Thursday, March 17, 2011

Polack Bros. in Chicago 1967


SAVE0140, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Hi Buckles,

Love your blog, check it out every day, Question for you or your bloggers….As a kid in Chicago in the 1980’s the first circus I went to was the Medinah Shrine Circus in the Medinah Temple in downtown Chicago. After reading your blog for the last few years I’ve realized that “shrine circus’s” usually just had actually circus come play for them… Do you know what circus (circus’s ) played the Medinah Shrine Circus? OR was it just a collection of acts from various circus’s . I have some photos of the old Medinah Shrine circus I will send you for your blog…

Brandon Sterk
Chicago, IL


From Buckles:
Medinah Temple was to Polack Bros. what Madison Sq. Garden is
to RBBB today. I think we showed there about 3 weeks but basically
it was just another stop on our coast to coast tour.
No idea when I.J. and Louie started the date but it was a winner.
We kept the elephants stabled at the Armory at night and off stage
left during the day.
Picture above shows our morning stroll to the Temple, Rosie with
his dukey bag in the lead with "Anna May".

Posted by Buckles at 3/17/2011 03:42:00 PM

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

The first time I had the pleasure of working the Medina Shrine date was in 1976. It was a 21 day affair then, and may still be now.

One odd thing struck me back then, on the day before we opened a short but very well dressed man by the name of Carmine came by accompanied by a much larger friend.
All of us butchers were informed that union dues would be required 'before' we commenced any activity in the seating area.(Carmine's words not mine).As you might guess everyone ponied up on the spot.

1976's Chicago date was a Paul Kay production. But I do remember Tommy Hanneford bringing his show there a few years later.

17 March, 2011 19:46

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