Green's Pharmacy in Palm Beach - milkshakes, fries and history

 

Green's Pharmacy
151 North County Road
Palm Beach, FL
(561) 832-4443
Luncheonette and pharmacy

https://www.greenspb.com/
Luncheonette open - Monday-Saturday - 7-3; Sunday 7 am- 1 pm
Pharmacy – closed on Sundays

By Jane Feehan

The idle rich, working poor and all kinds in between rub elbows (well, almost) at this Palm Beach institution. Known for its old-fashioned lunch counter and simple dining room, Green’s is remembered as a place John F. Kennedy visited as a kid for lollipops and later for daily breakfast.

Opened in 1938 by brothers Bob and Murray Green, the Palm Beach 82-seat luncheonette continues to host diners who appreciate its good food, reasonable prices and lively atmosphere. Many also appreciate its history.

For some, walking into a place JFK frequented is reason enough for a visit. Kennedy and brother Bobby breakfasted there frequently as adults. JFK continued to visit the luncheonette as President and remained on first-name status with the owners. There were other famous faces at Green’s. In 1986, co-founder Bob Green told a reporter that Bob Hope, Big Crosby and Ginger Rogers had also been among the famous who stopped by for a meal or purchase.

Bob Green sold the business to Cunningham Drugs in 1986, a few years after brother Murray died. Since that sale, Green’s has been bought and sold a number of times. Bob Green passed away in 1990, but Green’s retains much of its original ambiance, including classic luncheonette fare and its pharmacy.

There are not many lunch counters around like Green’s where history is served with a milk shake, egg cream, malted, or a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. 

Copyright © 2022 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Tags: Historic places Palm Beach, breakfast in Palm Beach, lunch in Palm Beach, JFK, Palm Beach history, Palm Beach restaurants

Busy at 12:30

Sources:

Palm Beach Daily News Jan. 4, 1986

Palm Beach Daily News, May 23, 1993

Sun-Sentinel May 4, 1990

Tags: history of Palm Beach, Palm Beach history

Palm Beach: From hotels to a glittering community

 

Worth Avenue, Palm Beach, 1941
Florida State Archives

An article written by Harford Powell, Jr. for Harper’s Bazaar in 1931 offers a glimpse of early Palm Beach. It must have captured the imagination of those shivering “up North” and who, during those drab days of the Depression, could not travel but only read about that glittering place in the sun. No doubt Powell contributed to the glamorous stature of the island. His very brief history of Palm Beach follows.

About traveling to Palm Beach: He claimed Florida bound railroad trains were on wings : " ... you have no more shaken the snowflakes off your hat before the porter is opening the windows and starting the electric fan."

In Palm Beach: Though there was no air conditioning at the time, he wrote 

"men have really tamed the tropics at Palm Beach." He probably was referring to its hotels.

He claimed Palm Beach’s center of social life was its hotels – the Breakers and the "still more prodigious" Royal Poinciana--until the war. 

Bathing Beach at the Breakers 1930
Florida State Archives

A place to socialize: Singer built the Everglades Club, and Mizner designed the building, Powell wrote. It was designed as a home for the convalescent war officers. Before it was finished, the war ended and … it was opened as a club.

An astonishing change in Palm Beach, now a place to live: Paris Singer and Addison Mizner, the two responsible for making Palm Beach a winter home community, arrived in 1918. Powell asserted that it was this duo who made the beach-side town a place to live; it was no longer merely a hotel community.

Mrs. Edward T. Stotesbury of Philadelphia saw it, admired the totally new note in architecture which Mr. Mizner had struck [with the Everglades Club] and commissioned him to build a home in similar vein for herself. So began the astonishing change in Palm Beach.

A place in the sun ... 

 

Copyright © 2021, 2022. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

For more on Addison Mizner, use search box.

Tags: Florida history, Palm Beach history, Palm Beach hotels

Visit: http://www.thebreakers.com

Selling beautiful Palm Beach in 1915

 

Early Palm Beach 1900s
Florida Archives/Florida Memory

An advertisement by Henry Flagler in 1915 would leave most of us chuckling today. Below are Palm Beach "selling points" expected to appeal to Americans at the time:

* Located 500 miles south of Jacksonville on the beautiful and healthful East Coast.

* Lowest death rate in America

*Tropical foliage in the heart of the pineapple growing section. Oranges cocoanuts, grape fruit, 
  vegetables, fish, oysters

*Unrivaled for aquatic sports, motor boat speeding, canoeing, boating, bathing, golf

*Smooth, firm roads for automobiling … cycle wheel chairs with attendants

* Excellent railway and steamship traveling facilities to and from all parts of the United States

Palm Beach late 1800s
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Note: "Wheelchair cycles" mentioned were standard recreational travel around town then, similar to what is seen on Fort Lauderdale beach today: passengers in a chair being pulled by a bicycle rider.

Tags: Florida history, Palm Beach history, tourism history, Florida in the early 1900s, history of Palm Beach 

JFK, the Cuba Missile Crisis and a Florida bunker at Peanut Island

Peanut Island at left, background; Palm Beach
across lagoon. Boat rental c. 1938 in Riviera Beach
Florida State Archives

Peanut Island

6500 Peanut Island Road

Riviera Beach, FL

561-845-4445

http://www.pbcgov.com/parks/peanutisland/

Sail Fish Marina (Palm Beach Shores) tours and shuttle service

https://www.sailfishmarina.com/water-taxi/

By Jane Feehan

Today a county park, Peanut Island literally rose from a 1918 Port of Palm Beach dredging project. The mission was to create Lake Worth Inlet, a shipping channel.  Discarded materials from Lake Worth formed a 10-acre “island” or spoil site.  Ownership and use of the island has been the subject of controversy over the years. The name was attached when Florida gave permission to use the site as a terminal for shipping peanut oil. The plan was abandoned in the 1940s but the name remained.

Of humble beginnings, Peanut Island boasts some lofty history.

The US Coast Guard opened a station on the island in 1936. President John F. Kennedy anchored his yacht,  Honey Fitz, at the station when he visited nearby Palm Beach.  During the 1961 Cuban Missile Crisis, US Navy Seabees built a small bunker on Peanut Island to be used as the nation's command center if the crisis forced Kennedy and his family to seek shelter while visiting the "Winter White House."  After the president was assassinated, some officials suggested renaming the island to honor Kennedy. The motion failed.

JFK delivering ultimatum to USSR
Florida State Archives/

Additional dredging expanded the island to 80 acres during the 1990s. Today, boaters dock at Peanut Island to picnic, take tours of the Palm Beach Maritime Museum (the old Coast Guard station) or to hike. Terms of the lease set by the Port of Palm Beach reserve the right to use the island for inlet and port maintenance and to deposit additional dredged materials.

Shuttle service (for a fee) to the island is offered at Sailfish Marina, 561-683-8294. For county park information, call 561-845-4445.  

Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Dec. 9, 1963.

Palm Beach County History Online at: https://pbchistory.org/

http://www.pbcgov.com/parks/peanutisland/

Tags: Palm Beach County history, Palm Beach County parks, Sailfish Marina, history of Florida, JFK, Peanut Island, Cuba Missile crisis

Addison Mizner's Palm Beach: 38 estates, a club and Worth Avenue

 

Mizner's home off Worth Avenue

By Jane Feehan


Addison Mizner’s (1872-1933) Palm Beach architectural legacy includes 38 estates, a club and Worth Avenue.

Invited to Palm Beach in 1918 by his friend, Paris Singer (Singer Sewing Machine), Mizner first designed the Everglades Club, originally planned as a convalescent home for wounded World War I soldiers.

The club's design, a fusion of Moorish, Renaissance, Gothic and Venetian influences appealed to Mrs. Edward Stotesbury, a wealthy Philadelphian, who commissioned Mizner to create her Palm Beach home, El Mirasol. It was his first concept for a Palm Beach home, the first of the ocean side estates known as Mizner’s Row.

Everglades Club

A few estates were demolished over the years, including El Mirasol (its archway stands at North County Road, north of Wells Road, original site). Those remaining can be identified by Terra cotta tiles, minarets, towers, archways, fountains, columns - elements of Mizner’s “Mediterranean Revival” style.

The distinctive Mizner imprint still emblazons the Everglades Club on Worth Avenue and the architect’s former residence across the street at Via Mizner. Mizner named the adjacent Via Parigi for his friend, Paris Singer. Today, both vias are popular with shoppers, diners, and visitors.

Sources:

Palm Beach Historical Society

https://pbchistory.org/

https://www.pbchistoryonline.org/

O'Sulllivan, Maureen. Palm Beach Then and Now. West Palm Beach: Lickle Publishing, 2004

Tags: Addison Mizner, Palm Beach architecture, Palm Beach history

Mar-a-Lago's Past and Present in Palm Beach

Mar-a- Lago 1973
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

 By Jane Feehan


Addison Mizner wasn't the only architect to leave an imprint on Palm Beach. Several others were commissioned in the 1920s to build expansive, over-the-top-mansions on the island.

Mar-a-Lago 1920
Florida State Archives

Among them were Marion Sims Wyeth (1889-1982) and Viennese architect and production designer Joseph Urban (1872-1933). They designed Mar-a-Lago (ocean-to-lake) for Edward Hutton and his wife, cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. Sims drew up plans for the structure; Urban designed its interior.*

The opulent estate, with 115 rooms, a nine-hole golf course, 15th century tiles, and a 70-foot tower, took four years to build at a cost of $8 million. Completed in 1927, it still stands today. Hutton and Post divorced but the heiress continued to live at the mansion. Her parties and charitable functions at Mar-a-Lago were legendary, drawing national attention to Florida. When Post died in 1973, she left the estate to the U.S. government as a national landmark. Nearly seven years later, Mar-a-Lago was returned to the Post Foundation because maintenance costs were too high.

                                                                                  

Mar-a-Lago circa 1930
Florida State Archives

In 1985, Donald Trump purchased Mar-a-Lago as his residence. A few years later, he was granted permission to run it as a private social club. Mar-a-Lago sits across from the Bath and Tennis Club, at the southern end of town. It is now included in the National Register of Historic Places.

*Wyeth also designed the Florida Governor’s Mansion and the Norton Museum; Urban helped write several children’s books and was production designer for the Ziegfeld Follies and Metropolitan Opera.
_________________________________

Copyright © 2021. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

Historical Society of Palm Beach County 

O'Sullivan, Maureen. Palm Beach Then and Now. West Palm Beach: Lickle Publishing, 2004

Tags: Palm Beach, Palm Beach history, Mar-a-Lago

Tried and not true: a Florida attempt at Mardi Gras

 

Seminoles dancing on Clematis Street
West Palm Beach 1916
State of Florida Archives

We all know about the dollars and attention Mardi Gras generates for New Orleans, but few remember West Palm Beach once vied for a similar event in the early 1900s. The business community was eager to elevate the profile of this new South Florida city; New Orleans was its inspiration.

With an idea and vague plan, a committee of businessmen in 1916 set out for the Everglades to solicit the participation of Tony Tommie (1889-1931), a young Seminole they thought was chief.

A caption underneath a photo of Tommie used to promote the event read:  “Tony Tommie is the newly-elected Chief of the Tommie tribe of Seminoles who has agreed to bring his tribe to the Palm Beach Seminole Sun Dance.”

Tony Tommie and wife Edna John Tommie 1926
State of Florida Archives/Florida Memory

The first Seminole to attend a white school, Tommie was never chief but often spoke unofficially for his people. He did agree to bring other Seminoles to the first event, named the Seminole Sun Dance.

Seminole traditions never included a Sun Dance but that didn’t bother anyone. The first event, launched with $1000 and high hopes, was held in the spring of 1916 and continued each year until 1923.  It included Seminoles in their traditional dress marching side by side with costumed white participants in a parade.  A beauty contest, baby parade, marching bands and other elements were added over the years. 

After 1923, the fest was held intermittently until the 1950s.  In 1959, some called for the event to be made permanent, but it never came to pass. Needless to say, nor did an event comparable to the New Orleans Mardi Gras ever materialize.

Today, Sunfest (sunfest.com), an annual three-day music festival, offers no similarities to its Seminole Sun Dance predecessor.  

-------- 

Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Feb. 17, 1916 

Palm Beach Post, May 3, 1955 

Tags: Florida history, West Palm Beach history, West Palm in the 1900s, Tony Tommie, 
film researcher, Palm Beach County history

Early Florida Attraction: Alligator Joe's Alligator Farm in Palm Beach (of all places)

Alligator Joe's Alligator Farm,
Courtesy of Florida State Archives

 By Jane Feehan

Palm Beach once had its share of offbeat attractions. In the early 1900s, the west end of what became posh Worth Avenue, was home to Alligator Joe’s Farm.

Alligator Joe, or Warren Frazee, entertained winter visitors with a collection of alligators he caught and often wrestled.  A story in The New York Times in 1907, claims Alligator Joe dragged one of the creatures into the ocean for a battle.  

He towed a crocodile weighing 200 pounds well out into the Atlantic Ocean, had a wrestling match with it, mounted it bareback, and brought it back to shore … The reptile toward the end appeared to be completely fagged, but Frazier showed no exhaustion.

Alligator Joe was also known for his 'gator farms in Chicago, Kansas City and Denver and the manatees he caught and sent to the New York Zoological Society (it was illegal then as now).

Frazee entertained Palm Beach visitors in other ways.  In 1898, he took Sir Edward and Lady Colbrooke of England on a hunt for an alligator (some thought alligators were the same as crocodiles). He successfully bagged one more than 11 feet long and was paid $25 for his services. The animal was taken to a  taxidermist where it was stuffed, mounted and otherwise readied for a trip to the Colbrooke’s home in England.  

Frazee, a large man of more than 300 pounds, died in 1915 reportedly of causes related to his obesity

Copyright 2011, 2020 , 2022 

Sources:

Miami News, Feb. 18, 1898

New York Times, March 3, 1907

https://pbchistory.org

Tags: Florida history, Palm Beach history, Alligator Joe, early Florida attractions, Florida in the early 1900s

The Royal Poinciana - the Palm Beach Hotel Flagler built for 2,000 guests

1904 concert at the Royal Poinciana 
State Archives of  Florida

By Jane Feehan   

All that remains of the Royal Poinciana, the grand hotel that Henry M. Flagler built, is a marker on Palm Beach’s Cocoanut Row. At one time it was deemed the largest wooden structure in the world. For several decades it hosted well-heeled, cold-weather exiles from the north.

The hotel opened February 11, 1894 to 17 guests, just a month ahead of the first train that Flagler brought south from St. Augustine. The Royal Poinciana, with its three miles of corridors, offered rooms for 2,000 guests and employed about 1,600.

It remained queen of the Palm Beach hotels until Flagler built the Palm Beach Inn in 1896 on the ocean near what people referred to as “the breakers,” or waves. (That hotel, renamed The Breakers, burned down in 1903. It was rebuilt in 1904, only to burn down again in 1925. The third iteration of the Breakers opened in 1926.) The Royal Poinciana probably lost some of its luster to The Breakers but competition wasn’t the only cause of its demise.

Royal Poinciana 1920 
Courtesy of  State Archives of  Florida,
Florida Memory

The Hurricane of 1928 took a swipe at the large wooden structure, shifting some of it off its foundation. The following year, the stock market crash took a bite. The ensuing Great Depression closed the Royal Poinciana’s doors at the end of the 1930 winter season. It was demolished by 1935.

Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources: 

Mustaine, Beverly. On Lake Worth.  Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 1999.

Palm Beach Daily News, March 6, 1962

Tags: Palm Beach hotels, Florida tourism, Henry M. Flagler’s hotels, Palm Beach history

Lilly Pulitzer - Fashioning a trend with tropical colors

Sign at Via Mizner arcade, former site of
Pulitzer Groves, where Lilly sold her first shifts 

By Jane Feehan

Lilly Pulitzer died in 2013. When I first heard the breaking local news without the details, I thought she must have been in her 90s.  For most of my life Lilly Pulitzer has been a household name – at least in my house. But she was 81, which made her very young when I first heard of her. I did a little digging in news archives to see how she got her start in the fashion industry with her signature color-splashed tropical clothes.

Lilly was the daughter of Lillian (an heir to the Standard Oil fortune) and Robert McKim. They divorced when Lilly was a child. Lillian then married Ogden Phipps. The Phipps family has been long associated with Florida real estate, thoroughbred racing, philanthropy, the Bessemer Trust and Andrew Carnegie. Daughter Lilly married publishing magnate Herbert (Peter) Pulitzer, grandson of the famed Joseph Pulitzer, in 1950. The couple wintered in Palm Beach.

At the beginning of the Palm Beach winter season in 1962, a Palm Beach Post story (Nov. 18) mentioned shifts were all the rage. I remember them - straight lined, generally sleeveless dresses; my mother had a few in her closet.

“It all started here last spring, when Lilly Pulitzer designed a brief and comfortable little shift for her personal wardrobe,” wrote the reporter. “Immediately her friends wanted a “Lillie [Lilly] shift so she made a few dozen and sold them at the Via Mizner shop of Pulitzer Groves.”

Via Mizner arcade, former site of
Pulitzer Groves

Husband Peter* owned thousands of acres of citrus groves in Florida. Some say Lilly made her first shift of colorful fabric to hide the fruit juice stains she acquired working at the store.  According to the reporter, her dresses made the cover of at least two national magazines. 

Lilly Pulitzer contributed to establishing Palm Beach as a trend setter for leisure clothes. Her use of color influenced the fashion industry for years. Palm Beach stands a bit dimmer without her.

 ______

*Lilly and Peter Pulitzer were divorced in the late 1960s. Peter married the much younger Roxanne during the 1970s. Their divorce and custody fight for their twins in the early 1980s was the sordid stuff of tabloids and television for months. Roxanne's settlement was meager. But the tables turned. Forbes Magazine  reported in 2011 that Roxanne’s fifth husband, Tim Boberg, held the mortgage on Pulitzer’s failing citrus growing business. For more on this fascinating story, see:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joselambiet/2011/11/15/roxanne-pulitzer-peter-pulitzer-bankruptcy-loan-mortgage/2/

Tags: Lilly Pulitzer, Palm Beach history, Peter Pulitzer, Florida film research, historical researcher