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Supporters donated over $ 100,000 to help Alice Brock – the artist and former cook immortalized by folk singer Arlo Guthrie in his classic Thanksgiving Day tune “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.”
Almost 2,000 people have participated in the past two months in a GoFundMe for the 80-year-old hippie, who has been hit by hard times since the 1967 release of Guthrie’s 18-minute talking blues ballad.
“It has been great. God, what a relief, ”Brock told The Post on Thursday of the outpouring of support.
The Brooklyn-born woman’s home and the former restaurant in Stockbridge, Massachusetts served as the setting for Guthrie’s song about how the singer’s arrest on Thanksgiving Day in 1965 for trash prevented it to stay in the army during the Vietnam War.
“You can get whatever you want at Alice’s restaurant,” the walk begins.
A comedy film based on the song, “Alice’s Restaurant,” came out in 1969, and Brock, who didn’t want to play himself on the big screen, took on an additional role.
“People used to say, ‘Oh, my mom knows who you are,’ now they’re saying, ‘My grandma knows who you are,’” Brock joked about his status as a folk icon.
After the movie and his dinner party closed, Brock opened a larger restaurant called Alice’s at Avaloch in 1976 and continued to give back to his community, Boston radio WBUR-FM reported.
“There is very little that I wouldn’t give to people. So if someone asked me for a job, I gave them a job – and especially if they really needed a job – like people on parole or people who didn’t have rent ”, a- she told the station in a recent interview.
When the restaurant went bankrupt in the late 1970s, Brock moved to Provincetown, working as a cook at night and pursuing his craft during the day.
But the money dried up and she struggled to pay off the mortgage, eventually having to sell her house and move in with a friend who later died, the outlet reported.
Brock found a rental about two years ago – but was subsequently hospitalized with heart disease. She also suffers from lung disease, emphysema and hand tremors, which now prevent her from drawing.
After spending a year in the hospital and nursing home, Brock returned to his cabin but needed help paying his rent.
It was then that her pal Dini Lamot, a member of the 1970s and 1980s Boston new wave group Human Sexual Response, stepped in and created the online fundraiser, which had raised $ 105,275 of its 120 goal. $ 000 Thursday.
“With the money raised, I will be able to live decently for the next two or three years,” Brock told The Post.
The reluctant legend said she was embarrassed by her friend’s GoFundMe plan, but was “in awe” of the support from friends and fans.
“It’s lovely that people feel that way about me,” she said, “but that’s partly overkill.”
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