Alice Brock
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Alice May Brock (February 28, 1941 – November 21, 2024) was an American artist, author and restaurateur. A resident of
Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
for her entire adult life, Brock owned and operated three restaurants in the
Berkshires The Berkshires () are highlands located in western Massachusetts and northwestern Connecticut in the United States. Generally, "Berkshires" may refer to the range of hills in Massachusetts that lie between the Housatonic and Connecticut River ...
—The Back Room, Take-Out Alice, and Alice's at Avaloch—in succession between 1965 and 1979. The first of these was the subject of
Arlo Guthrie Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk music, folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing protest song, songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his fa ...
's 1967 song "
Alice's Restaurant "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", commonly known as "Alice's Restaurant", is a satirical talking blues song by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie, released as the title track to his 1967 debut album Alice's Restaurant (album), ''Alice's Restaurant''. ...
", which in turn inspired the 1969 film.


Early life

Brock was born Alice May PelkeyHann, Christopher
"Still Cooking"
''Sarah Lawrence College Alumni''. Retrieved November 7, 2020.
in
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. Her mother, Mary (Dubrowski) Pelkey, was from a Jewish family in Brooklyn; her father, an Irish Catholic, was originally from
Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the most populous city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfi ...
. The Pelkey family was relatively well-to-do and often spent summers in
Provincetown, Massachusetts Provincetown () is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States census, Provi ...
, where Mr. Pelkey sold artwork for Peter Hunt. Neither of her parents were religious, but her family had many connections to Jewish culture and she herself variously identified as a Jew and as
half-Jewish "Who is a Jew?" (, ), is a basic question about Jewish identity and considerations of Jewish self-identification. The question pertains to ideas about Jewish personhood, which have cultural, ethnic, religious, political, genealogical, and pe ...
.Brown, Jane Roy (February 24, 2008)
"After Alice's restaurants"
''The Boston Globe''. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
She gave mixed opinions about her early life and parents, crediting her mother for a love of cooking and her father with encouraging her love of art and taking her out to new restaurants regularly as a child, while suggesting that her parents were not "good parents" and that her father was "a bully," reasoning that her attachment to them was born more out of a people pleasing desire than familial love. She admitted being a difficult child who had never in her life been able to submit to authority, and continued to acknowledge a "mean and opinionated" side to her well into adulthood. After a stint in
reform school A reform school was a Prison, penal institution, generally for teenagers, mainly operating between 1830 and 1900. In the United Kingdom and its colonies, reformatory, reformatories (commonly called reform schools) were set up from 1854 onward f ...
, she graduated from the public high school in
White Plains, New York White Plains is a city in and the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is an inner suburb of New York City, and a commercial hub of Westchester County, a densely populated suburban county that is home to about one milli ...
. She attended
Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, United States. Founded as a Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence College has been coeducational ...
. By her teen years, she had taken an interest in left-wing politics,Flint, Andrew (April 23, 2014)
Alice's Restaurant reborn at Dream Away Lodge
. ''
The Berkshire Eagle ''The Berkshire Eagle'' is an American daily newspaper published in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and covering all of Berkshire County, as well as four New York communities near Pittsfield. It is considered a newspaper of record for Berkshire Coun ...
''. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
and was registered with the Socialist Workers Party along with membership in the
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships a ...
(as a founding member of that organization) and Fair Play for Cuba Committee. She dropped out of college after her sophomore year. After leaving college, she spent a short period of time in
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...
, where in 1960 she met, then married in 1962,Arlo Guthrie's Alice is alive, glad to be here
''The Wall Street Journal'' via the ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'' (November 22, 2006). Retrieved September 8, 2017.
Ray Brock, a woodworker from
Hartfield, Virginia Hartfield is an unincorporated community in Middlesex County, Virginia, United States. Hartfield is located at the southern junction of Virginia State Route 3 and Virginia State Route 33, east-southeast of Saluda. Hartfield has a post offic ...
who was over a decade older than Alice. Alarmed at the radicalized environment, both Ray Brock and Mary Pelkey urged Alice to leave the area, and the Brocks and Pelkeys moved to her father's hometown of Pittsfield, where Ray and Alice initially lived on Mary's property. By June 1963, Mary had arranged for both to get hired at the Stockbridge School, with Ray working as a shop teacher and Alice as a librarian. With a gift from her mother, they purchased a deconsecrated church in Great Barrington, which the couple converted into a residence for themselves and a gathering place for friends and like-minded bohemians. She would later describe the choice of a church for the group as a form of
sacrilege Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object, site or person. This can take the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things. When the sacrilegious offence is verbal, it is called blasphemy, and when physical ...
, using a symbol of tradition and established religion to further her
counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...
values. In 1991, the long-neglected building was restored and transformed into The Guthrie Center at Old Trinity Church, an interfaith worship center and performance venue.Cummings, Paula (November 21, 2017)
Interview: Arlo Guthrie Carries On Thanksgiving Traditions And Fulfills Family Legacy
. ''NYS Music''. Retrieved October 25, 2018.
During the summer of 1963, the Brocks worked at a hostel for youth in West Tisbury, Massachusetts, on
Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, lying just south of Cape Cod. It is known for being a popular, affluent summer colony, and includes the smaller peninsula Chappaquiddick Isla ...
, before returning to the church in the fall for the school year and preparing the church to be livable.


Littering incident

One of the Brocks' students at the Stockbridge School had been
Arlo Guthrie Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk music, folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing protest song, songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his fa ...
, at the time an aspiring
forester A forester is a person who practises forest management and forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including ecological restoration and management of protected areas. Fores ...
, a half-Jewish New York transplant like Brock, and the son of then-ailing
folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk horror ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Fo ...
icon
Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer, songwriter, and composer widely considered to be one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American Left, A ...
. When Arlo Guthrie left Rocky Mountain College in Montana for
Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Germany. It is also observed in the Australian territory ...
break in November 1965, he stayed at the Brocks' residence for their annual Thanksgiving dinner. The Brocks had largely only lived in a small corner of the bell tower, and thus large amounts of debris remained from the previous owners in the sanctuary that they had planned to use for the dinner; as a favor to the couple, Guthrie and his friend Richard Robbins agreed to dispose of the debris, not realizing that the local dump was closed for the holiday. Guthrie and Robbins dumped their load over a cliff on private property. When Stockbridge chief of police William "Obie" Obanhein was made aware of the
illegal dumping Illegal dumping, also called fly dumping or fly tipping ( UK), is the dumping of waste illegally instead of using an authorised method such as curbside collection or using an authorised rubbish dump. It is the illegal deposit of any waste onto ...
, he arrested Guthrie and Robbins. Brock bailed them out, and her anger at the incident nearly prompted Obanhein to arrest her as well.Saul Braun, "Alice & Ray & Yesterday's Flowers," in ''
Playboy ''Playboy'' (stylized in all caps) is an American men's Lifestyle journalism, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, available both online and in print. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, funded in part by a $ ...
's'' Music Scene, Chicago, IL, 1972, pp. 122–125
Online copy
Brock was otherwise friendly with Obanhein, considering him "a very sweet man, and ..a very good cop." The turning point in their relations came after they had made the film. In the end, Guthrie and Robbins were levied a small fine and picked up the garbage that weekend.


First restaurant

Brock was persuaded to open a restaurant by her mother, who saw the purchase as an opportunity for her daughter to become financially independent. She had already been doing a significant amount of cooking and housekeeping for her friends at the church, which frustrated her. Alice purchased an empty business space in the back of a row of stores on US 7 in Stockbridge and converted it into The Back Room in 1965, shortly before the Guthrie visit. There is some dispute over exactly when The Back Room opened; Brock would claim in 2008 that it was not until after the littering incident, but Guthrie's song about it implies the restaurant was already open by that time. At a
jam session A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without ...
Guthrie had with the Brocks during his visit, he, Ray and Alice began formulating the basis for what would become the first half of "Alice's Restaurant". (The second half of the song would come later.) Alice said of the finished product: "The song is great, and it's very funny. Arlo is very clever. It's a lot of fun and it has a message of all the right things: of hope and music." Brock would reflect on this restaurant's opening as the breaking point in her marriage. According to her, because she was now living her life as an independent woman and needed her own transportation to work the restaurant, Ray no longer had financial control over her—prior to this he had only allotted her a small allowance—which increased tension between the two. Alice also admitted to not knowing much about either cooking at a professional level or business. Contrary to an implication made in the film about The Back Room, Alice says that she was faithful to Ray throughout the marriage and was not promiscuous; she did not sleep with Guthrie, for example.Giuliano, Charles (March 27, 2014)
Alice's Restaurant Returns to the Berkshires
''Berkshire Fine Arts''. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
Guthrie also asserts that Alice was faithful to Ray in the final chorus of the song, noting a customer could "get anything you want...excepting Alice" at the restaurant, and his co-defendant, Richard Robbins, described the notion of Alice having affairs as being "complete bull." Brock closed the restaurant in April 1966 and moved to the
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
area with friends, in addition to spending some time in
Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...
. She would return to Great Barrington and reconcile with Ray shortly thereafter, complete with a large hippie wedding that was written into the film, but the two would divorce permanently in 1968. According to her, Ray was "a bully, like my father." Ray returned to his home state of Virginia and died of a heart attack in 1979. There are no known remarriages or children after her divorce from Ray Brock; she commented in 2020 that she had a dim view of the nuclear family because very few of those she knew had healthy, close-knit family lives, and a statement from her caretaker upon her death implied no surviving direct next of kin, instead emphasizing Brock's "
chosen family Chosen family—also referred to as found family, a family of choice, or ''hānai'' family—refers to non-biological kinship bonds that are intentionally formed, regardless of legal recognition. These relationships are often based on mutual care ...
and friends." She did become a godmother to Richard Robbins's son Jesse.


Film

Brock agreed to participate in the production of the film ''
Alice's Restaurant "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", commonly known as "Alice's Restaurant", is a satirical talking blues song by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie, released as the title track to his 1967 debut album Alice's Restaurant (album), ''Alice's Restaurant''. ...
'', including taking part in promotions and making
cameo appearance A cameo appearance, also called a cameo role and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief guest appearance of a well-known person or character in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking on ...
s in the film itself; unlike Guthrie and many other figures in the story, she declined an offer to portray herself in the film, and actress Pat Quinn played the role of Alice. Brock earned almost nothing from her promotional work and was dismayed after learning that
Arthur Penn Arthur Hiller Penn (September 27, 1922 – September 28, 2010) was an American filmmaker, theatre director, and producer. He was a three-time Academy Award nominee for Academy Award for Best Director, Best Director, and a Tony Awards, Tony Awa ...
, the film's director and co-writer, inserted fictional material into the story that she felt "misrepresented me, embarrassed me, and made me into an object." She objected that "I wasn't sleeping with everybody in the world, for example—and not Arlo Guthrie! And I didn't know anybody who shot heroin." Additionally, the surprise success of the song and the film made Brock an unwilling celebrity. She specifically cited the film as the source of her unwanted fame and stated in hindsight shortly after it was released that she should have done everything in her power to prevent the film from being produced. Penn, who lived in Stockbridge, had heard of the story from Brock's father, who was on the board of directors at The Berkshire Playhouse, when the song was already out. Penn and co-writer Venable Herndon finished the screenplay in 1967 and the film was released in 1969.Stanmeyer, Anastasia
"Breaking Bread with Alice"
''Berkshire Magazine'', Holiday 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
As of June 1970, Brock was living alone in a rented house in
Lenox, Massachusetts Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is in Western Massachusetts and part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Pittsfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,095 at the 2020 United States census ...
, with plans to stay there long-term. As a way to compensate Brock, one of the film's producers arranged for her to write a cookbook, ''The Alice's Restaurant Cookbook'', published in 1969. Brock later admitted that many of the featured recipes were created by her and her mother specifically for the book, rather than having originated at the restaurant, and had not been tested before being published; she has made it a life philosophy to frequently experiment with new recipes. The book proved to be a moderate success and went through four printings.


Proposed restaurants

Brock attempted to start an Alice's Restaurant franchise in the late 1960s, but closed the first location in
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...
almost immediately when it failed a taste test. Brock also attempted to open another restaurant in partnership with Joan Woodruff in Lenox, Massachusetts. By June 1970, officials in Lenox had rejected the proposal, fearing that the fame behind the name would draw excessive numbers of hippies and disturb the peace. Brock—who blamed the film's portrayal of her for the town's decision while empathizing with their stance—pulled out, giving her menus and share in the proposed restaurant to Woodruff. In the meantime, Brock continued working as a caterer.


Second restaurant

The proceeds from the film and book sales (which netted $12,000 for her), coupled with her decision to sell the church in 1971, freed up Brock's financial situation enough that she bought a former convenience store on Route 183 in Housatonic, Massachusetts, and converted it into Take-Out Alice, a walk-up food stand that, according to her, operated on the principle of serving "slow food, cooked fast," while maintaining some alcohol sales to maintain the site's
liquor license A liquor license (or liquor licence in most forms of Commonwealth English) is a governmentally issued permit for businesses to sell, manufacture, store, or otherwise use alcoholic beverages. Canada In Canada, liquor licences are issued by the l ...
. Take-Out Alice was considered to be Brock's best and most well-received food service operation. After battling with town officials, in 1973 she was able to install seats in the facility, which she then renamed Alice's Restaurant in an effort to capitalize on her fame.


Third restaurant

As the popularity of the restaurant outgrew its location, and admittedly acting on an impulse she did not fully understand nor remember, Brock bought an estate in Lenox at a price in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, which she converted into her third and final restaurant, Alice's at Avaloch, in 1976. In contrast to her smaller, more intimate operations at the previous two restaurants, Alice's at Avaloch boasted a
disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...
floor, swimming pool and a performance venue in addition to increased seating. By early 1978, Alice's at Avaloch was a substantial success that had made her wealthy, prompting her to display her wealth ostentatiously; an interview in ''The Washington Post'' remarked on the previously socialist Brock having suddenly turned more conservative. The location proved to be a major headache for Brock, as its infrastructure was not well-suited to an operation as large as the one she was running, at one point a severe snowstorm hit in the middle of spring, she had an admittedly "picky, petty" way of micromanaging the restaurant (continuing to make all the food from scratch even as the restaurant served hundreds of customers a day) and she again ran afoul of local town officials. As was typical of her life philosophy, she often used the restaurant for charitable purposes, offering jobs to those in need; this often backfired upon Brock, who at the time lamented the lack of work ethic her employees would often show by calling out of work for unnecessary reasons. Alice's at Avaloch went out of business a year later, she had gone into substantial debt and partnered with other investors on the venture and allowed her creditors to foreclose upon the property. The loss of the property took her by surprise and left her bankrupt. The only remaining items she kept from her time in the Berkshires were a collection of quarters from the restaurant's vending machines (which she used to rent her next apartment) and the folding table on which Guthrie had written "Alice's Restaurant". As of 2024, the former Alice's at Avaloch facility is the Apple Tree Inn.


Retirement and death

Brock never intended to pursue a career in the restaurant business and expressed more interest in art. She did a few printings for an exhibition shortly before leaving the Berkshires, and all of them sold, further encouraging her to pursue it more seriously. After the closure of Alice's at Avaloch, she relocated to Provincetown, where she set up an art studio. She spent most of the 1980s as a part-time prep cook for various restaurants in Provincetown before leaving the labor force in part because of a diagnosis of
emphysema Emphysema is any air-filled enlargement in the body's tissues. Most commonly emphysema refers to the permanent enlargement of air spaces (alveoli) in the lungs, and is also known as pulmonary emphysema. Emphysema is a lower respiratory tract di ...
in the 1990s. A chronic cigarette smoker of up to three packs a day, she visited
hypnotist Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychological ...
Yefim Shubentsov in 1991, after which she never smoked again. Smoking and alcohol dependency were Brock's two substantial vices; she was often visibly drunk during her time operating Alice's at Avaloch and would regularly down a pint of whiskey every evening during that era, commenting to ''The Washington Post'' that she never took hard drugs because "I can (dr)ink and (function normally) but I can't be stoned(.)" Beginning in the mid-1980s, Brock contributed recipes to Guthrie's periodical newsletter, the ''Rolling Blunder Revue''. In 2014, Brock made a one-time appearance at the Dream Away Lodge in
Becket, Massachusetts Becket is a New England town, town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,931 ...
, where she and other chefs inspired by her prepared some of her old recipes. Brock's personal favorite medium is
rock art In archaeology, rock arts are human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type al ...
, a medium that she practiced most of her adult life; she was an active and early participant in the movement of painting rocks and encouraging people to hide them in unusual places to be found and relocated,Merrick, Viki (May 8, 2017)
"American icon Alice Brock might surprise you"
WCAI WCAI (90.1 FM) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, WNAN (91.1 FM) in Nantucket, and WZAI (94.3 FM) in Brewster, are NPR member radio stations serving the Cape Cod and Islands area of southeast Massachusetts. They broadcast primarily news and info ...
. Retrieved September 8, 2017.
what came to be known as The Kindness Rocks Project after another Cape Cod resident came up with a similar idea. Her home art gallery was located on Commercial Street overlooking
Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer months. The ...
. She continued to host a Thanksgiving dinner with her friends, either on Cape Cod or, less commonly, the Berkshires. Her 2022 dinner was hosted at the home of Richard Robbins, who had helped Guthrie dispose of Brock's garbage in 1965 and still lives in Housatonic; Guthrie visited the dinner, reuniting the three for their first Thanksgiving dinner together in 57 years. She and Guthrie had remained friends throughout the rest of her life, with the two regularly reuniting for the "occasional meal" when his schedule allowed. In addition to the ''Cookbook'', Brock authored two other books: her 1976 autobiography ''My Life as a Restaurant'' and a children's book, ''How to Massage Your Cat''. She also illustrated another children's book, ''Mooses Come Walking'', written by Arlo Guthrie. Brock initially bristled at the fame that the song and (in particular) film had brought upon her—recalling that she had an "inherent aversion" to
nostalgia Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a neoclassical compound derived from Greek language, Greek, consisting of (''nóstos''), a Homeric word me ...
and fearing that her fame had proverbially frozen her in time—but later came to appreciate her role as an icon of the 1960s. She resented how the film portrayed her yet stated that the joy people get when meeting her in person is an honor: "How can you resent that?" She recalled in 2022 feeling guilt at being upset at her association with the song after seeing how well she was respected by fans of the song: "What ..is wrong with me? How lucky can I be?" Brock's financial and physical health declined in the late 2010s. Declining artwork sales forced her to sell her home in 2017, after which she moved in with a friend who died shortly thereafter. Worsening
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a type of progressive lung disease characterized by chronic respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation. GOLD defines COPD as a heterogeneous lung condition characterized by chronic respiratory s ...
and heart disease forced her to enter a nursing home in 2018, while an
essential tremor Essential tremor (ET), also called benign tremor, familial tremor, and idiopathic tremor, is a medical condition characterized by involuntary rhythmic contractions and relaxations ( oscillations or twitching movements) of certain muscle groups i ...
prevented her from drawing the artwork that had been her primary source of income. Viki Merrick, a public radio producer (
The Moth The Moth is a nonprofit group based in New York City, dedicated to the craft of storytelling. Founded in 1997, the organization presents a wide range of theme-based storytelling events across the United States and abroad, often featuring promine ...
) and former bartender at Alice's at Avaloch, served as Brock's caretaker. Dini Lamot and other friends in the music and arts communities organized fundraisers for her so that she could afford the approximately $60,000 per year she needed to remain in Provincetown.
NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
reported on Brock's medical and financial problems in a feature on Thanksgiving Day 2020, prompting $180,000 in donations. That same year, Brock recorded a custom series of introductions to "Alice's Restaurant" for stations that regularly play the song on Thanksgiving. For the remainder of her life, she resided in the West End of Provincetown. As she neared death in early November, Brock entered into discussions with Guthrie (who announced the news) and his daughter Annie to put together an exhibit on Brock's life for the Guthrie Center. Brock died at a hospice facility in
Wellfleet, Massachusetts Wellfleet is a New England town, town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, and is located halfway between the "tip" and "elbow" of Cape Cod. The town had a population of 3,566 at the 2020 United ...
, on November 21, 2024, of "heart-related problems" at the age of 83.Guthrie, Arlo (November 23, 2024)
Alice - The Alice - Dies at 83
''ArloNet''. Retrieved November 30, 2024.


Other/imitator

The Alice's Restaurant of Sky Londa, California, has no association with Alice Brock. It was founded by Alice Taylor at the same time Brock opened up The Back Room, then converted into a
tourist trap A tourist trap is an establishment (or group of establishments) created or re-purposed with the aim of attracting tourists and their money. Tourist traps typically provide overpriced services, entertainment, food, souvenirs, and other product ...
by subsequent owners capitalizing on the similarity in name (eventually adding a "Group W bench" in homage to the Guthrie song).


References


External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brock, Alice 1941 births 2024 deaths 20th-century American artists American autobiographers American chefs American cookbook writers American restaurateurs American women food writers American women restaurateurs Artists from Brooklyn Artists from Massachusetts Jewish American artists Members of the Socialist Workers Party (United States) People from Brooklyn People from Provincetown, Massachusetts Sarah Lawrence College alumni Writers from Brooklyn Writers from Massachusetts