The best roast beef sandwiches I have ever eaten were the ones I had while at Union in the late 1960s at Rupsis Tavern. Helen Rupsi made them out of paper-thin slices of rare roast beef piled three-quarters of an inch thick between two pieces of very fresh white bread. There was always a pickle on the plate next to the sandwich, and I always had a Coke.
This was my lunch almost every weekday during the last two and a half years while I was in college. From the first time I went to Rupsis until I graduated, the place became a kind of second home. Each day I would make the ten-minute walk from the campus, pick up the local paper if it was lying on the bar, and take one of my favorite seats.
Usually there were only a handful of regular customers sitting at the bar and perhaps in one of the booths. They were all men. Some were taking a break from their blue-collar jobs nearby; some were passing through the neighborhood in the course of their work, like the letter carrier. One elderly man did odd jobs for Helen and her husband, Tony, to pay for his daily draft and whiskey. I never knew the names of the other men, but we nodded at each other on arrival and departure, and we felt comfortable in each other's presence.
The inside of Rupsis looked just as it should. It was paneled with dark wood and lit mostly by neon signs advertising different national and local beers, many long out of business. Directly above the bar, which could seat maybe eight people, was a lighted revolving clock promoting Utica Club. Once you got used to the place, Rupsis began to feel like a large family room in a working-class neighborhood, with Helen and Tony as the parents of the family.
Typically, Helen or Tony would be behind the bar and the small radio next to the cash register would be playing. Sometimes a person unfamiliar with the established routine would walk over to the jukebox, put in some money, and make a selection, hoping to enjoy his own choice of music. The radio was not turned off. If the stranger did not get the hint after one song, neither Helen nor Tony was averse to turning the radio up. And once I saw Tony actually unplug the jukebox all together in the middle of a song. After all, it was Tony's bar.
At some point, Tony had a pool table installed, although I'm sure he felt ambivalent about its presence. First of all, it took up space that had been occupied by tables and chairs full of paying customers on busy nights. Second, the table was usually covered with a canvas-like cloth. Only if you met with Tony's approval would he take off the cover and allow you to insert money in the slot in order to free up the pool balls. Even when it was covered, Tony was quite protective of the pool table. Nobody was allowed to lean on it. Ever. It was a beautiful table, and the few times I saw them, the balls gleamed seductively in the neon glow of the room. The green felt of the table looked lush and verdant. Tony must have been very proud of that table. He watched over every game, and everyone — especially, I'm sure, the players — could tell that his interest was not in who made what difficult shot or who won. Tony's interest was in making sure nothing happened to the table.
I seldom went to Rupsis in the evening, when the bar did most of its business. The times I did go, either with my friends or by myself, I found the place transformed. On Wednesday and Thursday nights, for example, Rupsis was packed with students from Union, along with a number of people from the local neighborhood. It was a younger group than at lunchtime, and a lot more active. The jukebox played continuously and Helen and Tony seemed happy to have it on. Many of the people were at Rupsis to line up a date for the coming weekend, so there was a lot of milling around, checking each other out, table-hopping, intense conversation, and nervous laughter. On Wednesday and Thursday nights, the pool table remained covered.
Friday and Saturday nights brought out the regulars: mostly older people from the neighborhood. A few of the students who had made dates at Rupsis earlier in the week could also be seen in some of the booths. They seemed ill at ease in a room no longer filled with their own kind. Rupsis was a good place to find someone, but a bad choice for a first date.
Seeing crowds of people, hearing the noise, and watching the social activities had a disorientating effect on me. For me, Rupsis was a quiet haven, complete with food and the newspaper: a place for comfortable introversion and private thoughts. But at night, the place was unsuited to those pursuits. It was far too busy and extroverted.
I remember one evening when I hadn't eaten dinner and decided to take a chance on getting something at Rupsis. Helen came over, smiling. “What'll you have?”
“Is it still possible to get a roast beef sandwich?” I asked a bit timidly.
“Not now, I'm too busy. What do you want to drink?”
“Don't you have time to make even one sandwich?” I pleaded.
Helen snorted and went to another table to deliver the pitcher of beer she had been balancing on a tray. A few minutes later, she came out of the kitchen with my sandwich, complete with its usual pickle and a Coke. Many pairs of curious eyes followed the food to my table. Most of the people in the room had no idea you could even order a meal at Rupsis, and some of them seemed to be contemplating the possibility. Helen sensed this, and she looked around the room with a hard stare that plainly said, “Now don't any of you ask for any food, don't even think about it.”
I ate my sandwich in a cocoon of silent conspiracy and gave Helen a nod of thanks and a big tip when I left.
Time passed. I went to graduate school and eventually moved to Toronto. My family still lived near New York City, and I often drove down to visit with them. Rupsis was more or less on the way, and I sometimes found myself exiting the highway in search of nostalgia and a good roast beef sandwich. Helen and Tony always had a warm greeting for me, although they didn't really seem to believe that I now lived in Canada. They couldn't imagine that anyone from out of town, let alone someone living in another country, would go out of their way to stop by to say hello and have a sandwich.
More time has passed. My sister has recently graduated from high school and decided to continue her education at my alma mater. It's late August and she is bringing her things up to her college residence just before the start of her freshman year. Aside from an earlier tour of the campus, she's never been to Schenectady before. I've come to show her around. We have spent the whole morning unpacking her suitcases and boxes and running errands. Now it is time for a late lunch. We drive into a nearby parking lot. The place looks run down and seedy. A few bits of litter swirl around in the breeze and there is some broken glass on the ground. It's not the kind of place a young female college student would be likely to seek out on her own. We get out of the car. My sister looks a bit skeptical as I direct her to the screen door leading to the rear entrance of the bar. I proudly hold the door open for her. “Now you're in for a real treat,” I say. “Just hope Helen is in a good mood.”
Robert Rinkoff '69 was a VISTA volunteer in Detroit for a year after graduation. He then studied developmental psychology, earning a Ph.D. from Purdue in 1974. He lives with his wife and two children in Toronto, where he is a professor at Ryerson Polytechnic University.
He wrote about Rupsis to describe a place that played a significant part in his Union experience — a place that he was able to share with his sister, June Rinkoff '78, who died in 1986 from Hodgkin's disease .