked and became an adventure to find us and then

it still is I think. OK it wouldn't win any prizes in an architectural magazine. But who cares about that. It seems to be natural. And built on human scale. And seems to have a purpose. And that's what the story of Inman Square is all about. The purpose of this place is that this is where people congregate have property come shopping. Use this place is not only a traffic jam but a part of their city. It's very difficult to build takes a long time and a great deal of natural type of planning. Very very easy to destroy.