UNSUNG BARS OF BAY CITY: Ex-Newsman (Who Else?) Blogs About Quirky Saloons

Studio 23 Exhibits by Sara Urband-Murphy, Linda Chamberlin Draws Art Lovers

November 17, 2013
By: Dave Rogers

Dennis Rosenblum is back in the house.

The house being his new home in Bay City, a change he and his wife eagerly sought after decades in Royal Oak.

The Rosenblums are among a stream of urban retirees finding Bay City, and especially downtown Bay City, almost a Utopian existence compared to that of freeways and commuting in sprawling metropolises.

Rosenblum was among the eclectic overflow crowd Friday at Studio 23's exhibit --Fairy Tale Project by Sara Urband-Murphy -- A mixed media art exhibit inspired by the magic of fairy tales and the notion that everything is possible when you follow your heart.

And the opening event featured another solo exhibit, 'Simple Works' Mixed media pieces by artist Linda Chamberlin. Linda's works were selected for the 2010 Ann Arbor Art Fair promotional posters and materials.

A former Detroit Free Press night metro editor, web editor, assistant nation/world editor, copy slot chief, Rosenblum spent 17 years in the Motor City.

He is one of those anonymous guys who fashions the news for you every day, crafts the catchy headlines, puts literary correctness into reportorial exuberance and brings the spirit of the city and the world into black and white.

But he never forgot interning at The Bay City Times in 1970, and the colorful watering holes and Damon Runyon types who haunted them.

Like the pubs of Dublin, the saloons of London or Glasgow, these places establish a certain character -- for good or ill -- of the metropolis in which they are located.

What would Yale really be but for the "tables down at Mories, the place where Louie dwells" of the immortal Whiffenpoof university fraternity drinking song?

Who ever lucky enough to have had the experience can forget "Uncle Billy" Weller bursting unceremoniously into song at the Green Hut with "Danny Boy" or "My Wild Irish Rose?"

Rosenblum has made his local presence known with a sure-to-intrigue blog about "The Unsung Bars of Bay City." (barsofbaycity.blogspot.com).

Please, gentle reader, do not dismiss Mr. Rosenblum's quest to inform the world of these iconic pubs, saloons and centers of elbow-bending -- they are, for fun-seekers, the center of their world.

Many of the most frequented by the crowd of news-people, male and female, of days gone by are, sadly, gone and beyond Mr. Rosenblum's purview, except in memory.

Who among you who ever frequented the Imperial Hotel, the Ambassador Bar, the Commodore, the Republic Hotel, the Dry Dock at the Wenonah Hotel, Fortress North, Furlo's or recalls the splash made by the first Bay City night club "The Black Hawk" of Mike Revette, can ever wash those memories away with small beer?

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes," some sage once said, twisting the temperance saw to his own purposes.

Rosenblum, he of the hirsute appearance with a beard resembling an Irish bard, is no dilettante, but he appreciates art and rubbed elbows with Bay City's elites recently at the opening of an art exhibit at Studio 23.

Gaping at the marvelous stained glass Little Red Riding Hood, complete with leering wolf in the corner, of the accomplished artist Sara Urband Murphy, (www.darkhorsetileworks.com) I was pulled away to "meet the guy from the Free Press," none other than the aforementioned Rosenblum.

Upon retirement, Rosenblum and his wife headed north, not to Traverse City or Petoskey where the wealthy and privileged play, but to blue collar yet historic environs of the city on the river by the bay of Sauginaum, as it was called by the 18th century French.

Peruse his blog and you can catch up on the fascinating doings of the obliterati who haunt the dens of iniquity, and, for some, inspiration, of Bay City.

Dennis has paid his dues to journalism and now is entitled to entertain to his "heart's delight," as the cliché goes. ###