{"id":13160,"date":"2013-05-28T06:11:55","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T11:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/?p=13160"},"modified":"2021-10-05T10:12:04","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T14:12:04","slug":"the-bijou-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2013\/05\/28\/the-bijou-cafe\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bijou Cafe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"In-Print-1979\"<\/a>While trying to de-clutter some of the clutter around the old homestead, I came across a free publication from the Spring of 1979 called In Print<\/strong><\/em>. It was produced by Philadelphia-area college students aimed at Philadelphia-area college students. It was a review of the 1970s as that decade drew to a close, and the articles were densely typeset with dull halftones of celebrities and politicians sprinkled here and there. None of the stories were very interesting — mainly Top Ten type of stories and polls of readers. Best movies of the decade. Best record albums of the decade. Watergate. Patty Hearst. Charlie Manson. The Olympics. That sort of crap.<\/p>\n

What was interesting was the many ads for businesses, movie theaters and other venues that don’t exist any more like the one below.<\/p>\n

\"Bijou-Cafe\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I remember hearing radio advertisements for the Bijou Cafe<\/strong><\/em> when I first started to get into FM radio, but I don’t remember the place itself. I did an internet search in the hopes of coming up with an image but came up mostly dry. I found Grover Washington, Junior’s<\/strong> album Live At The Bijou<\/em><\/strong><\/a> which was recorded there in 1977 and an article<\/a> about how Barry Manilow<\/strong> decided to stick with his singing career after a week of shows there, but no pictures of people flocking to get into the place or shots of the stage or bar or anything. Otherwise, I found scraps of information indicating the place as a vibrant club showcasing an incredibly diverse roster of acts, but no history of the place and no pictures.<\/p>\n

I started art school in 1981 slightly North of the Bijou’s locale, but I have no recollection of the place. I commuted to school from New Jersey and kept to the campus and the bus route home. Maybe I never wandered down that way. It was a different time back then and South Broad Street was somewhat seedier than it is now. Prostitutes openly plied their trade at Broad and Spruce just outside of the school and hordes of vagrants bunked in the pungent subways beneath. It wasn’t a great idea to wander.<\/p>\n

Still Lombard was close enough to the Philadelphia College of Art that I should have remembered\u00a0 seeing something. Lombard isn’t too far from my beaten path so I grabbed my camera in search of the Bijou Cafe.<\/p>\n

\"1409\"<\/a>A new apartment\/condo building went up on the corner of Broad and Lombard, and as I approached I feared that whatever was left of the old jazz club was gone. It turns out that 1409 is still there and just past the corner.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN0792\"<\/a>I recognized the place at 1409 Lombard having walked past it probably hundreds if not thousands of times, but I have no memory of it as The Bijou Cafe. <\/em>It looks like an apartment building from old movies. It always looked that way to me. Maybe The Bijou<\/em> went under or pulled up stakes by the time I was going to school.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN0787\"<\/a>I looked at the place trying to imagine where a club would operate. The basement would be a hep place<\/em> for a jazz joint. I don’t know. As I said, I looked around some search engines and didn’t find much on the place. There is a plaque outside on the sidewalk, but it has nothing to do with the Bijou.<\/p>\n

\"hoilday-sign\"<\/a>Billie Holiday slept there.<\/p>\n

I must admit to not doing an exhaustive internet search of the Bijou<\/em>, but being that legendary acts like Betty Carter<\/em> and Billy Eckstine<\/em> among others appeared there, you would figure there would be more information on the place. If somebody out there has some info or a link to some images, feel free to comment.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While trying to de-clutter some of the clutter around the old homestead, I came across a free publication from the Spring of 1979 called In Print. It was produced by Philadelphia-area college students aimed at Philadelphia-area college students. It was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31,104],"tags":[199,2590,2592,2594,2591,2596,2593,2595,56,354,3669],"class_list":["post-13160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blast-from-the-past","category-philadelphia","tag-199","tag-barry-manilow","tag-bijou-cafe","tag-concert","tag-grover-washington-junior","tag-in-print","tag-jazz","tag-lombard-street","tag-music","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ed1x-3qg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13174,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2013\/06\/03\/fat-jacks\/","url_meta":{"origin":13160,"position":0},"title":"Fat Jack’s","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"June 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another ad from In Print which was put together by Philadelphia-area (mainly Temple University) college students for Philadelphia-area college students. This particular issue came out in April of 1979 and while the decade still had 8 months left, it was a review of the 1970s. It's newsprint pages\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/2006-sansom.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/2006-sansom.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/2006-sansom.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2721,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2011\/05\/12\/frank-rizzo-on-broad-street\/","url_meta":{"origin":13160,"position":1},"title":"Frank Rizzo on Broad Street","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"May 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It's 1982, and I'm walking North on Broad Street not far from the Philadelphia College of Art where I was attending at the time when suddenly former Mayor Frank Rizzo appears larger than life. I'm not sure if there was an occasion for his appearance, but he was happy to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Frank-3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Frank-3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Frank-3.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":22351,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2017\/06\/09\/digital-clutter\/","url_meta":{"origin":13160,"position":2},"title":"Digital Clutter","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"June 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a followup to my earlier post about the art school formerly known as The Philadelphia College of Art. Thanks to the Internet Archive which is probably the greatest site on the internet a number of odd, wonderful and rare publications are available for your perusal for FREE. There\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38956,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/09\/18\/black-and-white-and-read-all-over\/","url_meta":{"origin":13160,"position":3},"title":"Black and White and Read All Over","author":"Tina Garceau","date":"September 18, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Newsstand in the vicinity of 15th and Locust circa 1981. The Photo Elective All students majoring in illustration at\u00a0The Philadelphia College of Art\u00a0were required to take a minor course in photography where the students would take and process black and white, 35mm images and make prints. 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The Philadelphia College of Art Annual 1968 is a slipcase containing a paperback and a hardbound book. The paperback is the yearbook, but it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/ED-pic.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/ED-pic.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/ED-pic.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/ED-pic.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":22345,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2017\/06\/06\/the-way-it-was\/","url_meta":{"origin":13160,"position":5},"title":"The Way It Was","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"June 6, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This terrific map is from the 1982-83 Philadelphia College of Art catalog which I uncovered amid the clutter in my studio. 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