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Film History It's Showtime ON TELEVISION

When New York hosted the Oscars

Despite the Academy Awards being a celebration of all things Hollywood, New York has actually hosted the Oscar ceremony on more than one occasion. Or rather, they co-hosted the event — from 1953 to 1957 — in a rare and soon abandoned bicoastal ceremony that taxed the mechanics of television’s earliest production crews.

There were two reasons for this complicated arrangement. NBC, who was broadcasting the event, had most of their principal stages in New York. After all, the first NBC studios were at Rockefeller Center, where they still remain today. Even The Tonight Show, perhaps NBC’s first and most famous Burbank production, filmed in Manhattan until the early 1970s.

Just as important, many film stars were in New York, unable to get out of theatrical commitments on Broadway. And frankly, in the years before international television viewership, the Oscars simply did not have the same urgency as they do today. Thus, the award show came to them.

Judy Holliday gives Jose Ferrer a friendly squeeze — and Gloria Swanson bursts with joy — as Ferrer’s name is announced as the winner of Best Actor, at La Zambra in midtown. (Getty Images)


23rd Annual Academy Awards
Best Picture winner: All About Eve
March 29, 1951

Before splitting the broadcast, the Oscars once tried a very strange live radio remote from a New York nightclub.

For the 23rd Annual Academy Awards, held on March 29, 1951, many nominees like Judy Holliday and Gloria Swanson remained in New York. Both Swanson and Jose Ferrer, starring in the Broadway comedy Twentieth Century, were nominated that year.

Instead of disappointing a sell-out theater audience, Ferrer invited all the nominees to an after-theater party at the La Zambra (127 W. 52nd Street), a nightclub owned by Spanish guitarist Vincente Gomez. A live radio link was set up among the tables, and nominees wined and dined waiting for their categories to be announced out in Los Angeles.

The club was hopping that night. Ferrer won Best Actor (for Cyrano de Bergerac), and Holliday won Best Actress (for Born Yesterday), giving their speeches into a radio microphone as champagne corks popped in the background. (Swanson, who thought she might win for Sunset Blvd., was less enthusiastic for Judy’s win.)

It’s appropriate they were in New York, as Ferrer and Holliday both won for film adaptations of Broadway shows in which they had starred. And clearly underscoring the power that the New York stage still had on the film business, Best Picture went to the stage drama All About Eve.


Shirley Booth accepts her Oscar in New York, as the audience in Los Angeles watches on. (LIFE images)



25th Annual Academy Awards
Best Picture winner: The Greatest Show On Earth
March 19, 1953

While the Los Angeles crowd were entertained by host Bob Hope, the attendees to the first official bicoastal New York ceremony were met by co-host Fredrick March, a two-time Academy Award winner. The event was broadcast from 5 Columbus Circle, at the International Theatre.

In 1953, the International was a worn out, tired New York stage, having gone through a host of different owners and renovations since it first opened — as the Majestic Theatre — in 1903. At different periods of time, it was owned by Florenz Ziegfeld and William Randolph Hearst, and its stage played hosts to virtually every form of entertainment, from burlesque to ballet.

Definitely an odd setting for an awards program, especially given that this was also the first Oscar show to be broadcast on television. But the International was owned by NBC, who had agreed to fund the inaugural broadcast. And NBC’s fees to broadcast the program were especially valuable to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as the film studios had refused to fund an elaborate bi-coastal show.

The broadcast began 7pm PST and 10 p.m. here, to accommodate the Broadway stars just stepping off the stage. Due to staggered entrances, many of the seats at the International were empty for much of the ceremony.

Among the nominees sitting in the Columbus Circle theater was Best Actress nominee Shirley Booth (above), who was starring in the Broadway play The Time Of The Cuckoo on 40th and Broadway at the now-demolished Empire Theatre. She won the Oscar for the film version of Come Back, Little Sheba; she had won a Tony Award for the stage version in 1950.

Given the limitations of early television technology, it’s amazing they were able to broadcast simultaneously between two coasts at all. Glitches did cause a few amusing gaffes for television audiences. When the universally reviled film The Greatest Show On Earth somehow won Best Picture over the favorite High Noon, the camera switched to the New York audience, who sat there not clapping and in mild confusion.

There would not be another Oscar telecast at the International, or anything else for that matter. The very next year, NBC moved out, and the theater was unceremoniously torn down, replaced with one of Robert Moses’ pet projects, the ill-fated Coliseum convention center.


Audrey snatches off her blonde Ondine wig as her limousine races her to the Oscar ceremony uptown.

26th Annual Academy Awards
Best Picture Winner: From Here To Eternity
March 25, 1954

For the remainder of the Oscars’ short stay in New York, they were broadcast from the New Century Theater*, at Seventh Ave. and 58th Street, right off Columbus Circle and best known as the theater that Orson Welles and his spirited cast stormed in 1937 to perform his musical The Cradle Will Rock.

Film fans were set up in bleachers outside, just as they’re popularly done out in Los Angeles. But one New York nominee didn’t get there in time to meet her fans. Audrey Hepburn was down at the 46th Street Theatre performing the play Ondine, costumed in a blonde wig.

After the show, she raced to the Century in a limousine (with police escort, no less), ripped off her wig, rushed to the bathroom to wipe off her stage makeup, then settled into her seat for less than ten minutes before standing again to accept the trophy for Best Actress for Roman Holiday.

Here’s video of Audrey’s win. You can see the ‘switch off’ between the Los Angeles and New York feeds.

Audrey, off Columbus Circle: Hepburn sits in nervous anticipation at the New Century Theatre, moments before she wins for Best Actress.

The show, hosted in New York again by Fredric March, had another New York icon receiving an Oscar that year — Frank Sinatra, Best Supporting Actor for his role in the Best Picture that year. However, he was in Los Angeles to accept it.

(You can find tons of pictures of Audrey in her post-Oscar glow at the NBC Photo Bank.)

Claudette Colbert and Joseph Mankiewicz presided over a sedate New York audience, while out in Los Angeles, audiences were energized by young comedian Jerry Lewis. (Courtesy Oscars)



27th and 28th Academy Awards
Best Picture Winners: On The Waterfront, Marty
March 30, 1955; March 21, 1956

It became obvious to most viewers that the bicoastal productions were becoming lopsided. After all, it was early evening in Los Angeles, and most of the young, fresh talent was there. In New York, it was post-theater time, and attracted the older stars — some exhausted from stage productions. Nothing exemplifies this more than the 28th Oscar ceremony, hosted in New York by proper Claudette Colbert and Joseph Mankiewicz and in Hollywood by the hot new comedian Jerry Lewis, whose ribald antics made the New York cutaways seem drab.

But the awards were all about the East Coast. The Best Pictures these two years were for films set in Hoboken, NJ and the Bronx, respectively. Much of the cast of On The Waterfront were actually at the New York ceremony, including Best Supporting Actress winner Eva Marie Saint (pictured below), her pregnancy concealed by a jacket as she mounted the stage to accept her award. (Here’s the video of her win, again highlighting the difference between the New York and the L.A. ceremonies.) Best Director Elia Kazan was also here to accept his trophy. Marlon Brando, however, was out in Los Angeles, apparently where the fun was.

The following year, this time with Colbert going solo as the East Coast mistress of ceremonies, Best Picture went to Marty, another show originating from New York. But not from a Broadway stage. As a symbolic move towards the importance of the small screen, the Ernest Borgnine vehicle was based on a teleplay from the Goodyear Television Playhouse.

Below: Eva Marie Saint, in shock, approaches the podium to accept her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for On the Waterfront, her tasteful ensemble barely concealing her pregnancy. (Courtesy Life images)

29th Academy Awards
Best Picture Winner: Around The World In 80 Days
March 27, 1957

It was clear by this time that the two coast production was more trouble than it was worth. While Hollywood went with Jerry Lewis again, while New York opted for the elegant but comparatively unexciting Celeste Holm.

The New York Times called it ‘a colossally listless affair.’ One of the few shining moments was an honorary Oscar to New York vaudevillian and Macy’s Thanksgiving balloon inspiration Eddie Cantor.

This would be the last year New York hosted the Oscars. And this would be the last hurrah for the New Century Theatre as well. It would be torn down in 1962 and replaced with the rather sleek, curvy 200 Central Park South co-op.

NOTE: To make this story slightly confusing, New York also had a Century Theatre on the other side of Columbus Circle that was demolished in the 1930s. Hopefully I’ve gotten these theaters all straightened out!

ALSO: You might like to see the Life Magazine photographs of Audrey pictured above in the context of the original Life Magazine article.

This article originally ran in 2011.

Categories
Bridges

The odd bridge over Broadway vs. Knox the Hatter

The bulky and yet somewhat elegant contraption above is the short-lived Loew Bridge, which once hung over Broadway at Fulton Street back in 1867 and 1868, an early cast-iron pedestrian bridge at one of the busiest intersections in the city.

It was named not for its architect, but for the comptroller of New York at the time, Charles E. Loew.

Crossing the street was indeed a challenge then, in an era of no traffic lights and conveyances operated by horses. A couple blocks to the north lay the heart of city government and the publishing industry, not to mention St. Paul’s Church and the Astor House, New York’s finest early hotel. (Both are seen in the photo below.)

New York Public Library

The bridge, which opened in April 1867, provided a respite to New Yorkers frustrated with dirty streets and impossible crossing options for pedestrians. One fanatic was even inspired to pen a lengthy poem to its honor.

Unfortunately, it was not popular with surrounding business owners, particularly the one at 212 Broadway. That storefront, the hatter of one Charles Knox, was obscured by the bridge’s latticework and decreased business opportunities, he alleged.

It seems unusual that one businessman would be able to effectively crumble a new bridge to the ground, but Mr. Knox had the city’s sympathies.

Two years earlier, his original shop had been destroyed in the same fire that incinerated Barnum’s American Museum. However he managed to unite some business owners of the area and eventually “brought suit against the city for $25,000 damages.” [source]

Most likely, Knox was more concerned with the belief that he was losing business to a rival hat shop across the street. (After all, to paraphrase a popular cliche, the hats are always cleaner on the other side.) Thanks to his efforts, the city ripped the bridge down less than two years after first erecting it, and citizens went back to their filthy and treacherous street crossings.

Back to square one, it seems. I think the situation is very well summarized in this letter from ‘B.’ to the New York Times, published on December 20, 1868:

“Taking down the Broadway Bridge appears to cause few remarks from the press, and when they have spoken they have rather been in favor of the removal.

“It appears to me the bridge, at certain periods was a great convenience, notwithstanding its needless height. When the snow slush is a foot thick, and the street blocked up with stages and trucks in a dead lock, it is a great accommodation to have a bridge to cross. It is almost impossible for women and children to cross Broadway, near Fulton Street, at such times; and if men get over it is at the risk of being covered with filth.

“Before the bridge was built, the writer has walked from Liberty Street to near Wall before getting across. At that time the papers were continually talking about ‘relief to Broadway”; but since the bridge was built, that has ceased. I think we shall hear it again on the first thaw after a heavy snowstorm, when crowds will be seen standing at the corners wondering how they will be able to get over the street.  

“If the bridge is an injury to private property, the owners should be remunerated for the damage; not that a few shopkeepers, because their business is injured, or they think it is, should be the means of inconveniencing the whole public by having it removed.  

“If that were the case with railroads, every farmer would have the power of stopping the road going over its land, because he thought it injured it — and there would not be a railroad in this country.”  

Images above from the New York Public Library digital collection

 
 

Article originally published in 2011

Categories
Landmarks Politics and Protest Preservation

Federal Hall: Now and Always An American National Treasure

Photo courtesy the Library of Congress

Federal Hall National Memorial, currently administered by the National Park Service, has always been a popular landmark with tourists thanks to its position on one of the most photographed intersections in New York. Who can resist that noble statue of George Washington silently meditating on the financial juggernaut of Wall Street?

In 2015 Federal Hall was officially named an official American National Treasure, part of the ongoing Saving Places program by National Trust for Historic Preservation calling attention to endangered landmarks of national significance. (The following article was originally posted that year in honor.)

It joins an impressive hodgepodge of local landmarks such as South Street Seaport, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and the Whitney Studio.

While this sounds like a distinction that might pique the interest of Nicolas Cage — after all, he broke into Trinity Church up the street in the first National Treasure film — the National Treasure program gives a boost to historic places that may be otherwise neglected or under-appreciated. When’s the last time you were there?

Here are a few facts about the history of Federal Hall that you may not have known:

1. This isn’t the real Federal Hall The original structure was built in 1699, built by the British who used materials from the city’s demolished north defense wall — aka the wall of Wall Street — to construct it. It was the center of most governmental functions, from city administration to later federal functions.

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2. That Federal Hall was remodeled by a controversial architect. Pierre Charles L’Enfant, a successful city contractor and former Continental Army engineer redesigned the structure in time for its use as the first national capital.

According to David McCullough, it was the first building in America designed to exalt the national spirit, in what would come to be known as the Federal style. Lâ’Enfant would later work on the creation of Washington DC from Maryland swampland and be fired from that project by George Washington.

Courtesy Nationaal Archief

Courtesy Nationaal Archive

3. George Washington was first inaugurated here on April 30, 1789. The King James bible he was sworn in with — property of a New York Freemason lodge — is still at Federal Hall.

4. The original Federal Hall was torn down in 1812 when city administration moved to the new City Hall.  Its materials were sold off to make other buildings in the city.

Below: Wall Street in 1825 without a Federal Hall, either old or new!

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5. The current Federal Hall is actually the original U.S. Custom House which opened in 1842, replacing a structure used for that purpose at 22-24 Wall Street.

Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

6. The offices of the Custom House again moved in 1855, and the building was used as the U.S. Sub-Treasury building. In 1913 it became the first place in New York to buy the original buffalo nickel.

Below: Suffrage proponents Mrs. W.L. Prendergast, Mrs. W.L. Colt, Doris Stevens, Alice Paul stop in front of Federal Hall

Courtesy Library of Congress
Courtesy Library of Congress

7. In 1918 Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks famously drew thousands to the steps of Federal Hall to promote the sale of war bonds. Later that year doughnuts were auctioned off from its steps as a war fund-raiser.

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8. In 1920 a wagon full of dynamite exploded across the street from the Sub-Treasury, killing 38 people in what is today still an unsolved mystery.

Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

9. The Sub-Treasury had moved out by the 1930s, and the building was officially re-opened as the Federal Hall Memorial Museum in January 1940. It was inspired in part by America’s celebration of the 150th anniversary of Washington’s inauguration. The 1939-40 World’s Fair presented a replica of the original Federal Hall even after an earlier version of Federal Hall in Bryant Park failed to attract visitors. 

Courtesy New York Public Library
Courtesy New York Public Library

10. Federal Hall received a massive renovation in 2006 after the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001 weakened the foundations of the building.

Check out the official announcement at the website for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Top image by the Wurts Brothers, taken in 1908. Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

Categories
Museums Podcasts Politics and Protest

The Guarded Smile: Mona Lisa at the Metropolitan Museum

The Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s stoic portrait and one of the most valuable paintings on earth, came to America during the winter of 1963, a single-picture loan that was both a special favor to Jackie Kennedy and a symbolic tool during tense conversations between the United States and France about nuclear arms.

The first stop was the National Gallery in Washington DC, where over a half million people spent hours in line to gaze at the famous smile.

Mona mania: New Yorkers line up outside the Met for the hottest ticket in town in 1963. — Image by ©Bettmann/Corbis

Then, on February 7, 1963, she made her debut to the public at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the medieval sculpture hall, for a month-long exhibition that would become one of the museums most attended shows in history.  

New York tourist Mona Lisa

In the second half of this week’s show, we’re joined by Patrick Bringley, a former security guard at the Metropolitan Museum and a current tour guide. His book All The Beauty In The World: The Metropolitan Museum and Me, published by Simon & Schuster, recounts a decade of purpose, sorrow and epiphany while working in America’s largest museum. 

He’s making the rounds! Read this excellent New Yorker profile A Museum Soup-Thrower’s Worst Nightmare and listen to him on NPR.

For more information on the history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, check out our podcast from last fall celebrating the museum’s 150th anniversary:

And for some dazzling backstory on the Mona Lisa and just exactly why she’s so famous, check out the Gilded Gentleman’s podcast The Theft of the Mona Lisa, Paris 1911.

Here’s an excerpt of the article in which this week’s podcast is based:

On that first day, thousands lined up outside in the freezing cold to catch a glimpse of the iconic painting; the first in line, a taxi driver named Joseph Lasky, got there at 4:30 in the morning.

By week’s end, already a quarter of a million people had visited the museum to see the Italian masterpiece.

Accommodating such a famous painting required some unprecedented changes in protocol. As a favor to the two governments, no admission fee was charged to view the painting, and weekday hours were extended until 9 pm each night.

Thousands of schoolchildren crammed the museum every morning, funneling by the modest-sized painting in a daze.

Museum director James Rorimer told the New Yorker, “The dirt we expect, from them and everybody else! The accumulation of dust from scuffling shoes! We’ll have literally balls of dust.”

From reports, it sounds like they got the dust and air quality under control. The painting was secured by bulletproof glass and a couple Secret Service agents.  

A line down the block to see Mona. Courtesy the Metropolitan Museum

But the museum sprinkler system almost created an international incident by nearly destroying the painting in an unplanned shower.

According to a memoir by former museum director Thomas Hoving, he arrived at the museum storeroom one morning to find people frantically scurrying around with towels.

“No one ever discovered why, but some time during the night one of the fire sprinklers in the ceiling broke its glass ampoule….The Mona Lisa, according to the Louvre official, was ok.  He told me that the thick glass covering it had acted like an effective ¦raincoat.”

That incident was never leaked to the press.

Actually, this would have been a good time to conceal something from the media as there was a newspaper strike at this time, shuttering many publications.

By the time the painting was packed up aboard the US United States for her journey back to the Louvre, the Mona Lisa had been seen by well over one million people.

According to the New York Times, the museum was able to identify the one-millionth visitor — one Arthur Pomerantz of New Rochelle — who was given a reproduction of the painting and gifts for his children.

The final tally, according to the Times:

This article was originally published on this site in July 2013.

Categories
Parks and Recreation

Remember the Maine Monument!

On Memorial Day in the year 1913, one of New York City’s great war memorials was finally unveiled — the Maine Monument, at the southwest corner entrance of Central Park.

The monument pays tribute to the 266 American soldiers who perished on the USS Maine, which exploded in Havana, Cuba, on February 15, 1898.

Given the various wars which have involved the United States since then, this event is sometimes overshadowed, but it so horrified and angered Americans that emotions helped fuel the conflict known as the Spanish-American War later that year.

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This is often considered a war manufactured by New York publishers as anti-Spanish rhetoric in the papers — the seeds of so-called ‘yellow journalism’, featuring outlandish exaggeration or out-right fabrication to sell their product to New Yorkers — led directly into military engagement.

Newspapers were not only behind the causes of war; they were behind its monuments too. Within days of the explosion, William Randolph Hearst called for donations for a memorial to the Maine’s fallen crew.

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Just as Joseph Pulitzer had done a decade earlier for the Statue of Liberty, Hearst went directly to its readers, young and old, to help fund a tribute to the Maine.

Given the wall-to-wall coverage of the war that year and the ample profits from newspaper sales, it’s strange that Hearst couldn’t just fund the whole thing himself.

Less than a month after the disaster, people around the country were fund-raising for the Maine Memorial.

In March 1898, a traveling comic opera crew was raising money in Oklahoma when its lead actress killed herself.

The following month, a vaudeville benefit at New York’s Koster & Bial in Herald Square was overtaken by sailors who took to singing patriotic songs from the balconies.

Hundreds of special benefits were hosted in theaters and stages across the country over the next decade.

It’s unclear how much of the proceeds ended up funding the monument, as it took well over a decade for money to be raised and its design — by New Jersey architect Harold Van Buren Magonigle, America’s go-to memorial designer of the Gilded Age — to be approved.

Magonigle enlisted his frequent collaborator Attilio Piccirilli to create the bronze and marble sculptures.

Some of that earnest enthusiasm seems to have disappeared when the memorial was finally dedicated on Memorial Day 1913.  

According the New York Sun, leading New York artist erupted in “a storm of criticism” at the shiny, ostentatious design, with aesthetes calling the work a “misfit” and “a disgrace to the city.”

Many thought its relationship to the actual Maine was lost in vague theatrical symbolism.  

“Architecturally and constructively the whole thing is cheap and bad.”[source]

Picture courtesy Museum of the City of New York
Picture courtesy Museum of the City of New York

The memorial was unveiled with a grand military parade and the attendance of ten warships in the harbor, including one from Havana.

There was, of course, one great conflict on everybody’s mind that day when, in the official ceremony, sworn enemies Hearst and Mayor William Jay Gaynor met at the unveiling. (Among many grievances, Hearst had unsuccessfully run against Gaynor for mayor in 1909.)

 With utmost restraint, Gaynor managed to shake Hearst’s hand without punching him in the face.

Two years later, a second memorial to the Maine was placed in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.  And in 1926, a lavish monument was placed in Havana, Cuba.

Taken 1920, courtesy Museum of the City of New York
Taken 1920, courtesy Museum of the City of New York
Categories
Podcasts Science

The First Woman Ever Photographed: Light and Magic in Greenwich Village

Dorothy Catherine Draper is a truly forgotten figure in American history. She was the first woman to ever sit for a photograph — a daguerrotype, actually, in the year 1840, upon the rooftop of the school which would become New York University.

The circumstances that got her to this position were rather unique. She was the older sister of a professor named John William Draper, and she assisted him in his success and fame even when it seemed a detriment to her. The Drapers worked alongside Samuel Morse in the period following his invention of the telegraph.

The legendary portrait was taken when Miss Draper was a young woman but a renewed interest in the image in the 1890s brought the now elderly matron a bit of late-in-life recognition.

LISTEN NOW: THE FIRST WOMAN EVER PHOTOGRAPHED

This episode originally appeared on Greg’s podcast called The First which had a respectable run a few years ago. The feed for that show will be going away soon so we wanted to present some of that show’s greatest hits over the next few months, in between regular episodes of the Bowery Boys as bonus stories about American history. 

For information on how to visit the Draper homestead, head over to the website for the Hastings Historical Society. And the site is right off the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail which we visited in a show last year. So why not make a day of it?

Dorothy Catherine Draper in the first portrait photograph ever taken (no previous test examples survive) and the first photograph of a female face.

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Draper in the 1890s, in a photograph taken by her nephew.

Courtesy MCNY
Courtesy MCNY
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The observatory attached to the Draper house in Hastings-on-Hudson.

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John William Draper

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Samuel Morse from an image taken of him in Paris.

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Categories
Landmarks Podcasts

The Sip-In of 1966: Celebrating Julius’ Bar, New York’s Newest Landmark

After pouring their drinks, a bartender in Julius's Bar refuses to serve John Timmins, Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell (1940 - 1993), and Randy Wicker, members of the Mattachine Society, an early American gay rights group, who were protesting New York liquor laws that prevented serving gay customers, New York, New York, April 21, 1966. (Photo by Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images)

New York City has a new landmark, a little bar in the West Village named Julius’, officially recognized by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on December 6th, 2022. 

It’s here that one moment of protest (the Sip-In of 1966) set the stage for a political revolution, “a signature event in the battle for LGBTQ+ people to gather, socialize, and celebrate openly in bars, restaurants, and other public places.”

So we thought it would be a great time to revisit our 2019 show on the history of Julius’ and a look at the life of gays and lesbians in the mid 20th century. 

The now-iconic photograph by Fred W. McDarrah (Courtesy Getty Images)

PODCAST Many Americans may now be familiar with Stonewall Uprising, a combative altercation in 1969 between police and bar patrons at the Stonewall Inn in the West Village. It was this event that gave rise to the modern LGBT movement.

But in a way, the Stonewall Riots were simply the start of a new chapter for the gay rights movement. The road leading to Stonewall is often glossed over or forgotten.

By the 1960s, a lively gay scene that traced back to the 19th century — drag balls! lesbian teahouses! — had been effectively buried by decades of cultural and legal oppression.

A few brave individuals, however, were tired of living in the shadows.

In this episode, we’ll be zeroing in on the efforts of a handful of young New Yorkers who, in 1966, took a page from the civil rights movement to stage an unusual demonstration in a small bar in the West Village. This event, called the Sip-In at Julius‘, was a tiny but significant step towards the fair treatment of gay and lesbians in the United States.

IN ADDITION: We’ll be joined by Hugh Ryan, author of When Brooklyn Was Queer, at the bar at Julius’ to talk about the forgotten lives of queer people in the ever-changing borough of Brooklyn.

Listen Now — Sip-In at Julius’ Bar: Celebrating New York’s Newest Landmark

This episode features an audio interview clip from the podcast Making Gay History, an excellent source for gay history. Be sure you check out their coverage of Stonewall 50.

We also feature a musical clip of ‘I Hear A Symphony’ by The Supremes (Motown). The song hit Number #1 on the Billboard charts in November of 1965. The most popular song in the nation at the moment of the Julius’ Sip-In? The Righteous Brothers’ “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration.”

Julius’ Bar: A Short History

This month is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a chaotic, rowdy altercation that bloomed over the course of the weekend to energize the New York’s LGBT movement. (If you haven’t already, give our podcast on the history of the Stonewall riots a listen.) But despite its reputation, Stonewall is not the oldest gay bar in New York. Not even close.

For that honor, you need only march a few steps to Waverly Place and 10th Street to that beloved old institution Julius (159 W. 10th St). It also happens to be the location of a pre-Stonewall protest of angered gay activists, an event both revolutionary and even occasionally amusing.

Julius is truly an old bar although nobody seems to know exactly how old. The bar itself settles on the year 1864, easily making it one of the oldest bars in New York, just a tad younger than McSorley’s Old Ale House. The building itself is even older, dating from 1826, becoming a grocer in 1840 before transforming to its current, more jovial purposes.

It has many things in common with McSorley’s. The walls are plastered with memorabilia from days gone by. The bar is a well-worn relic, the tables and benches made of old beer barrels.

Like McSorley’s, they even serve burgers, and really, really good ones at that. Its history is a tad more shrouded than McSorley’s but equally studded with famous clientele.

Courtesy the National Park Service

Surviving the 20th century

It was a popular speakeasy throughout the 1920s, evidenced today by Julius’ still existing sidedoor with a peephole. Both Fats Waller and Billie Holiday are rumored to have performed in the backroom, quite likely as Holiday worked at the nearby nightclub Cafe Society during the 1930s.

In subsequent years the clientele was decidedly a mixed lot and Julius would ply writers like Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote with drink and companionship.

By the 1960s Julius had become a low-key staple of the West Village gay scene. However, it appears that it was ‘straight enough’ that it survived Mayor Robert Wagner’s cleanup of the city in preparation of the 1964 World’s Fair, a wholesale shutdown of West Village gay bars and other ‘undesirable’ places.

The film Can You Ever Forgive Me?, set in the early 1990s, has several scenes set and filmed at Julius’. (Courtesy Fox Searchlight)

Julius’ Bar in the 1960s

Even through this Julius lived on, although patrons and management alike had to maneuver through rather arcane and sometimes humiliating rituals.

According to writer Edmund White, “There was even a period when we weren’t allowed to face the bar but had to stand absurdly with our back to it to prove, I suppose, that we had nothing to hide.”

It gets even more absurd. The New York State Liquor Authority banned bars from serving drinks to gays and lesbians. This rule was sometimes ignored by brazen Village bartenders, but the constant fear of such a twisted regulation being suddenly enforced by an undercover cop eventually drew action from a burgeoning group of young gay activists.

A curious ad for tolerance distributed by the Mattachine Society in 1960.

Members of the Mattachine Society, one of New York’s earliest gay organizations, planned on challenging the rule by going into bars, loudly announcing their homosexuality and ordering a drink.

Their statement at the bar would be calm and simple: “We are homosexuals. We are orderly, we intend to remain orderly, and we are asking for service.”

The key would be that they were followed around by a phalanx of press representatives. So, when the bar refused to serve them, the Mattachine Society would have their moment, captured and ready for print.

More Than Just A Drink

The challenge came on April 21, 1966, more than three years before the Stonewall riots. They told members of the press to meet them at the Ukrainian-American Village Restaurant but management closed shop before they arrived. They tried two other bars, a Howard Johnson’s and a place called Waikiki, and each time they were served without incident.

But of course, the organizers were looking for an incident. They arrived at Julius for their big moment.

The now-legendary Julius Sip-In, as the event as come to be called, was a carefully engineered event with a few unexpected detours, yet it served its purpose. The New York Times even ran the story, under the rather backhanded headline, “3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars.” The law was successfully challenged in court.

Since then, Julius has quietly sat on the sidelines, ceding the historical spotlight to Stonewall around the corner, observing both the curious changes to the neighborhood and the development of a viable and open gay community in the Village and elsewhere.

You don’t have to be gay to appreciate its unique place in New York City history. Just grab a stool and spend awhile admiring the bar’s warm, lived-in details.

Oh, and you really must try the burgers. Did I say that already?

By the way, who the heck is Julius? According to one speculation, Julius was the name of the original owner’s basset hound.

FURTHER READING
Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution by David Carter
Gay New York by George Chauncey
Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising that Changed America by Martin Duberman
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers by Lillian Faderman
Greater Gotham by Mike Wallace

and of course Hugh Ryan‘s When Brooklyn Was Queer. Thanks to Hugh for coming on the show and joining us at Julius Bar!

Hugh Ryan, Tom Meyers, Greg Young and Julius’ owner Helen Buford

FURTHER LISTENING

Three companion shows to this episode that you’ll definitely want to listen (or re-listen to) after Sip-In At Julius: Gay New York in the 1960s:

__________________________________________________________

Categories
Gilded Age New York Podcasts

Birth of the Five Boroughs: 125 Years of Greater New York

On January 1, 2023, New York City will celebrate a special moment, the 125th anniversary of the formation of Greater New York and the creation of the five boroughs — The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island.

In honor of this special moment in New York City history, we are celebrating a bit early, reissuing our episode (originally #150) on the Consolidation and the formation of the boroughs, with a new introduction.

And stay tuned for new episodes of the Bowery Boys Podcast for the rest of the year!

Artwork Julius Schorzman; modified by Astuishin, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Here’s the story of how two very big cities and a whole bunch of small towns and villages — completely different in nature, from farmland to skyscraper — became the greatest city in the world.

This is the tale of Greater New York, the forming of the five boroughs into one metropolis, a consolidation of massive civic interests which became official on January 1, 1898. But this is not a story of interested parties, united in a common goal.

In fact, Manhattan (comprising, with some areas north of the Harlem River, the city of New York) was in a bit of a battle with anti-consolidation forces, mostly in Brooklyn, who saw the merging of two biggest cities in America as the end of the noble autonomy for that former Dutch city on the western shore of Long Island. You’ll be stunned to hear how easily it could have all fallen apart!

In this podcast is the story of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island (or Richmond, if you will) and their journey to become one. And how, rather recently in fact, one of those boroughs would grow uncomfortable with the arrangement.

LISTEN NOW: BIRTH OF THE FIVE BOROUGHS

The hero of our story — Andrew Haswell Green

Below the prize-winning anti-Consolidation song mentioned in the podcast (courtesy NYPL):

Style: “Music_Sep4E”

A map of Richmond from 1874

FURTHER LISTENING

This show was recorded in 2013 and since then, many aspects of this story have been turned into their own podcasts. After listening to this show, dive back into these episodes:

Categories
Christmas Writers and Artists

Sacred Santa: How a self-proclaimed Messiah became a popular Santa Claus model

Early one spring day in 1922, while dutifully posing at the Art Students League on West 57th Street, Santa Claus had a fatal heart attack in front of a classroom of students.

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Above — He knows when you’ve been bad or good: A Christmas issue of Judge Magazine from 1919 by Guy Lowy, who studied at the Art Students League and very likely used Mnason for his model. (Courtesy Jon Williamson)

“The man who was Santa Claus is dead,” said the New York Tribune. “He was a man of many names, but at the Art Students League, where he posed for beginners, and in the studios of the best known artists, where he was sent for when a ‘Santa Claus type’ was needed, he was known as Mnason, the first ‘n’ being silent.”

They called him Mnason, although his full name was even more spectacular — Mnason T. Huntsman. (Or Huntsman T. Mnason or even Paul Mnason. His aliases were legion.)

Man of Mystery

The burly artists model lent his body to the ages; thanks to the scores of influential artists who hired him for Christmas projects, today’s modern Santa Claus probably looks more like Mnason than perhaps any other actual human being in history.*

The poet Arthur Chapman declared:  “It’s no exaggeration to say that Mnason posed for most of the Santa Claus pictures that have been made in recent years. And he figured in a good many for which he did not actually pose — as such pictures have been copied from originals for which Mnason was the model.

“Probably there isn’t a man today whose picture has been cut out more times and is treasured in more scrapbooks.”

Mnason, the definitive Santa Claus of the 1910s and early 1920s, was a true “man of mystery” for many who painted and drew him. A few knew the details of his past; perhaps it held the secret to his magnetic allure, to the deep, ancient gleam in his eye.

For Mnason was a former religious cult leader and proselytizer who had served time in jail for child abduction and religious blasphemy, and once he was actually tarred and feathered by an angry mob. He was a charismatic to some, a psychotic to many others.

Below: Painter Kenyon Cox and his students at the Art Students League in 1887, a couple decades before the arrival of Mnason (Courtesy aaa.si.edu)

Making A Cult Leader

Mnason was born in Pennsylvania sometime in the 1850s, orphaned at eight years old. His early religious teachings were strict but conventional for the period.

In the 1880s, he worked for New York’s Sunday Closing League, visiting New York shops and saloons to ensure they were not selling anything too amoral on church day. In 1883, he testified that one shop owner illegally sold cigarettes to young boys, but not before the judge excoriated Mnason for lying on the stand.

At some point between that moment and 1888, Mnason was “inspired and bidden by God” to become a preacher. His message was not well received; at one point, the “wild and absurd behavior” of this “obstreperous” man of God got him thrown into jail for disorderly conduct.

By then, he had started a religious commune called the Lord’s Farm in Pascack Valley in New Jersey, where he began to attract (or lure) a young, impressionable flock.

He called himself “The Holy One” or “The Modern Christ” and granted bizarre nicknames to his most loyal followers.  Collectively, they were called the Angel Dancers, or the Church of the Living God.

In 1888, Mnason was arrested “on the charge of blasphemy,” and of enticing two young women who claimed they “were obliged to do anything he required.” He was reportedly tarred and feathered by irate residents. (It is at this point that you might notice the odd coincidence of the name Mnason and ‘Manson’, as in Charles.)

Mnason T. Huntsman, from an image used in the New York Tribune

The Angel Dancers

Even still, the Angel Dancers managed to attract on oddball list of adherents, including a local farmer’s wife and her two children. Eventually, according to a 1893 New York Times article, “the band was increased by two long-haired men, who called themselves ‘Silas’ and ‘John the Baptist’.

This fanatical cult would reportedly practice ‘angel dancing’, “scantily robed and waving a huge blanket with which to drive away the devil.”

Also notable to the press of the day: Mnason and his flock were all vegetarians.  “Nothing save what grows in or on the ground may be eaten.” [source]

From The Times in Philadelphia, November 25, 1895

The entire lot were arrested in April 1893 for attempting to swindle the aforementioned farmer, although it’s obvious that some religious intolerance was embedded within the charge as well.

The affidavit read: “The conspirators deny, ridicule and curse all regular religion and religious customs, recognize no Sabbath, and set up a false god of their own, declaring the said Mnason to be the only and living God.”

From a syndicated article which ran in the Ironwood News-Record in Michigan, January 11, 1896, courtesy Newspapers.com
The Compound

A few years later, the Angel Dancers had taken over the farmhouse and had grown to a membership of nine males and nineteen females, with two children.

After the reported death of a child in 1897, the Times intoned, “No physician was called to be of any service. Mnason is ‘the Christ’. The dancers are vegetarians.”

Another ugly abduction case reared its head in 1900, when two “little girls” were taken from the compound and then kept in jail for months in order to testify against Mnason. The cult leader seemed to survive these charges, too

From the same article as above.

The Lord’s Farm became so notorious that by 1909, the state found a good excuse to evict Mnason and his followers. The charismatic moved to New York City and briefly opened a church for black parishioners.

It is then that former ‘Modern Christ’ then disappears, for a time, from public view. But the Times in 1909 noted the following:  “Mnason is a man of many aliases.”

The Art Students Leave, photo by Jim Henderson, Wikimedia Commons

Finally, he popped up again, in 1916, at the Art Students League, and not unnoticed.

The New York Sun mocked his new profession (headline pictured below):  “[R]ecently he had turned himself into Santa Claus or King Lear or any other whiskered person that the embryo John Sargents of the Art Students League wish him to be¦.”

It’s no surprise he would find his way into an art collective — he was a vegetarian, after all — and his timing was rather perfect, given his particular look and body size.

Making Santa Claus

The character of Santa Claus had gone through a major style makeover in the late 19th century.

His annual routine already immortalized in the popular verse A Visit From St. Nicholas — penned by the godfather of the Chelsea neighborhood Clement Clarke Moore — magazine and postcard illustrators began morphing the popular Christmas figure from a thickly robed saint to a child-friendly, candy-colored superhero.

This change came about through the hands of American artists and illustrators, led by Harper’s Weekly artist Thomas Nast in New York. Some of the modern look and mythos is credited to Nast, his influential pen elaborating on Santa’s girth (eventually to rest on near-corpulency) and placing his residence in the North Pole.

By the early 20th century, Santa’s physical characteristics were locked in place, but his spirit and personality were still very much uncertain. Should Santa be energetic or world weary? Wise or playful? Approachable like a parent, or unfathomable like a god?

Perfect Pose

Many of New York’s great illustrators of the period were associated with the prestigious Art Students League, and it was here that Mnason contributed his own sparkle to the characters, as artists recommended the man for his poise, mystery and sparkle.

“They found in him the ideal type, on account of his snowy beard, his bearing, the jolly twinkle in his eye, his fine color and his intelligence.”

Blow: J.C Leyendecker‘s 1919 cover for the Saturday Evening Post.  You can easily tell Leyendecker’s influence on later Evening Post artist Norman Rockwell. Given the artist’s connection to the ASL, Mnason very likely posed for this painting.

It’s clear that many of these legendary artists were aware of some version of their Santa’s past.  “Mnason would hint to his artists friends regarding certain experiences in his life in which his pronounced and individualistic religious views played a part.” [source]

One year, he was even hired as a department store Santa where he notably espoused his religious views to the children who had come to present their Christmas wishes.

And To All A Good Night

His days of Lord’s Farm were behind him, but Mnason kept writing religious verse while living suitably on his artist-model wages. For years, he was passed among New York’s most renown illustrators, who claimed him the iconic visage of the holiday’s most jolly proponent.

“Nothing could dampen his cheerfulness, but behind his smile there was an element of mystery which the embodiment of Santa Claus maintained to the last.”

When he died in 1922, Mnason had been drawn and painted as Santa Claus dozens of times.

Eventually, Santa Claus would go through his final evolution in the 1930s, thanks to artist Haddon Sondblum, hired by Coca-Cola for their colorful advertising campaigns.

Sondblum’s iconic depiction is directly influenced by Moore’s famous poem, and but equally so by the dozens of artists and magazine illustrators before him, most of which who had used Mnason as their inspiration.

*A retired salesman named Lou Prentice was used by Haddon to create early versions of his Coca-Cola Santa and so might lay claim to being the most important physical inspiration. But Mnason was used by more artists and within several pivotal publications of the day.

Categories
Holidays

‘Twas The Night: A New York Christmas tradition in an uptown cemetery

Clement Clarke Moore, the lord of Chelsea (the manor for which the neighborhood is named), lived a long and distinguished life as an educator and land developer, dying in 1863 at his home in Newport, Rhode Island.

He was originally buried in the churchyard of St. Luke-in-the-Field (pictured below) in the area of today’s West Village.

In 1891 the cemetery was redeveloped and the remains were transferred to Trinity Church’s graveyard in Washington Heights.

What does all this have to do with Christmas you ask?

Moore was a revered scholar, former president of Columbia College (later Columbia University) and the developer of the General Theological Seminary on his old Chelsea property.

But most everybody knows him better as the author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” or “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” a verse of holiday anticipation penned for his children.

For well over one hundred years an unusual and special ceremony has taken place at Church of the Intercession, the house of worship which sits upon the grounds of Trinity Church Cemetery.

Church of the Intercession

The tradition was apparently initiated by a vicar at the chapel named Milo Hudson Gates.

First initiated in 1911, Gates, according to a 1933 New York Daily News report, “and his child parishioners trouped across to Trinity Cemetery to pray and sing at the grave where Dr. Moore’s bones have rested since they were removed from the vault in St. Luke’s Church on Hudson Street.”

From the 1914 New York Sun

Hundreds of children, carrying lanterns and torches in the old days, have gathered around Moore’s gravestone and sang Christmas songs over the years.

“Carols were sung and wreaths placed on the grave,” according to a 1919 report. The famous poem by Moore was then recited.

“His name was Clement C. Moore. His body sleeps beneath the Christmas trees that grow in Trinity Cemetery.” [December 23, 1918]

Below: Children surrounding the grave of Moore’s, sometime in the 1920s or 1930s (according the church website).

This tradition has survived into modern day with some interesting variations.

New York Daily News 1944

Frequently a person dressed as Saint Nicholas (the saint, not the Santa) leads the procession. In recent decades, a person of some renown reads the poem such as in 2003 when basketball great Isiah Thomas brought Moore’s words to life.

Below: In 1990, Joyce Dinkins, wife of the mayor David Dinkins, was invited to read the poem.

Courtesy Trinity Church

Details of this year’s event from their website:

THE 112TH CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE
MEMORIAL CANDLELIGHT SERVICE
WILL BE HELD ON
DECEMBER 18, 2022 AT 3:00PM

This year, the poem will be read by The Rt. Rev. Catherine S. Roskam, former Suffragan Bishop of New York.

Following the service, we will process out to Trinity Cemetery to lay the wreath on Clement Clarke Moore’s grave and sing “Silent Night” at the Trinity Cemetery and Mausoleum.

Categories
Neighborhoods

Finding Pietro

One of you may be related to Pietro, the boy in the picture. He was one of thousands of Italian immigrants who arrived in New York in the 1870s-80s. He seems to have been intelligent and even exceptional, weathering a set of truly dreary circumstances that would have defeated most men.

Pietro was not yet 13 years old when he was almost killed in a streetcar accident. He was permanently scarred and unable to support his family. If not for witnessing a shooting outside of his home, we might never know his name.

But in 1892,  Pietro became a profoundly moving subject in a new book by one of the greatest social reformers of the Gilded Age.

Jacob Riis was a pioneer social activist who used journalism and photography to change the living conditions of thousands of poor New Yorkers. He took his bulky camera to the most decrepit nooks of lower Manhattan, documenting a world entirely unseen by most people.

In 1890 he published How The Other Half Lives, exposing the squalid living conditions of downtown Manhattan’s mostly immigrant population.

Riis did help to change the face of New York. In Five Points, the worst tenements were demolished and replaced with government buildings and one very manicured park. But his depictions of ethnic groups, in retrospect, could be very simplistic, even condescending. In his goals to highlight an overwhelmingly malignant condition, he often glossed over some telling details of some of his subjects.

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Pietro (I haven’t been able to find his last name) is one of Riis’ favorite subjects. He makes his debut in The Children of the Poor, Riis’ 1892 follow-up to How The Other Half Lives, as a model of the striving young student. Pietro is an ambassador of sorts, an avatar of social improvement, bringing “[e]very lesson of cleanliness, of order, of English” taught to him in school back to his tenement life.

He was born sometime in the early 1878 or 1879, just as the sudden increase of southern Italians began to permanently change the nature of the old tenement neighborhoods.

We know he was born in Italy — not “borned here” as Riis depicts him saying — and brought to a home somewhere at Mulberry and Jersey Street (in the shadow of the Puck Building.)

He lived in a single room with his parents and four younger siblings. As a small boy, he attended classes at the school run by Old St. Patrick’s until “his education was considered to have sufficiently advanced to warrant his graduating into the ranks of the family wage- earners.”

Being the eldest son, he would have gone to work immediately. In this case, as a bootblack, the most common occupation for poor Italian immigrants in the 1880s.

1897 Yard in Jersey Street (now gone). A woman holding a child, and men sitting in a rear yard of a Jersey Street tenement. Pietro lived on Jersey Street and one of these buildings may have been his home.
1897 Yard in Jersey Street (now gone). A woman holding a child, and men sitting in a rear yard of a Jersey Street tenement. Pietro lived on Jersey Street and one of these buildings may have been his home.

Probably around age 11 or 12, Pietro began shining shoes in a saloon somewhere in the neighborhood. One day, while crossing Broadway, he was struck by a streetcar and mangled so badly that it was assumed he would not survive. “They thought he was killed but he was only crippled for life.”

He met Riis one day at the police station at 300 Mulberry Street. He was there as a witness to a shooting which had occurred in front of his home. As Riis describes:

“With his rags, his dirty bare feet, and his shock of tousled hair, he seemed to fit in so entirely there of all places, and took so naturally to the ways of the police-station, that he might have escaped my notice altogether but for his maimed hand and his oddly grave but eager face, which no smile ever crossed despite his thirteen years.”

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Riis gained the boy’s confidence and was invited into his home to document his life. Pietro was devoting his energies to education, improving both his Italian and English skills. It appears the accident left one or both of his hands impaired.

As Riis observes:

‘By ‘m by,’ said poor crippled Pietro to me, with a sober look, as he labored away on his writing lesson, holding down the paper with his maimed hand, ‘I learn t’ make an Englis’ letter; maybe my fadder he learn too.’

I had my doubts about the father. He sat watching Pietro with the pride in the achievement that was clearly proportionate to the struggle it cost, and mirrored in his own face every grimace and contortion the progress of education caused by the boy.

‘Si! si!’ he nodded eagerly. ‘Pietro he good a boy; make Englis’, Englis’!’ and he made a flourish with his clay-pipe, as if he too were making the English letter that was the subject of their common veneration.

Riis clearly views Pietro as a charity case burdened with the extraordinary responsibility of assimilating his family into American life.

At the maimed 13 year old eldest child of immigrants, his days of innocence were long gone. His situation had utterly defeated him. At least, that’s the image Riis very poignantly meant to convey in his final anecdote, turning to Pietro as he watched over his baby brother:

‘Pietro’,” I said with a sudden yearning to know, ‘did you ever laugh?’

The boy glanced from the baby to me with a wistful look.

‘I did wonst’, he said quietly and went on his way. And I would gladly have forgotten that I ever asked the question; even as Pietro had forgotten his laugh.’

We never see Pietro again. He’s used as a pitiful example of life in the Italian slums and then fades into the background, lost among the thousands of individuals who lived in the Mulberry Street slums.

Riis, however, does use the generic name ‘Pietro’ — now a stand-in for all disadvantaged Italian immigrants — in his 1902 book The Battle With the Slum.“

One of Riis' photographs, illustrated for the book Children of the Poor.
One of Riis’ photographs, illustrated for the book Children of the Poor.

Did Pietro ever make it out of the tenements? Did he get married, have children, begin a career? Did his physical condition ever improve? It’s rather likely that either he or one of his siblings had children, and one of those children might be your grandmother or grandfather.

You can read Jacob Riis’ Children of the Poor here.

Categories
Revolutionary History

Richmond Hill: West Village’s former Vice Presidential mansion and the lonely refuge of Aaron Burr

[Richmond Hill, residence of Aaron Burr.]

Richmond Hill, the spacious mansion and 26-acre estate on the outskirts of town that had once been George Washington‘s headquarters and later the home of John Adams, was also home to another vice president — Aaron Burr.  This was the place he lived on that fateful day, July 11, 1804, when he entered into a duel with Alexander Hamilton.

Here’s a lovely description of the home from an 1861 biography of Burr by author James Parton:

“[Burr’s] style of living kept pace with his increasing income.  In a few years we find him master of Richmond Hill, the mansion where Washington had lived in 1776, with grounds reaching to the Hudson, with ample gardens, and a considerable extent of grove and farm.  Here he maintained a liberal establishment and exercised the hospitality which was then in vogue.

The one particular in which Richmond Hill surpassed the other houses of equal pretensions, was its library.  From his college days, Colonel Burr had been a zealous buyer of books, and his stock had gone on increasing till, on attaining to the dignity of householder, he was able to give to his miscellaneous collection something of the completeness of a library.

It is evident enough, from his correspondence, that his favorite ethos were still those whom the ‘well-constituted minds’ of that day regarded with admiring horror.  The volumes of Gibbon’s History [The Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire] were appearing in those years, striking the orthodox world with wonder and dismay.  They had a very hearty welcome in the circle at Richmond Hill.”

—  the Life and Times of Aaron Burr, by James Parton, 1861

After the duel, Burr liquidated his assets, selling Richmond Hill to John Jacob Astor.  With the grounds heavily cut up and sold, he had the mansion rolled on logs to the newly carved street corner and turned into a theater and opera house.  At this time, he also moved the carriage house further north, where it was later re-purposed and today houses the romantic restaurant One If By Land, Two If By Sea.

It made for a very sumptuous opera house, it appears.  According to author Eric Homberger, “Boxes at the Richmond Hill were furnished as though they were an extension of the elegant parlors of St. John’s Park, with ‘light blue hangings, gilded panels and cornice, arm-chairs, and a sofa.'”

It was parallel in style, perhaps, to the Astor Place Opera House across town.   Eventually it deteriorated into a lowly roadhouse and saloon — but certainly, the most gorgeous one in town — called the Tivoli Saloon before being torn down in 1849.

Richmond Hill House or Theater.

Today the site of Richmond Hill and its former ground are occupied by this building, currently the home of WNYC, and the surrounding blocks of this area of the far West Village.

Top image courtesy the Museum of the City of New York

Categories
Religious History

The Yom Kippur Riot of 1898: Lower East Side in Turmoil

When I hear of so-called “riots” on the Lower East Side during the late 19th century, my mind goes to disgruntled newsies or agitated garment workers, rising up for fair wages and employment.

Or maybe a vicious street gang like the Whyos primed to wreck havoc.

I don’t immediately think of the orthodox Jewish community.

But it was indeed dissatisfied members of this group that staged a bit of chaos on the corner of Canal and Division streets during Yom Kippur (the tenth day of Tishrei, or, in 1898, late September).

According to the New York Sun, the violence centered around a Russian Jewish coffee house owned by the Herrick brothers at 141 Division Street, a popular gathering place for ‘political spell-binders and labor agitators’ with likely a more casual atmosphere than the many Jewish restaurants surrounding it and certainly popular with young men.

Here’s an advertisement for Herrick’s in a chess journal from 1904. By then the cafe was clearly a notable spot for chess players:

Herrick’s was in the heart of Jewish social life in New York City.  The Yiddish theater hangout Schreiber’s Saloon was around the corner at 33 Canal Street and other Jewish-operated cafes were steps away.

Even as sundown approached and traditional Jewish places closed their doors for the holiday, Herrick’s cafe stayed open, with tables occupied with young men in apparent disregard for the custom of fasting.

The Sun article makes a point to label most offenders as ‘American-born’ and ’16 to 18 years old’ — as in rebellious, with an implied lack of respect towards tradition.

The Herricks had actually planned this display of defiance, going so far as to advertise in an ‘anarchistic‘ newspaper that they would remain open for the holiday. They were prepared for some opposition, certainly, but certainly not for what came next.

Below: Under the Division Street elevated, 1910

Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

According to the Sun, at sight of the violation, angry orthodox men mobbed the place, throwing stones and smashing the cafe windows.

The New York Times reports that ‘several thousand Hebrews’ soon arrived to protest in the surrounding streets. The police from the local Madison Street station were called to quell the violence and asked the proprietors to close their cafe for the evening.

Below: The headline from the New York Times on September 27, 1898

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But violence further escalated the following day, when one of the brothers reopened the cafe the next morning ‘for customers, Jewish and Gentile, all day, at the usual prices’.

Hat stores on Division Street, below the elevated train and a bit west of the action in this article. Picture is from around 1907 (NYPL)

Fearing a repeat of the evening’s disruptions, police cordoned off the street to no avail. When diners left the cafe this time, they were met by “several thousands* [who] gathered and threatened dire vengeance on those who would eat on the holy day.”

Many offenders were chased down the street for fear of their lives. Eventually, the angry protesters even managed to storm the restaurant again where they “overturned tables, smashed dishes and threw crockery at the proprietors.”

One diner was doused in hot tea. Another diner, with his three friends, happened to be military and ‘fired off a revolver to attract police’, scattered the crowd in fear. Police did arrive, with clubs drawn.

Soon the violence spilled into the streets and devolved, like so many riots of this type, into fisticuffs among angry young men.

By the end of the day, several rioters were taken into custody, and the neighborhood quickly returned to its peaceful celebration of the holiday.

As for Herrick’s, well, the advertisement at the top is from 1904, so they obviously continued stirring up ‘political spell-binders’ and controversy in the neighborhood for many more years.

*Early news reports are never very good at estimating crowd numbers, so ‘several thousands’ could also mean ‘several hundreds’. Given how crowded this neighborhood was in the 1890s, most could have simply been trying to figure out what was going on!

Categories
Podcasts

An Evening at Sardi’s: Dinner with a side of Broadway history

PODCAST REWIND The famous faces on the walls of Sardi’s Restaurant represent the entertainment elite of the 20th century, and all of them made this place on West 44th Street their unofficial home.

Known for its kooky caricatures and its Broadway opening-night traditions, Sardi’s fed the stars of the golden age and became a hotspot for producers, directors and writers — and, of course, those struggling to get their attention.

When Vincent Sardi opened his first restaurant in 1921, Prohibition had begun, and the midtown Broadway theater district was barely a couple decades old.

By the time the Italian-American restauranteur threw open its doors to its current locaton (thanks to the Shuberts) in 1927, Broadway’s stages were red hot, and Sardi found himself at the center of the New York City show business world.

We have some insider scoop from the old days — starring John Barrymore, Tallulah Bankhead, hatcheck girl Renee Carroll and a cast of thousands — and the scoop on those famous (and often unflattering) framed caricatures. So sidle up to the Little Bar, order yourself a stiff drink and eavesdrop in on this tale of Broadway’s longest dinner party.

PLUS: The birth of the Tony Awards!

FEATURING: Some 2022 updates including Sardi’s recent history.

LISTEN NOW: AN EVENING AT SARDI’S

Vincent Sardi and his world-famous wall behind him. (Courtesy NYT)

The outdoor garden cafe of the original Sardi’s, which opened in 1921 and was located two doors down from the current location. It was demolished to make way for the St. James Theatre.

The cover of the tell-all 1933 memoir by famed Sardi’s hatcheck girl Renee Carroll and illustrated by Sardi’s original caricaturist Alex Gard.

Tallulah Bankhead, Broadway diva and notorious Sardi’s customer. (Courtesy NYPL)

The failed experiment Sardi’s East, instantly problematic due to its distance from the theater district. Sardi Jr. attempted to solve the problem with a fun-filled double-decker bus — often accompanied by Broadway stars — that would zip diners to their shows after dinner. (source Flickr/edge and corner wear)

As we mentioned on the show, it’s difficult doing a history podcast on a private business without it sounding a bit like an advertisement, but hopefully we were able to execute past that. (We came across this odd feeling with other podcasts like Saks Fifth Avenue and The Plaza Hotel.)

We left a few details on the cutting-room floor, including Sardi’s lengthy involvement with the Dog Fanciers Club, which throws a congratulatory breakfast every year for the Best In Show winner of the Westminster Dog Show. Tom also did a rather nice job with reading an excerpt from Renee Caroll’s biography, but some sound problems forced us to cut it.

Tom mentioned the glory of Broadway in 1927. Show Boat is definitely the breakout show of that year, but theatergoers could also choose from one of these show that year — A Connecticut Yankee, Funny Face, Burlesque, Coquette, Hit The Deck, Rio Rita, Dracula and the hit play The Ivory Door, written by A.A. Milne of Winnie-the-Pooh fame. (Find a complete list here.)

Reading Recommendations: The best is Off The Wall by Vincent Sardi Jr. and Thomas Edward West, featuring full color representations of Sardi’s best known caricatures. Worth seeking out a copy at your used book stores. More difficult to find is Vincent Sardi Sr.’s own biography Sardi’s: A Story of a Restaurant, published in 1953 and well out of print. Carroll’s biography In Your Hat is also out-of-print, but you can find excerpts scattered online. You should seek out a physical copy if possible, as it features original artwork by original Sardi’s caricaturist Alex Gard.


Top picture courtesy Life Google images

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Gilded Age New York Landmarks

The Fifth Avenue Hotel: Opulence, glamour and power on Madison Square

The double-breasted, cigar-chewing gentlemen who gathered in the sumptuous rooms of the Fifth Avenue Hotel were occasional connoisseurs of New York City history, and in particular, these amateur historians spoke of the very street corner where their hotel stood.

Before Madison Square, when the area was a barren parade ground, one Corporal Thompson opened a roadhouse and stagecoach station in the area that was to become 23rd Street and and Fifth Avenue.

Many spoke fondly of Thompson’s establishment, called Madison Cottage, because they remembered the place as young boys. They recalled the area’s rural quality, with carved rectangular blocks carved into the land and a dirt-road Broadway meandering north.

But that was the 1840s.

Madison Cottage, Hitchcock, Darling & Co.

Forty years later, Madison Square Park was the center of New York, a focal point of class, business and luxury that stretched south to Union Square, through that attractive collection of fine stores known as Ladies Mile, and up Fifth Avenue into the fabulous mansions of the rich.

And dead center of all that activity was the Fifth Avenue Hotel, not only the “finest [hotel] in this metropolis”, the “leading hotel of the world ,” but quite simply one of the most surprising stages for American politics of the mid and late 19th century.

New York’s Hotel Revolution

Hotels were fast becoming the center of New York life from at least the days of the Astor House, located near City Hall, in the 1830s. Within two decades, trendy new hotels (such as the St. Nicholas and the Metropolitan) spread up along Broadway and eventually clustered around Union Square.

By the Civil War, the thrust of New York society was so defined by them that Confederate conspirators tried setting fire to a several of them.

The Fifth Avenue Hotel opened in 1859, the venture of wealthy merchant Amos Richards Eno, who accurately gambled that the center of city commerce would soon settle at 23rd Street. So confident a speculator was Eno that he moved from his brownstone at 74 Broadway (the first New York brownstone, he claimed) to a massive home nearby the hotel.

Some thought it unwise to build so far north, and when workers unearthed dozens of skeletons during construction — the area once being a potter’s field — the corner was even considered cursed. Eno defied the naysayers, pouring his wealth into the hotel to make it the most modern, most luxurious accommodation of the day.

The Fifth Avenue Hotel, 1879. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
A Gilded Age Confection

The Italian exterior was awash in five stories of imported marble, while austere, carpeted interiors of French design drew comparisons to European palaces.

Guests enjoyed reading rooms, a luxurious bar, a barber shop, a dedicated telegraph office, and a variety of dining and drawing rooms, not to mention the first passenger elevator ever built in the United States, a steam-powered monstrosity whisking passengers to their floor.  

The private quarters were soundproofed, fixtured with the modern innovations in plumbing, and lavishly decorated, becoming to many “the safest, the most healthy and most comfortable hotel in the world.“

The Fifth Avenue Hotel reading room, busy every weekend. (Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co.,)
Wheeling and Dealing

As the finest hotel in the city in the post Civil War years, it naturally became a magnet for politicians and financiers. Of all the ‘backrooms’ of American politics, none were as gleaming as the Fifth Avenue.

Bankers huddled in the legendary ‘parlor D. R.’ during the tense days of the financial panic of 1873. In particular, the hotel became a de facto headquarters for New York Republicans.

While often secondary to the city’s Democrats — this being the era of Tammany Hall‘s swelling power — Republicans were frequently in control of state government, and the Fifth Avenue Hotel became a smoky center of political wheeling and dealing.

During the 1870s, New York republicans became national power brokers and frequently hashed out crises here at the Fifth Avenue.

In the years before the Waldorf-Astoria, presidents and dignitaries all stayed here during visits. Seamier political maneuvers took place in the chambers of prominent politicians who held court here, including the inimitable Roscoe Conkling (at left), senator of New York and leader of the Republican faction known as the Stalwarts.

National Influence

When fractured Republicans at their convention in 1880 nominated non-Stalwart James Garfield for president, the nominee had to basically grovel for their support by symbolically ‘kissing the ring’ of the Stalwarts during a visit to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, partially agreeing to their system of patronage and taking Conkling ally Levi Morton as a member of his cabinet. (Garfield later backed out on this arrangement.)

Another frequent guest here was Chester A. Arthur, Garfield’s eventual vice president. When Arthur became president after Garfield’s assassination by Charles Guiteau (who had himself wandered the hotel’s hallways in delusion), he would set up his entire administration here during visits to his adopted city.

By the 1890s, a corridor of the hotel known as the ‘Amen Corner‘ was a famous congregation spot for Republican political bosses and reporters. As they frequently powwowed here on Sundays, gatherers would caustically shout ‘Amen!’ during heated discussions.

The Fifth Avenue Hotel in relation to the Flatiron Building
Checking Out

The hotel became a magnet for shenanigans of all varieties. In 1893, a couple hundred proponents of a U.S. monetary silver standard erupted into a riot that included two U.S. senators.

The bank robber Robert Montague was arrested here in 1896 thanks to a tip-off from a chambermaid. An early vestige of baseball’s National League met here annually, and the national pool competitions were held in the hotel’s billiard room.

By the new century, of course, the locus of New York activity was hastily moving uptown, and the Fifth Avenue Hotel was deemed a relic, even as a brand new structure across the street — the Flatiron Building — was being proclaimed the finest building in the city.

In 1908 the Fifth Avenue Hotel was torn down and replaced by the 16-story Toy Center (called the Fifth Avenue Building back in the day), the epicenter of toy manufacturing for much of the 20th century.