"Hollis is our Motown, our Nashville, our Beale Street," says Orville Hall, owner of the newly opened Hollis Famous Burgers, reports Corey Kilgannon in the New York Times (2/20/09). Hollis is also a street in Queens, that's something less than glamorous, where many of the storefronts that aren't "shuttered with metal roll-down barricades tagged with graffiti" are simply boarded up. But it's also "a working-class black neighborhood" that gave rise to hip-hop artists such as Ja Rule, LL Cool J and Run-DMC.

That was back in the 1980s, when there seemed to be something about Hollis that cultivated hip-hop artists, whose lyrics "had swagger but were clean enough to be offered to the mainstream." Today, Orville Hall hopes Hollis Famous Burgers will carry that legacy. In addition to serving burgers, chicken wings and lemonade, Hollis Famous offers a museum of sorts, which is really more like a "collection" given its small size.

Nonetheless, the museum features gold and platinum records by Run-DMC and a portrait of "turntable master" Jam Master Jay, who "was shot and killed in 2002 in his recording studio on nearby Merrick Avenue." Darryl McDaniels (aka DMC) himself was there for the Hollis Famous grand opening (video), and says he sees the restaurant and museum as a source of inspiration. "Because we did something good, people in hoods all over the world were able to look at us and say, 'Yo, I know what I can do, and I know what I can believe it, then history is on the wall, homie." ~ Tim Manners, editor.