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🙂
hi all,
well, i just read the post from the guy who returned after 20 years and the responses to his post. yeah, the
island sure did change - well, cruz bay anyway.
i spent 3 winters in saint john back in the seventies. i absolutely fell in love with the island and that's why i
went back 2 more winters . i was living in the low rent district - coral bay. i had run into an old friend from home in st. thomas who was living on st. john. i had just sailed down from fort lauderdale. and yeah, coral bay was beautiful.
a few us of rented apartments from the sewer sisters. i'm sure they're gone now - (anesta and malvene). although i see the sewer name is still around.
well, i went back with my family in 1988 and wow - what a difference there was in cruz bay. it was so built up
when i was there in the 70's the travel agency was about as big as someone's bathroom. a lone structure on the beach. a hut basically. some brochures and a telephone and nina, the agent. it was cool.
we hung out lots of nites at gallows point and boy, it was nothing like it is now. there was a bar about the same
size as the travel agency. same deal. the front opened up on top and you propped it up with a sick. there was a
big reel to reel tape deck and one metal round table with a big, green glass elephant in the middle.
we used to hang out there and drink pina coladas and listen to old youngbloods and crosby stills & nash on the
seemingly endless reels of tunes. we'd hang out there nite after nite sitting under the stars staring at the lights
of saint thomas. those were good times.
some of our crew was working on the centerline road. i remember it well - pizzagalli construction company needed laborers. we even had some tshirts that read "pizzagalli gutter scunts". they were a joke. those were the days!
we made some good friends of some of the locals and met a bunch of people that i wish i knew their whereabouts
these days. it would be great to touch base. i've got an old address full of names from those days but you know how it goes - it's been 30 years.
one of us opened a bar in chocolate hole. maybe she's still there. her name's laurie. i don't know the name of the
bar. but she loved the island and didn't want to leave.
i would like to come back and live there too. i know it's a different place now but it's still very special to me. it
always will be. i may be coming down in a couple of weeks and would like to check it out as far as moving back
there. if i could find an affordable place to rent or share i'd do it and stop dreaming about it.
if anyone is reading this who was there in the 70's and remembers any of what i was talking about please
reply to my post. i sure would appreciate it. it would be a hoot to find out that some of those people were still
around or someone remembers those days or us.......we came down from cape cod.
thanks and blessings,
sunny
Do you remember the club Sputnick (like the Russian spaceship)? It was wild.
If Victor Hall, from the Kite, was one of the folks you remember, he is still there and you should look for him.
RL
This is a great thread and i wish there were more like it... to much bellyacheing about this or that... Well im not quite old enough to have been living there in the 70's,I will share my memeories of st thomas in the early 90's. I arrived 2 months after "HUGO" there were still curfews that you had to be in after dark. (lol not well enforced) I made my way to Red Hook met some good folks and found housing and a job at "For The Birds" waiting tables and then bartending. Red Hook was much like the original thread reflects, much less built up, there was no american yacht harbor, just shacks w/ sticks holding up plywood hinged fronts that sold drinks. "Off the Hook" was there (picola's) on the one side and "East End Cafe" and "Horse Feathers Pizza"(another plywood shack) bordered the other side where "Molly Mallones" is now. across the street is much the same as it is today w/ a few changes. The "Three Vigins" restuarant occupied the space that "Duffy's" is now. St John and cruz bay were similar to as it is now for the most part ( i miss the "BackYard" and dancing the night away at "World Headquarters" now "Morgans Mango"). Definately built up though across the island w/ lots of new villa's and condo's built...I spent the next 3 seasons living and working in St Thomas, eventually cutting my hair, stripping off the beads, toe rings, earings and getting a "real" job stateside. got married had some kids bought a house i cant afford lol and actually came back and bought a 2nd home/rental Villa in Nazareth above red hook that has worked out great for me and my family. I dont get down as much as i like but have managed to get in about 30 days a year... see ya easter (36 days<<< lol yes i still count and get jazzed up)
Are you sure the bar in question was in Chocolate Hole? There is a Laurie still on island that had a bar in Pine Peace called Vegas.
*-)
hmmmmmm, the club sputnick. it seems to ring a bell but i'm really not sure with oldtimers and all! lol
most of the time we hung out at the "old" gallows point like i talked about and on friday's we'd go to the fish
fry's at fred's in coral bay. local music and dancing and lotsa fish. those were the good old days!
so there must be some of you who remember those days too.......come on and put a thread in here. it would
really be a hoot to find some of you...
🙂
hey cool - maybe it's her. her last name is odenbach. where is pine peace - never heard of it?
we used to kid around and call her "god brook" cuz that's what it means in german....
maybe it's her and she has another bar now.
how can i get in touch with her?
i found it. i googled it. it's a market in cruz bay.
