She’ll Take Your Order, Birthday Card

Seven years ago, when I wrote about Alice Broude’s 40th anniversary as a waitress at the Second Street Saloon, she had only one complaint. “People kept asking me if I was retiring,” she said.

The very idea. Heck, she was only 73.

So, now, when I report that the same establishment is hosting an 80th birthday bash for Alice tonight, I want to make one thing clear: She is not hanging up her drink tray.

As a matter of fact, she is going to work DURING her own party. “It’s easier to mingle that way,” she explained. “If I wasn’t working, I might get stuck talking to people at one table.”

IF SHE EVER DOES RETIRE: Alice might consider joining the jogging club started by Ernest van Leeuwen of Encino and George Feinstein of Altadena. Of course, she’d have to wait a while. Van Leeuwen, age 86, and Feinstein, 85, say the club is limited to members 85 or more. And they’re checking IDs.

LISTEN UP, ROVER: A reader asked that I publish this warning, from a maker of bleach tablets, for all the dogs that read this column (see accompanying).

PLACE THESE IN THE CIRCULAR FILE: Some stunning architectural projects that never became reality in the 1990s:

* Port Disney: A $2-billion amusement park in Long Beach that would have incorporated the Queen Mary. Local opposition helped kill it, so we’ll never know if the Queen Mary would have been re-christened the Queen Minnie.

* Sonyland: A $500-million theme park, envisioned by Jon Peters, the hairstylist-turned-movie mogul. Proposed site: a lemon field in Oxnard. Alas, Peters was ousted as a Columbia Pictures exec and his successors soured on the concept.

* (Unnamed) world’s largest hotel: Before he lost a bid for the property, Donald Trump spoke of building a 110-story hotel on the site of the Ambassador Hotel. Just the thing for earthquake country.

* Clouds of Steel (a.k.a. the West Coast Gateway Monument): It was to be constructed downtown over the Hollywood Freeway as L.A.’s version of the Statue of Liberty. (Hey, let’s find a way to make downtown traffic move even slower!) An artist proposed a deconstructionist model. Cost: $33 million. Result: Non-construction.

And, the latest member, declared dead this week:

* The Hacienda: Wheeler-dealer Mike Ovitz’s concept of a Spanish-style stadium for a pro football team in Carson. Mission bells would have rung for each touchdown scored by the home team. The big screen TV would have been visible from the San Diego Freeway. Would the screen have been more of a distraction to motorists than Clouds of Steel? We’ll never know.

ANGELENOS ON THE ROAD: Kevin Buck of Santa Clarita found a sign in Sequoia National Park that indicates that L.A. isn’t the only place where it takes a long time to find parking (see photo).

WHY NO ONE LIKES TO DO WINDOWS: Miriam Ferguson saw a window-cleaning ad with a rate of $1 “per pain.”

miscelLAny:

USA Today reports that “The American Mayor,” a new book by Melvin Holli, ranks Tom Bradley as the ninth best big-city mayor in the United States between 1820 and 1999. (No. 1: Fiorello LaGuardia of New York City). Sam Yorty, mayor of L.A. from 1961 to 1973, was ranked ninth worst, partly on the basis of race-baiting tactics used in his election campaigns against Bradley, his successor. The all-time worst: Al Capone’s buddy, William (Big Bill) Thompson of Chicago.

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.