Ma r's: A local coffeehouse By DAVID STOLL j ARK'S COFFEEHOUSE at 605 E. William closed in Decem- ber and won't reopen. The story is sad, familiar, and in conformity with the honorable Mark's tradi- tion. Threatened by debt and b a c k taxes variously estimated to total between $20,000 and $35,000 by those who really don't know for sure, the owner slipped out of town before Christmas for parts un- * known. In so doing, she followed a precedent set by the previous owners four years before. Unlike them, however, before she left she sold everything of value in the place, precluding any attempt by someone else to make another go of it. The collective of workers who operated the place disbanded last summer. Mark's was just about the only place in town where patrons had to deal with the problem of one guitar player drowning out ano- ther. Different kinds of people got woman named Pat Reynolds. Oth- er bidders reportedly dropped out when they heard she was repro- senting the employees. That fall Pat signed for $12,000 in loans from friends, relatives and busi- nesses around town in order to get Mark's started again. She hadn't just bought the business, of course, because with the bankrupt c:t- feehouse came a loyal body of friends and workers. In the next two months these people worked hard, and for little or no pay, to carry out .he exten- sive renovations needed to reopen the place. The new Mark's that wel pomed home the homeless in late 1%69 fea- tured a grill, which promised to bring in more money than ever be- fore. A few months later the PIn- ball Wizard moved in.- a collec- tion of shakeand-lever machines in the basernnt which laid most of the rent. ' Though the classical music was gone forever, most of the old famil- " .' \ n, .'SSm.S'Sm....'SSS'S "S. , 4m ' n "' .... "Of course, it's impossible for anyone to run a place like that for very long, here in Ann Arbor or in any other city. But these places have a natural life. They get started, go for a while, and die. But people still keep on trying." -friend of Mark's q{+"Va x" . ,""s + } :xt}p " wa s;s. .}ra .y} (. ..:t,"v ;. vy e rnV. ../}.;: "t, was money in the bank and Pat was trying to sell the place for $30,000.' She never found a buyer though, maybe because the with holding taxes hadn't been paid f r better than two years. There were other problems too It seems that nearly evezwone who was going berserk in town custom arily chose to do so in Mark's. Once a customer chased an em- ployee around with a butcher knife. An old Mark's worker re- ports going ont to the dayroom at Ypsilanti State Mental Hospital and seeing all his old =ustonmer there. THE PINBALL machines in the basement began to draw a coliec- tion of burnt out personalitie:^, street indigents from Detrit and young toughy from Saline and 'p- silanti, whose end-of-the-world man- ners inevitably grated on the more conservative citizens pstair:". The best that can be said of the pinball freaks is that they "en- livened" the place. At worst they stole anything at hand, begged for food, and demanded money from customers. Drug dealers hung around playing the ma'hines until they scored a deal. Far a time several pimps sold utniar high school-aged girls over the public telephone. Junkies shot u:, in the bathroom. While out in the main room the chess players played chess - a curious breed indeed - very intent on their game and completely oblivious to everything that went on around them. The chess players woud take up entire tables for days, mental c o g s turning in constant ratiocinatton, and if they didn't buy in propor- tion to the time spent there, who gives a damn? who can do any. thing anyway? One afternoon some angry per- son stuffed a roll of oilet paper, in the washbowl and left the water running. Maybe it was an angry the per junkie or an angry pimp, because them ot that was just after the manage- ers took ment had taken out the public tele. hind th phone and painted the bathroom guns, a red so that the junkies couldn't feelings stand it anymore. they kn The puddle of water which After spread from underneath the wa'h- usually room door engulfed a table where ever. T two chess players weregfitting. sors g "You feel yer feet gettin' wet, friends kid?" queried black kindly. returne "Nope. Bishop to pawn," mat- moneyt tered white. Unmoving amid the depend and fo ds Eighty-three years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan nord St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104 News Phone: 764-0552 " b. 420 Mayr -- - WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1974 Support GEO demands jHE UNIVERSITY has long neglected the needs and rights of its more than 2,200 graduate employes. The lot of the teaching fellows, re- search assistants, and staff assistants have, not without just cause, been char- acterized as that of slave laborers. They carry the brunt of undergradu- ate teaching - the most vital task at this university - thus freeing the professors to publish rather than perish. Yet the administration has steadfast- ly refused to give the teaching fellows adequate compensation for their work, arguing that these people are granted the privilege of pursuing graduate de- grees in exchange for their teaching. The teaching fellows do not receive an Editorial Staff DANtEL DIDLE Editor in Chief JUDY RUSKIN and REBECCA WARNER Managing Editors TONY SCHbWARTZ .................. Sunday Editor MARTIN PORTER ................... Sunday Editor SUE STEPHENSON..................Feature Editor MARNIE HEYXN ........,.... ,..... Editorial Directorx CINDY HILL .....................Executive Editor KENNETH FINK........ ...... .. Arts Editor STAFF WRITERS: Prakash Aswani. Gordon Atcheson, rLaura Berman, Dan Blugexrman, Howard Brick, Bonnie Carnes, Charles Coleman, Barn Cornell, Jeff Day, Della DiPietro, Mike Duweck, Ted Evan- off, Matt Gerson, William Heenan, Steve Hersch, Jack Krost, Andrea Lilly, Mary Long, Jean Love, Jeff Luxenberg, Josephine Marcotty. Beth Nissen, Cheryl Pilate, Ann Rauma, Sara Rimer, Jim Schuster, Boi; Seidenstein, Stephen Seibst, Chip inclair, Jeff Sorensen, David Stoll, Paul Ter- williger. I 4e2/? . .4 e Rt*y .. 3 adequate living wage, any Job security or fringe. benefits grudgingly accorded other University employes. Now, by organizing a union and at- tempting to carry out a strike vote, the Graduate Employes Organization (GEO) has made large steps toward improving the status of University teaching fellows. GEO has done this with little help from the University. President Robben Fleming made the eleventh-hour offer of an elec- tion held under the auspices of the Michi- gan Employment Relations Commission (MERC), but such an election might take months to prepare and would come with no guarantee of union recognition by the University. SENSING THAT the moment for most effective action was at hand, GEO called a strike vote. The vote failed last night, but the efforts of the infant teach- ing fellows' union have brought desper- ately needed attention to one of the Uni- versity's most severe inadequacies. TODAY'S STAFF: News: Dan Biddle, Della DiPietro, Steven Hersh, Cheryl Pilate, Judy Ruskin Editorial Page: Brian Colgan, Cindy Hill, Paul Hoskins Arts Page: Ken Fink Photo Technician: Allison Rutton dcdn.4c1t d{1 eQcluvu a. k /6d _ together there, Ann Arbor individ- uals of every description. Go sit in Mark's, one of its most dedicat- ed habitues has observed, and with- in an hour you could see everyone you knew in town, because they all made a point of dropping in every hour or so. THERE REALLY was a Mark, a sculptor who hangs out at the Del Rio now and helped start the place back in 1967. His partners were Lloyd Cross, an expert in lasers and holography, and Paul Melton, an old bohemian and avid rea:er of the Catholic Worker. Their coffeehouse was after the European model, with pastries, giant sandwiches, soups and five kinds of coffee. It was a place where people could sit and talk, play chess and listen to poetry. And in the evening there was sweet music, classical guitar or :hamber, played by local music- ians or artists on tour who stop- ped in after performing at Rack- h-am. The clientele then was probataly more genteel than it later became. Professors flocked there in ap- preciable numbers, as well as sti-. dents with briefcases who spread their work out an the tables be fore them, talked for a while and then worked a little. Long-hared young men and ungirdled women were still quite outnumbered, even on State St., but the coffeehouse became one of their places too In Mark's the hippies and the intel- lectuals got together, discussed the latest news from California and bemoaned Sheriff Harvey's latest outrage. As Mark's drew people oif the street, however, it also drew with them their afflictions. Daughters* of deans were shooting up and get- ting laid. The early Mark's was a classic hassle scene, drawing not only city health inspectors I i k e flies, but also police looking for drugs and runaways. THE STREET was gentler than iars came back. Mark's again became the locus of concentrated good times: poetry readings, chess tournaments in the fall, and jazz bands or folk singers one Sunday a month. AS THE coffeehouse took hold again, Past handed mare and more of the resiponsibility over to the "c o l1 e c t i v e," Mark's wasn't really a collective, because there was an owner with personal liabil- ity for debts and the worlkers were just employees. Still there was the dream: equal ownership, profirs shared and decisions made demo- .cratically. At one point the talk about a co. operative became serious enough that a charter was drawn up. But "No books worthy of the name were ever kept. Withholding taxes were taken from employes' paychecks but never handed over to the govern- ment." se nsM .v.'{+ {r;t6A , a S . ev4 A.S . :.v .. v::'"i;,i">.? i ar the papers of incorporation were never signed, the financial arrange- ments never made, because if Mark's was open again, it was never so very far from closing. The dace was wrhat it was be- cause of the great variety of char- acters who hung out there, but it needed financial support in order to survive. There was no bad guv to order the indigents nut of the place when they were choking up the lunch rush, or to rag the em- ployees into keeping at their jobs, or to stop the constant hand-outs. Nor were any books worthy of the name ever kept. Withholding taxes were taken from employees' paychecks but never handed over to the government, supposedly be- cause the money was needed to cries of despair and mess of clean- up which descended upon them, black and white kept on with their game. OF COURSE, the chess players couldn't have stayed if theyphadn't been wanted. When times got .so rough that no one else would conme in, when even old friends doing their laundry would stay down the street at the Cottage Inn, the chess players hung on. They were very important. The falls and the winters were. the worst, because the cold drove the street indigents who hadn't left town yet inside. With nn money and no place to go, they would try to go to Sleep on the tables. Bu* the poor hadn't inherited the earth yet, not even in Mark's, because thing wx togethe lectivet a core didn'tt selejs ers, just into bel keep go There even s place in chicken people to have BUT' ated a the rel worker the hig es pile In th ball m where{ would chine's mosphe counter much h Even their in who a) making eg foo foo yur ople in charge wouii. thrxv it. That was whe the work- k to keeping lead pipes be- he counter, even carrying nd on the evenings had tight in their stomachs because new trouble was commirg. things became worse they turned better again, how- Though most of the profes- 'radually went away, t h e and lthe customers lways d and began to soend the upon which the coffeehouse ed again. The remarkable 'as that the workers kept it r. Membershin in the co- had turned over slwly. but remained. If the vwjrkers believe in their individual they did believe in the nth- st enough to fool each other lieving that the place coul:l oing. was this other dream, illier than the iv- t, of a n the country with pigs and s and a restaurant. to which would come from the city' e a good meal. THE finances only deter-or- nd with them deteriorated ltions between Pat and the s. The longer Pat hung on, her the debts at back tax- d up on her. e summer of 1972 the pin- -achines left for Ypsi.andi, their owner thought they make more money. The ma- departure lightened the a:- re, may have improved sales a bit, bur made it harder to pay the rent. the workers admt that itiative declined. The people lways made soup stopped soup, the man who made yung stopped making egg ng, the baker stopped bak- ing. During the 100-order 1 u n c h rush some workers would refuse to take over the grill. IN AUGUST of last year matters finally came to a head. One day a notice from the management ap- peared op the bulletin board an- nouncing a meeting for that night. "No show, no job," was scrawled in big letters at the bottm. or employees who had run the place virtually on their own fi the last three months, this was too much. When Pat tried to make up a new work schedule chat night, someone stood up and gold her off. Most of the employees walked out of the meeting and never came. back. Since there was no one left to work the place, hours of bu'siness were slashed to banker's lv o u r a. Counter service deteriorated, re- ceipts dwindled, the place got dir- ty. WHEN MARK'S finally shut down in early December, it didn't give up the ghost with any kind of com- motion. One morning there was a sign on the door: "closed to re-do the floors." Sometime during the next two weeks all the fixtures in- side vanished and legal-looking pieces of paper appeared on the floor. The batteries ran down, the works stopped when Pat became paranoid enough to break away from Ann Arbor. It gets cold here in the wintertime anyway. "BUSINESS AND youto" mut- tered the owner of the Fleetwood Diner, shaking his head. He was thinking of taking over tne build- ing at 605 E. William after Mark's closed but decidedthat the rent was5 too high and the s trnctue in need of too much renovatio. "These people around hers think they can do anytin-g;" he said with sad contempt, "so they try to run a business half-assed." Disil- irsioned, he added: "Even y ou r best friend demands serv'ice when he comes up' to the-counter, and if he doesn't get it, hc'll go some- where else." ONE AFTERNOON a street in- digent who'd been in and out of the local psychiatric wards freaked out in Mark's. This particular person needed lots of Vitamin C to keep himself from coming apart, so he wanted someone to stake him to a nick-'ip truck and gas money, so that he could drive down to Flor- ida and come back with a load of oranges. No one in the place took his proposal very serion sly, of course, and as they lost patience with him he became increasingly paranoid, turned violent and began to sob hysterically. After a collection of people had calmed him down a little, he ask- ed to be taken to the University Hospital emergency room. As long as the two Mark's workers w h o drove him over there touched him, he was all right, but as soon as they took their hands off him he started going crazy again. So they hung on to him, and after a while he was feeling fin, laugh- ing and cracking jokes about him- self. Suddenly someiing struck him; he stood up as if he had something to say. "If yon ever go crazy," he an- nounced to the emergency room .}{;{ {{ ',:: .vrr..r ;ruYi?: p{. p '*"-' SW.V'fl. ASyv a cp~ ": } } }d: !." ~ i Y5 }.fi?'4 ~ ..:.i%.:iifr:.. ;;:".,.< :Cv. . ."r ' Ft W'r5{i~ }:S.b'd i^{ . .{'. . 4 G . + 7:0 "For a time several pimps sold junior high school-aged girls over the public telephone. Junkies shot up in the bathroom. While out in the main room the chess players played chess.. ::"" :"a ::: ";r sa :: r'vy,:r::t;: 1:y;": af '; ss : t"ees .;;...,,+."s i ,.,:,.; .}y." : U c /.tt . 6 2 Lt 1 ;- da I v rr. it is now, however, or at least peo- ple who were around then remenm- ber it that way. Recalls one form- er flower child: "He (Paul Mel- ton) took me off the street and gave me a job. First le made me a janitor, put a broom in my hands and showed me how to sweep the floor. Then he showed me how to handle the counter, and after a while he taught me how to make soup for a lot of people." There were also the heroes, or the people who would later be- come heroes and be remembered fondly. Commander Cody played in the basement and was int'o. duced to several of his band mem- hers there. Joni Mitchell used to relax at Mark's until it was time for her to go around the corner to perform at the old Canterbury House. But the coffeehouse accumul3ted debt and tax trouble, as establish- ments run by bohemians inevitably do. In August of 1969 state treas- ury agents descended n the place and slapped a lock on the door. Dnoanidi bv revAners and credit- a~o~tZ~~1 pe42 o~Fa y. keep the place going. Although there were savings in the bank, sales tax due the state would go unpaid for long periods of tine, then under threat of lock-out be handed over with tthe addition of heavy penalties. FORMER WORKERS blame the financial mismanagement on Pat. Worker David Bass has described her as a "melting pot of beer, country and western music, ear- splitting belly laughs, adrenalin and tequila." The workers liked her and were afraid of her, because she mother- ed Mark's with her good humor and ruined it with her neglect.After the first year-and-a-half her de- dication to the place suffered cur- ious lapses. Sometimes she wound hardly stick her head through the door for months; and in her ah- sence financial complications would mount like film in a movie projector gone off the track arnd kept running. Of course the workers, even the insiders, don't really know w h a ± ~\N I \ I i-i I WhZ~i~§~U i