Ed Steiger is sitting in the Upper Avenue Lounge at the Marriott on Michigan Avenue waiting for his singles. Steiger always gets here about an hour before they do, just to make sure everything is OK–that the buffet is hot and fresh, that the bartenders are ready, that the DJ is here with all his gear. Just in case the person who is supposed to collect the $7 a head doesn’t show, Ed picks up his mother on the way over–she can fill in if necessary.
The Upper Avenue Lounge is wood-paneled and clubby, adorned with sports photographs and TV screens, a pool table, and big leather chairs surrounding a lot of small round cocktail tables. It has a nice-sized dance floor.
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Steiger calls his part-time business New Places, New Faces. His slogans include “Where the 30s/40s crowd meets the 90s,” and “Remember, we give great party!” He has operated some version of the same business ever since he was in college in Miami. Just slightly too old for one of his own parties, he has also worked at importing, has owned a north-side drugstore, and is currently managing real estate.
Steiger leaves to attend to a detail. “Would you like to know about his early childhood?” asks his mother, Marion. “He always loved animals. When he went to school on the bus in Hyde Park, he’d get off of it to rescue an animal or a bird.”
In order to get people up and dancing, Steiger takes over the microphone for a few minutes from the DJ, John Marcopulos, who has been playing requests written on cocktail napkins– tunes from Louis Armstrong to the Drifters to Bette Midler. “My ultimate goal is to get on radio,” says Marcopulos.
Couples are swaying to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
