I was determined to find a picture of the music store via my usual history sleuthing methods, but I came up empty. From Pittsburgh Music History.Īre you even kidding me?! Any shopper in 1907 could have wandered up Fifth and found themselves listening to 20-year-old Chico Marx pounding away at the piano?! Downtown Pittsburgh music shopper were treated daily to the crazy piano antics of Chico Marx. Chico hired the song pluggers and accompanied them on piano. To promote sheet music sales “song pluggers” sang the tunes for customers. In the days before radio and phonographs popular songs were sold in the form of sheet music. In 1907 Chico Marx at the age of 20 was transferred to Pittsburgh by the Shapiro and Bernstein Company to manage their music store at 302 Fifth Avenue near the corner of Wood Street. So for some reason today, a reason I will never know, I Googled “Marx Brothers Pittsburgh.” My point is … my latest obsession is my renewed love for the Marx Brothers. Suddenly I was watching Marx Brothers movies again, except instead of viewing them on a VHS tape played on a rented Giant Eagle VCR, I was streaming them from Amazon. Randy sort of reignited the Marx Brothers spark in me.
![marx brothers statues marx brothers statues](https://i.etsystatic.com/5267222/r/il/7efaa5/1577026835/il_794xN.1577026835_ew95.jpg)
So yeah, we were dorks who never partied on New Year’s Eve, but I guarantee those evenings spent with my father, my sisters, and The Marx Brothers were just as memorable as anything you’ve done on January 31 of any year. Harpo continuously handing his leg to unsuspecting people who would look down to find themselves holding it at the knee.Ĭhico’s pointing and shooting of the high notes on the piano. My father would do that silent, wheezing, red-faced laugh. Instead, we five girls were safely tucked on the couch, wrapped in blankets, eating popcorn he popped on the stove, and we were watching Duck Soup (I think I saw that one a dozen times), A Day at the Races, or, my favorite, The Big Store.Īnd we would laugh.
![marx brothers statues marx brothers statues](https://marx-brothers.org/memo/figures//esco.jpg)
No, we weren’t dealing with the drunks on the road. No, we weren’t going out to party until midnight.
#Marx brothers statues movie
My adoration of those geniuses stems from my father, who would spend each New Year’s Eve putting on a Marx Brothers Movie Marathon in the basement for me and my sisters. I mean our mutual love for The Marx Brothers. I can’t even remember, honestly, how DVE’s Randy Baumann and I got on the topic of our mutual love for Barry Manilow. You can blame this whole thing on Randy Baumann.
![marx brothers statues marx brothers statues](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c1/4b/8c/c14b8c4d5aacbeaa43b89a0bc87a1ee3.jpg)
(A young Harpo, Zeppo, Chico and Groucho Marx)