John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row"
Historic Cannery Row
Tour |
The real neighborhood of John
Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.
John Steinbeck used real
people and places as models for his 1945 novel, Cannery Row. You are
standing in the middle of the novel’s setting as depicted in the aerial
photograph. The Wing Chong Market was a Chinese grocery and dry-goods
store, and the La Ida Cafe was where Eddie the part-time bar tender
poured leftover drinks in a jug for Mack and the boys. The Western
Biological Laboratory was Doc’s house and lab . The Bear Flag Restaurant
was the bordello operated by Dora Flood (Lone Star Cafe of Flora Woods),
and the Palace Flophouse was home to Mack and the boys. The “chicken
walk” was a cleated ramp up the embankment from the railroad tracks. The
“vacant lot” was filled with pipes, boilers, and cast-off cannery
equipment.
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THE
NEIGHBORHOOD |
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The real
Cannery Row was quite a resource for the fertile mind of
America’s Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning author, who’s
name will forever remain inseparable from the street: John
Steinbeck (1902 - 1968). |
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WING CHONG &
LA IDA CAFE |
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