Harvey Ovshinsky

Open City Keeps Serving Community

1969

A gala fund raising party for Open City’s summer campaign will be held on Friday, July 11 at Alvin’s Finer Deli on Cass at Palmer.

Admission will be $1 and the celebration will begin at 8 pm. Proceeds will go to the Open City Free Clinic and the new Open City General Store soon to open in the Warren Forest area.

The store will feature clothing, ceramics, jewelry and other products made in the community. Health foods, books and records will also be avail at low cost. People interested in donating goods should call the switchboard (831–2770).

The Free Clinic has expanded its services to Mondays and Wednesdays from 6 to 8 pm. Doctors and registered nurses will be on duty. Blood and urine tests are avail to whoever needs them.

The clinic’s most frequent illnesses are either drug or VD related and clients are assured that files are access only to the doctors at the clinic.

Free counseling has officially begun in the form of individual visits or calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7 to 11 pm. Group sensitivity type sessions can be arranged by calling the switchboard or writing to the clinic (4726 Third St., Office No. 5).

At a recent Open City Medical meeting Lenny Somberg, formerly of the Southbound Freeway rock band and now counselor at the Los Angeles Free Clinic, rapped with Open City people about improving our own services.

Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld (Hippocrates) has also met with the Medical committee and he ran down his experiences with Berkeley’s Free Clinic.

WABX was so impressed by the way Open City people offered first aid at the Rock and Roll Revival that there will be Clinic-like facilities at each of the free concerts this summer.

The switchboard is now open from 10 am to 11 pm and calls have started reaching 100 per day. A fine article by Mike Gormley in the Free Press and interviews on WKNR and CKLW have helped publicize the whole Open City project.

Open City bumperstickers selling for 25 cents are avail now at these locations: Mixed Media, Full Circle, Plum Pit, Groove Shop, Gas Company„ Village Green, ABC Bookstore, The Other Place, Mouse House and other headshops.

These plastic bumperstickers are blue and white and help to raise money for the Free Clinic and Switchboard. If a store near you doesn’t have them bug them till they get some.

The bumperstickers are also avail thru the mail by sending 30 cents to Open City, 4726 Third St. One dollar will buy 5 stickers.

Contributions to Open City can also come in the form of $25 which will result in a free subscription to the Fifth Estate and free admission to all Open City benefits. Five dollars will get a free unclassified ad in the Fifth Estate and a bumpersticker.


Fifth Estate #82, June 26-July 9, 1969