The Great Refrigerator Hunt of 2009

Folks, my apologies for such a long delay between posts. I have been in tech for the last 2 weeks solidly, so 16 hour days and no time for reflection… at least online.

However, the blog entries have backed up, so heres hoping they flow for a while, while I’m mildly unemployed.

The Great Refrigerator Hunt of 2009. Essentially, this is a record of the search for a late 70s, early 80s side-by-side refrigerator in harvest gold. You’ve seen this thing, maybe not in your home (though its possible), but in a movie or something. They have a certain run-down-suburban-je-ne-sais-quoi.

Here is one which is a top-bottom (which, incidentally, was the essence of this adventure).

So, being a props master in this town often makes me feel a little bit like Sam Spade… wandering lonely around the city, looking for answers that are impossible to find, and finding them in the most logical but least-looked in spots. Anyways, this episode was no different. I traveled high and low looking for this item. From all over the internet and on the phone to used appliance places in Brooklyn and the Bronx. But it was not to be found. I didn’t even need for the fridge to be harvest gold. As long as it was the right period and white, the shop would paint it to the right color. So, no big deal, right? People throw that crap out all the time, right? It should be easy to find.

Wrong.

I think I ran into a couple of problems on this mission.

First: the fridge was just a little too old to still be around. All of the side-by-side fridges I found had the water/ice thingy on the front, which is a later innovation. It was also a little too new to be vintage. Places like Demolition Depot in Connecticut carry old fridges, but they start in the 50s and run until the 70s or so. Basically, cool fridges. I didn’t need a cool fridge, I needed a crappy fridge.

Secondly: I think I truly mystified the people I was talking to. When you run a semi-legal appliance resale store in the south Bronx and a little white girl in short shorts (don’t judge me, it was August) rolls up looking for a very specific fridge that no one would possibly want for practical reasons, you are bound to be a little wary. And they were. Wary and completely unhelpful.

As a side note, I also think, having now seen a wide range of the used fridges that the Boroughs have to offer, I think the side-by-side fridge is a little too big to have been common in New York living anyways.

So, that said, heres a rough map of my search.

In the end, in true Sam Spade fashion, I am standing on the hot streets of Harlem, and I make a couple phone calls. The first is to my boss who is standing in the green room at Second Stage Theater, who stops mid-sentence to announce that she is staring at the right fridge. In the green room itself. Like, a place I go to at least 50 times a week. The second is to a friend who announces that he also has the right fridge, it is onstage being too old and too side-by-side for the show he is currently propping. Go figure.

Moral of the story? What you are looking for is not in the last place you look, its in the first place that you should have looked, but didn’t. And in true noir fashion, you have to go through all the phases and all the adventures to get there. Happy hunting.