Name That City! — October 28, 2021

Here’s a review of this week’s questions:

1. In what midwestern city did Dave Thomas open the first Wendy’s restaurant?
2. Jazz legend Charlie Parker played his first gig at the Country Club Plaza in this midwestern city. What city is it?
3. In what southern city would you find a 13-foot bronze statue of “Roots” author Alex Haley?

And here are the answers:

1. On November 15, 1969, Dave Thomas opened his very first Wendy’s restaurant in Columbus, Ohio at 257 East Broad Street. He named the restaurant after his daughter, and it was immediately popular, with a second Columbus restaurant opening a year later. By 1976, there were over 500 open across the US and Canada. Today there are over 6000, including the U.S. and 29 foreign countries.
2. Charlie “Yardbird” Parker was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1920. He is buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Kansas City, and there is a statue downtown that honors “Bird’s” accomplishments. He left Kansas City at age 19 to make music in New York City, where he pioneered a genre of jazz called “Bebop” and became one of the most revered musical figures of the 20^th century. His tragic death in 1955 at age 34 is attributed to his drug addiction, but the legacy he left behind is unrivaled to this day.
3. Alex Haley’s statue is located in Alex Haley Heritage Square in Knoxville, Tennessee. Haley was born in Ithaca, New York, but he lived the last five years of his life in Clinton, Tennessee, outside of Knoxville. Already famous for writing the “Autobiography of Malcolm X” in 1965, Haley became a household name when his book, “Roots,” and the TV mini-series based on it, took the country by storm in 1976.

Thanks for playing!