Anecdotes

My Last Visit to Al Greens

I grew up on the East side of Indianapolis in the area of 10th Street and Shortridge Road. Eastgate shopping center, Harts Bakery and The Dog House were just a few of the local haunts I frequented with the money raised by my Indianapolis Star paper route. There was however an odd place, a seeming leftover of the 50's at Shortridge Road and Washington that always captured my imagination: Al Green's. They showed old black and white movies on the weekends but I could never get mom to take us there. Somewhere along the line the movies stopped. I found out later that the reason was that the Green's brother who showed the movies had died. I would see the same old cars parked in front of Al Green's as my Moorhead Elementary School bus drove past and I assumed the place was closed. It was not until I started driving that I noticed other cars parked there at odd times but mostly on the weekends.

Al Green on a date

I was a teen in the 50's and have memories of Al Green's. Yes, there were the tenderloins but Al Green's was known as the "make out pit"; if a guy took a date there, she knew he wanted more than a tenderloin. Sometimes we cruised through just to see who was doing what. Laughner's Drive in a little further west on Washington Street was the place to see and be seen. After high school we all went to Jack & Jill's drive in on Shadeland -- it was always packed. I do have fond memories of all three of them. I know an 89 yr old man, a Holocaust survivor, who went to a dance for Jewish singles shortyly after arriving here from Germany, it was on the south side. He cut in for a dance with a girl who was dancing with her date. They fell in love and got married soon after. Guess who the girl's date was that night----none other than Al Green! But Al did not hold a grudge and they were all friends for many years. He and Sophie (his date who married the other guy who cut in on their dance) are both deceased; the old guy who cut in on them is still alive and still has an Al Green's T shirt, which he loaned me to wear to my Warren Central Reunion, but demanded it back as he liked Al Green.

This website is very cool. Thanks for bringing back great memories!

Kathy Rosenberg

A Chance Meeting with Al Green

I (and many of you) used to frequent Al Green's at Shortridge & Washington from the 1950s (with my family when I was a kid) up into the later 1960s and 1970s when my friends and I were driving. We would occasionally catch a movie there but they were always old black and white films, always a generation too late but probably cheap to acquire. We never seriously watched a whole movie. It was just on in the background, like having the TV on at your party. I remember the black telephones for ordering food. I remember also going inside to order food from Belle Green (Al's sister who attended the counter). She was quite a character and very good at remembering our names. She could have been a talk-show host. Very quick-witted. I never talked to Al Green himself, though I would frequently see him cooking in the background or moving around back there with a white apron on and a white paper hat. I guess he had sort of a celebrity status for us and seemed kind of quiet and mysterious. One time I had to go to the Emergency Room late at night in the mid 1970s (I think it was Community Hospital). I forget why I was there now, but I remember a big buzz among all the nurses that Al Green himself was there! He was being seen in the Emergency Room for something and the nurses were trying to get a look at him and one was saying, "Yes, it's THE Al Green, from Al Green's Drive-in!" People joke about the food, but I always thought it was pretty good. Very slow service of course, which was part of the fun. It gave you an excuse to hang out there even longer. I sure wish it was still there. A great old landmark gone from Indy's east side.

by K Town

Golden Mile Street Machines

Although I never lived in Indianapolis or anywhere in Indiana, Al Green's holds special memories for my wife and me. We were actively involved in a car club from the Chicago area, and showed our car at the Car Craft Magazine Street Machine Nationals car shows that were held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on 38th Street every June from 1977 to 1981. A good friend of ours, who also belonged to the club and participated in these shows, had grown up in Indianapolis in the 1950's and was very familiar with Al Green's. He inspired our whole car club to make the 'pilgrimage' to Al's on evenings while the Street Machine Nationals were going on. Our club would bring 10 to 20 cars to Al's on these evenings. In 1981, I spent the evening of my 30th birthday dining at Al's with a group of fellow car nuts, complete with a birthday cake that someone managed to bring down all the way from northern Illinois. Al and Belle each received a piece of the cake.

Elvis pays a visit to James Dean

James Dean was killed in his sports car on September 30, 1955. I'm not sure whose idea it was, but a few weeks after his death, my friends and I had the idea of visiting his gravesite in Fairmount, Indiana. My friends being Jack, his future wife Marty, Bill Logan, Sue, and Sharon. We all piled into Bill Logan's 1953 Plymouth Belvedere 2-door hardtop and headed for Fairmount, James Dean's hometown.

We arrived at James Dean's gravesite later that morning and there were a few people at the gravesite. We noticed that there wasn't a single blade of grass around his headstone and there were numerous chips out of the headstone. I assume people were taking souvenirs. So as we were all getting back into the car, a 1955 pink and black Ford Crown Victoria pulled into a parking space several spaces down from where we were parked, and out comes this man and woman. The man had a striking resemblance to Elvis Presley, i.e., long sideburns, dark hair, etc. None of us thought it was really Elvis except for Marty, who said, "Look, there's Elvis Presley." Marty was determined to get out of the car to go to talk to Elvis, and we were all trying to restrain her. She was adamant about going to this man and pestering him. We finally convinced her that Elvis would not be driving a Ford. He would be driving a Cadillac. Based on that statement, Marty got back in the car.

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