The bagel lot

    Tuesday morning found me plunging backward, into the past, looking for the first use of the word "bagel" in the Chicago Daily News. 
    The results were not what I expected.
    It first shows up as a name, such as a certain Conrad Bagel, waylaid and robbed in 1893. For 40 years it is only a name, plus misreadings of other names like Paget (the tendency of microfilm is for letters to puff up and degrade; optical scanners can have trouble reading them).
     The foodstuff shows up in the 1930s. In 1936, columnist Clark Rodenbach makes a colorful visit to Gold's, a restaurant at 810 W. Roosevelt since 1902. He notes that Sears executive Julius Rosenwald was a patron, Illinois' first Jewish governor, Henry Horner, "drops in when gubernatorial duties permit," as do Jewish celebrities such as Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Georgie Jessel and Groucho Marx.
    Being a journalist, Rodenbach must count as a near-celebrity, because he can't leave without a gift.
    "Before you go," says Moe Rafison, the third generation to run the place, "let me give you a bagel or two."
   Rodenbach feels obligated to explain what he's talking about. "They are roughly of donut form; and, like the rye bread, crispy on the outside and tender within. A great breakfast favorite with show-people after the last show."
     It was interesting to follow the bagel into more general acceptance — though even in the late 1950s, bagels were explained, not only in a daily newspaper, but apparently among Jews themselves. 
    "Are Lox and Bagel (salmon and rolls) essential to Jewish Survival?" is the topic of a humorous debate held at the K.A.M. synagogue in Hyde Park in 1956, though I hold out hope that the explanation was inserted into the topic for the benefit of the general public.
     What really intrigued me was the use of "bagel" in the classified ads in the 1960s and 1970s.
     "AUTO sales mgr. 100 cars a mo. If you can run a Bagel Lot." reads one, in 1966. "Floor plan & financing available."
     "SALESMAN BAGEL LOT," reads another, in 1972. "MUST BE EXPERIENCED."
     It didn't seem a term the customers knew of, but part of the private lingo of the car lot. "AUTO SALESMAN" a 1976 ad explained, "Need 2 experienced salesmen for high volume 'Bagel Lot' Spanish speaking in possible."
     My Wentworth and Flexner "Dictionary of American Slang" had nothing, as did AI. I formed a theory that it would turn out to be the deepest discount cars, pivoting off the "Jews are cheap" calumny. 
     I wasn't far off. In Paul Dickson's "Slang: The Topical Dictionary of Americanisms" I found, "bagel: a poorly maintained car, to a person looking at it for trade-in."
     As to why a bagel was a poorly maintained car, for now we'll leave that to the imagination.
      If you are like me, you are wondering what happened to Gold's. At the crossroads of the Jewish ghetto in the 1930s, it was steamrolled along with much of the neighborhood by the University of Illinois campus in the early 1960s.