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![]() Ronnie Schell and Hank Donat. |
When
the hungry i strip club on Broadway changed
its look in 2002 a North Beach institution came one step closer to disappearing
from the palette of historic venues in San Francisco's 20th Century
arts and social legacy. Pretty high brow consequences for a strip joint,
don't you think? It's all about the lowercase "i." That's because this hungry
i was a name-only hungry i, not Enrico Banducci's
world famous nightclub. Banducci's hungry i - the name stood for "hungry
intellectual" - operated at 599 Jackson Street and achieved reknown as an
avant-garde hang out and performance space for ground-breaking young comedians
in the 1950s. Mort Sahl was a hungry i standout. Phyllis Diller, Bill Cosby,
Lenny Bruce, Ronnie Schell, and Jonathan Winters are also
hungry i vets. The Kingston Trio recorded two famous albums at the hungry
i, including the very first live performance of Wimoweh. Vince
Guaraldi, Glenn Yarbrough, the Gateway Singers, Godfrey Cambridge, and other
musicians and comedians also recorded live at the hungry i. The distinctive
Jackson Street space was punctuated by its cavernous entertainment room
and a "mile long" bar. By the late 1950s, the hungry i's alternative-ness
had given way to its notoriety as a stop along San Francisco's after-dark
parade of adult ease and sophistication. In other words, tourists found
it. After the club closed, Banducci sold the name to what became the hungry
i strip club, 546 Broadway. The Jackson Street property is part of a block
associated with the notorious International
Hotel, and was under construction for a senior housing complex in 2002.
A "Hungry i Reunion" featuring Diller, Cosby, Winters, and others was filmed
in 1980.
Detail
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Copyright 2002 Hank Donat |