Leggi tutta la storia del Red Garter - Red Garter Florence
Leggi tutta la storia del Red Garter - Red Garter Florence
Leggi tutta la storia del Red Garter - Red Garter Florence
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
FOTO STORICHE<br />
Da sinistra:<br />
John «Jack» Francis Correa<br />
davanti all'entrata<br />
<strong>del</strong> <strong>Red</strong> <strong>Garter</strong> di Firenze al<strong>la</strong> fine<br />
degli anni '60;<br />
Jack Dupen «l'inventore» dei moderni<br />
<strong>Red</strong> <strong>Garter</strong>;<br />
Una banjo band di San Francisco<br />
con il tipico<br />
abbigliamento; a seguire alcune<br />
immagini<br />
di <strong>Red</strong> <strong>Garter</strong> nel mondo.<br />
-<br />
HISTORIC PICTURES<br />
From the left:<br />
John 'Jack' Francis Correa in front<br />
of the entrance<br />
of the <strong>Red</strong> <strong>Garter</strong> in <strong>Florence</strong> in the<br />
<strong>la</strong>te '60s;Jack Dupen,<br />
the 'inventor' of the modern <strong>Red</strong><br />
<strong>Garter</strong>s; A San Francisco<br />
banjo band wearing its typical outfit;<br />
next, several pictures<br />
of the <strong>Red</strong> <strong>Garter</strong>s around the world.<br />
Gli inizi – Al civico 33 rosso di via de' Benci, quasi a metà<br />
strada tra l’Arno e piazza Santa Croce, una volta c’era una falegnameria.<br />
Una <strong>del</strong>le tante botteghe artigiane di cui il centro di<br />
Firenze pullu<strong>la</strong>va. Ma nel<strong>la</strong> primavera <strong>del</strong> 1962 al rumore <strong>del</strong>le<br />
seghe e <strong>del</strong>le pialle si sostituì <strong>la</strong> musica <strong>del</strong> banjo, tipico strumento<br />
folk americano a 4 o 5 corde, e il cristallino tintinnio dei<br />
bicchieri.<br />
Un americano di Boston, il 27enne John Francis Correa, ottenuti<br />
i necessari permessi, il 23 maggio 1962 tenne a battesimo<br />
un locale di tipo nuovo: il <strong>Red</strong> <strong>Garter</strong>. Anche se dal<strong>la</strong> stampa<br />
cittadina veniva definito night club o dancing, si trattava semplicemente<br />
di un bar dove si ascoltava <strong>del</strong><strong>la</strong> musica tradizionale<br />
americana suonata, appunto, da una banjo band, cioè da un<br />
gruppo di musicisti vestiti come pianisti di saloon <strong>del</strong> Far West,<br />
ma con in testa <strong>la</strong> paglietta, copricapo tipicamente fiorentino.<br />
Forte di un’esperienza ben radicata nel<strong>la</strong> terra a stelle e strisce,<br />
Correa aveva portato a Firenze il nome (e una sorta di parziale<br />
know how) di una catena di locali americani tuttora esistenti<br />
(alcuni sono dei pub o dei club lounge, altri dei bed&breakfast,<br />
ma non mancano esempi di alberghi a 5 stelle e perfino di un<br />
casinò).<br />
Gli Stati Uniti erano disseminati di <strong>Red</strong> <strong>Garter</strong>, nati verso <strong>la</strong> fine<br />
<strong>del</strong>l’Ottocento in aree dove mercanti e cercatori d’oro necessitavano<br />
di fermarsi per periodi più o meno lunghi. Oggi li defini-<br />
32 50° RED GARTER<br />
the early days – At number 33r in via de' Benci, nearly<br />
halfway between the river Arno and Santa Croce square, there<br />
was once a carpenter’s shop, one of the many artisans’ workshops<br />
that filled the centre of <strong>Florence</strong>. But in the spring of<br />
1962 the noise of saws and p<strong>la</strong>nes was rep<strong>la</strong>ced by the sound of<br />
the banjo (a four or five stringed instrument, typical of American<br />
folk music) along with the clinking of beer g<strong>la</strong>sses.<br />
An American from Boston, twenty-seven year old John Francis<br />
Correa, as soon as he obtained the necessary authorization, the<br />
22nd May 1962 christened a bar of a new kind: the <strong>Red</strong> <strong>Garter</strong>.<br />
Even if it was defined as a night club or dancing club by the local<br />
papers, it was simply a bar where traditional American music<br />
was p<strong>la</strong>yed by a banjo band, i.e. a band of musicians dressed<br />
as piano p<strong>la</strong>yers in a Far West saloon, but wearing straw boaters<br />
– <strong>la</strong> paglietta – a typical Florentine hat. On the strength<br />
of his deep-rooted experience in the country of the Stars and<br />
Stripes, Correa had brought to <strong>Florence</strong> the name (and a certain<br />
amount of know-how) of an American pub chain that still<br />
exists: there are pubs, club lounges, B&Bs, but also five star hotels<br />
and even a casino. The United States was once strewn with<br />
<strong>Red</strong> <strong>Garter</strong>s, born around the end of the 19th century in areas<br />
where merchants and gold diggers needed to stop off for brief or<br />
long periods of time. We would now call them multifunctional<br />
spaces, but at that time they were little more than an inn with a