[4904] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: end of an era
sorokin@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sorokin@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Aug 14 11:43:39 1996
The parts of the legend I heard (and these are certainly popular, though
I don't know if they're true) go like this:
Lo these many years ago Steve Herrell had a player piano. Lacking
anything else to do with it he opened an ice cream store; this became
the huge success which is the Steve's we know today. Later in life,
Steve got bored and sold Steve's Ice Cream for an astronomical amount of
money. A little after that he realized that not owning an ice cream
parlor was far more boring than the alternative, and opened a new place,
called Herrell's because he had sold the name along with the business.
The truth of this I cannot tell you for certain, but there was certainly
a player piano in the original Steve's ice cream, and I'm pretty sure
Herrell's opened in Harvard Square (with a really cool former bank
vault) around the time Steve's was closed. Also one person who told me
about the name change worked at Herrell's, so they have a good chance of
being right. And if it's not true, it's been an urban legend for a very
very long time, like Since I Was A Small Child (TM).
