September 2019 – A New Yorker State of Mind

The Flying Misanthrope

When Charles Lindbergh returned to New York after his solo, history-making transatlantic flight, he was mobbed by thousands of fans and adored by many millions more. The feeling was not mutual.

Sept. 20, 1930 cover by **Theodore Haupt.**

This image from his June 13, 1927 ticker-tape parade says it all, a disinterested, almost hostile-looking Lindbergh contrasted with that crowd-loving dandy, Mayor Jimmy Walker:

Detail of larger photograph. (Associated Press)

Morris Markey checked in on the famed flyboy three years later in a two-part profile for the New Yorker. Markey observed how Lindbergh had become “sucker-sour,” a phrase that described how someone could suddenly go wild “at the ceaseless procession of staring faces.” I encourage you to read the excerpt below about Lindbergh’s appearance at the 1929 Cleveland Air Races, where in a fit of temper he nearly forced a passenger plane to lose control and crash:

SAY CHEESE…Top photo, **Charles and Anne Lindbergh** pose with **Cliff Henderson** at the 1929 Cleveland National Air Races. Henderson was the managing director of the National Air Races and was often described as “the Barnum of aviation.” Below, Lindbergh flanked by Navy flyers **Frederick Kivette** and **Frank O’Beirne** at the 1929 air races. (Smithsonian)

Because he was a national hero of nearly saint-like dimensions, newspaper reporters did not dare to report on his antics at the Cleveland Air Races (so far, The New Yorker account is the only one I can find of the incident). Needless to say, he was not popular among members of the fourth estate:

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?…Fliers raced around a closed course near a crowded grandstand at the 1929 National Air Races in Cleveland. (Western Reserve Historical Society)

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Innocents Abroad

It was a nice surprise to find Lois Long once again writing under her pen name “Lipstick” in this casual piece (excerpted below) on Parisian life. I was also surprised to find the term “Amurrican” in the headline — I always thought it was a more recent derivation of redneck-speak…

OVER THERE…Left, a fashionable pair on the streets of Paris circa 1930; right, main staircase and grand foyer of the *Ile de France.* (Pinterest/akpool.co.uk)

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Imbiber in Chief

No doubt many a New Yorker enjoyed this bit of news from Howard Brubaker (in his column, “Of All Things”) regarding New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, who later as president would preside over the end of Prohibition.

LEADING BY EXAMPLE…**FDR** and a gin martini. (Time/Life)

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From Our Advertisers

The Scottish Terrier was one of the most popular dog breeds in 1930s America (in addition to martinis, FDR was also fond of Scotties, including his loyal companion Fala), and you could show your love for the breed with bath sets from Best & Company…

…the handsome L.P. Hollander Company Building (designed by William Lamb) at 3 East 57th began life in 1930 as a women’s fashion boutique…

…and today it serves as the Fifth Avenue home to Yves Saint Laurent…

…another exclusive New York destination, the Carlyle, opened as a luxury residential hotel in 1930, only to go into receivership in 1931 thanks to the deepening Depression. In the postwar years it would rise to prominence and become a favorite haunt of the Kennedy family. The Carlyle is also home to the Bemelmans Bar, which is decorated with murals painted by Ludwig Bemelmans depicting his storybook character, Madeline, in Central Park…

…the Carlyle’s cozy Bemelmans Bar…

…this next one goes in my terrible ads file…did the makers of this GE refrigerator really want to depict it bursting into flames?…

…it is 1930, and we are at the dawn of the age of plastics, and in this case “Beetleware” tumblers made from an early type of plastic formed from a urea formaldehyde powder developed in England and licensed to American Cyanamid …so bottom’s up!…

…the makers of Van Raalte stockings hoped to revive the sex appeal of the ankle…

…which provides a good segue to our cartoons, this one by Helen Hokinson, which was actually featured on the page opposite the stocking ad…

…Ralph Barton continued his series on the 1930’s…

…Alan Dunn took his work to new heights…

…Gardner Rea had fun with the garden club set (English-American S. Parkes Cadman was a pioneer Christian radio broadcaster in the 1920s and 30s)…

…while Peter Arno illustrated this cultural exchange on the streets of New York…

…and we end with Leonard Dove, and a walk in the rain…

Next Time: Lights, Camera, Action…

Animal Crackers

Above image: Groucho Marx, Margaret Dumont, and Lillian Roth in the Marx Brothers second film, Animal Crackers, 1930 (IMDB)

The Marx Brothers were famous for a string of hit films in the 1930s, but some of the comedy on which those films were based went all the way back to the days of vaudeville and 1920s Broadway.

Animal Crackers was their second film (the first was 1929’s The Cocoanuts), and the last to be adapted from one of their stage shows. It was also the last Marx Brothers movie to be filmed at Paramount’s Astoria Studio in Queens before the brothers headed for Hollywood.

MUSICAL CIRCUS…*Animal Crackers* began as a Broadway stage production in 1928 before moving to film in 1930; from left to right: **Groucho, Harpo, Chico** and Zeppo in a publicity photo for the stage version of *Animal Crackers.* (www.georgeskaufman.com)

The New Yorker’s John Mosher reviewed the film version, which was playing at the Rialto Theatre:

SO LONG, NEW YORK…*Animal Crackers* was the second and final Marx Brothers movie to be filmed at Astoria Studios in Queens; from left, **Chico, Zeppo, Groucho** and Harpo Marx pose for a 1930 publicity photo. (IMDB)

Always partial to European directors, Mosher found Ernst Lubitsch’s Monte Carlo among the better films playing in the late summer.

OH YOU CAD!…**Jeanette MacDonald** and Jack Buchanan in Monte Carlo. (IMDB)

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Fox in the Hen House

“The Talk of the Town” made light of Mayor Jimmy Walker’s plan to “rid the city of graft.” Ironically, Jimmy himself would be drummed out of office two years later for accepting bribes…

WHAT ME WORRY? Yes maybe. Mayor Jimmy Walker in 1930. (nymag.com)

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From Our Advertisers

We have another lovely illustration from Carl “Eric” Erickson promoting the joys of smoking unfiltered cigarettes…

…these small ads for apartments in the back pages of the magazine promoted the bucolic vistas in Westchester…

Images of Fleetwood Hills from *The American Architect,* June 1926.

…and European-style living on East 44th Street…

The Beaux-Arts Apartments (which still stand) consisted of buildings on both sides of E. 44th Street. (Museum of the City of New York)

…as for cartoons, Peter Arno continued this running gag…

…as did Rea Irvin in another tableaux (originally running sideways, full page) featuring the clash of country bumpkins and city elites…

…Garrett Price looked in on the burdens of the wealthy…

…and Barbara Shermund caught some small talk at a cafe…

…back to Peter Arno, and a heated game of table tennis…

…and Gardner Rea, witness to modern-day crime reporting…

On to the Sept. 13, 1930 issue…

Sept. 13, 1930: yet another satirical kakemono cover by Rea Irvin.

As I’ve noted many times before, the early New Yorker covered every sport under the sun (and especially elite sports such as yacht racing, tennis and badminton, golf and polo) but to my knowledge never covered a major league baseball game in its then five-year existence. Here, E.B. White, in his “Notes and Comment,” complains about the high price of tickets to polo matches…

…White, a well-known dog lover, offered a rather cruel solution to a problem cat in this feature:

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Oh Never Mind

At first glance I thought this might actually be an article about a baseball game, but alas, it was a column by Ring Lardner (titled “Br’er Rabbit Ball”) that showed little enthusiasm for the game (the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal apparently soured his love for baseball). Excerpts:

Speaking of sports, we move to the advertisements and the helpful folks from Lucky Strike, who wanted to help you get in shape with a smoke…

…and another ad for Flit insecticide by Dr. Seuss, featuring an elephant that looked a lot like the future Horton, and some unfortunate racist imagery…

…yet another Peter Arno repeat with a new caption…

…and another in a series of 1930’s images by Ralph Barton…

…a maritime dilemma, courtesy Garrett Price…

…and apartment shopping with Constantin Alajalov…

Next Time: The Flying Misanthrope…

Marble Halls

We close out the boiling August of 1930 with Wolcott Gibbs and his fanciful musings regarding the future offices of The New Yorker, inspired by his recent visit to the glitzy new lobby of the New York Daily News Building.

August 30, 1930 cover by Julian De Miskey.

I include a brief excerpt of Gibb’s tongue-in-cheek fantasy of the future, which inadvertently foresees The New Yorker’s current offices (see contrast of old and new above) in the gleaming glass tower now known as One World Trade Center:

THAT WAS THEN…*The* *New Yorker’s* first offices were located at 25 West 45th Street, a 16-story building erected in 1913 (it still stands). It’s almost impossible to find images of *The* *New Yorker’s* early office spaces, but you can probably get some idea from these photos of another tenant of the building, the Y.M.C.A. Dental School. (Museum of the City of New York/New York Public Library)

THIS IS NOW…Almost in fulfillment of **Wolcott Gibbs’** fantasy, *The* *New Yorker* today occupies offices in the Condé Nast section (images above) of the 104-story, 1,776 foot One World Trade Center (floors 20 to 44). When *The* *New Yorker* moved onto the building’s 38th floor in early 2015 (one floor above *Wired*), it marked the first time the magazine was located outside of a small area in Midtown. (New York Magazine/interiordesign.net)

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His Bit of Earth

“The Talk of the Town” noted an increasingly rare sight along Fifth Avenue, a private garden created by Thomas Fortune Ryan that in 1930 was occupied by his son Clendenin J Ryan:

DUST TO DUST…**Thomas Fortune Ryan** demolished the **Charles T. Yerkes** mansion and its art galleries (before and after photos, top, and image of a gallery, bottom right) to make way for his private flower garden, which is visible in the bottom left hand corner of the image at top right. An apartment building erected in 1937 (bottom left) occupies the site today. (Museum of the City of New York/Alice Lum)

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From Our Advertisers

Backgammon became all the rage in the 1930, so much so that one Grosvenor Nicholas, “a famous authority on backgammon,” commanded a fill-page ad from Saks…

…for reference, The New Yorker made note of Nicholas’s visit in the Sept. 6 “Talk of the Town”…

OR WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO…**Leila Hattersley**, author of 1930s *How to play the New Backgammon*, teaching at a New York Club (bkgm.com)

…celebrity endorsements continued to grow in importance in the 1930s, here the famed Australian-born British actress Judith Anderson (1897-1992) marvels at the products manufactured by Angelus…

…Anderson would later be made a “Dame,” and would enjoy a long career and a long life, even appearing in 1984’s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock as the Vulcan High Priestess T’Lar…

VERSATILE…At left, **Dame Judith Anderson** in 1932. At right, Anderson on the set of 1984’s *Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,* with actor **Leonard Nimoy.** (Tumblr)

…this ad for Buick shows a rich gent dismissing his chauffeur, something he would probably have to do permanently as the Depression continued to ruin fortunes…

…and perhaps a lost fortune could lead to one being “difficult,” and in that case Dyers & Dyers could sooth the hurt with squab from a can…

…on to our cartoonists, we have Constantin Alajalov illustrating a scene at the Battery…

…Ralph Barton continued his interpretations of a new decade…

…some unfortunate racial humor from Al Frueh…

…an indelicate moment at the beach, courtesy Garrett Price…

…Perry Barlow looked at the challenges of city life…

…and Alan Dunn found a man with a case of the moderns…

Next Time: Animal Crackers…

Hell’s Angels

Among the films in 1930 that marked a new era in motion pictures was Howard Hughes’s epic war film Hell’s Angels.

Originally shot as a silent, Hughes (1905-1976) retooled the film, and over a period of three years (1927-30) poured much of his own money into making what many consider to be Hollywood’s first sound action movie. The film also introduced audiences to 19-year-old Jean Harlow (1911-1937), handpicked by Hughes to replace Norwegian actress Greta Nissen in the lead role (Nissen’s accent posed a problem for the talkies). The film would make Harlow an instant star, propelling her to worldwide fame as the “Platinum Blonde” sex symbol of the 1930s.

Beset by delays due to Hughes’s incessant tinkering, the movie was famously expensive. For example, a total 137 pilots were used in just one flying scene at the end of the film. In addition to monetary costs, the filming also claimed the lives of three pilots and a mechanic, and Hughes himself would fracture his skull during a stunt flying attempt.

PRE-CODE…Before **Will Hays** imposed his moral code on Hollywood, films in the early thirties were frank with sexual references, as the image at left attests. When **Howard Hughes** switched the filming of *Hell’s Angels* to sound, he replaced Norwegian actress **Greta Nissen** with 19-year-old **Jean Harlow** (seen with co-star **Ben Lyon**). Harlow’s first major film appearance would make her an overnight star; at right, **Frank Clarke** and **Roy Wilson** flying an S.E.5A (front) and a Fokker D.VII (back, note camera) in the filming of *Hell’s Angels*. (Wikipedia)

The New Yorker’s John Mosher found the action scenes enticing, but the acting left something to be desired…

COSTLY VENTURE …This Sikorsky S-29A (left), repainted to represent a German Gotha bomber, would crash into the California hills during filming (right), killing mechanic **Phil Jones,** who failed to bail out along with the pilot. (Northrop Grumman)

GEE WHIZ…The media often reported on the progress of the film, such as in this May 1930 article in *Modern Mechanics and Inventions* that detailed a $1 million sequence in which a fighter dives his plane into the top of a Zeppelin, causing it to explode and crash to earth. (Modern Mechanix)

We skip ahead briefly to the Aug. 30 issue, in which “The Talk of Town” featured a mini profile of Howard Hughes and his film. Note how Hughes’s extravagance is described through his frequent use of long-distance telephone calls:

A STAR IS BORN…19-year-old **Jean Harlow** and **Ben Lyon** in 1930’s Hell’s Angels. (IMDB/Pinterest)

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A Whale of a Movie

Critic John Mosher also took in a film adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, a very loose adaptation that excluded the novel’s central character, Ishmael, and invented a love story for the maniacal Capt. Ahab…

A WHALE OF A STORY…From left, **Noble Johnson** as Queequeg, **John Barrymore** as Ahab, and **Walter Long** as Stubbs in 1930’s Moby Dick. At right, top, the whale puts the hurt on a boat; bottom, **Joan Bennett** as Faith, a contrived love interest for the old salt. (IMDB)

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Daily Dazzle

“The Talk of the Town” gushed over the lobby of the new Daily News Building, likening it to the glitz of a Broadway revue:

HOME FOR CLARK KENT…The Daily News Building served as the model for the headquarters of the fictional *Daily Planet*, the building where Superman worked as mild-mannered Clark Kent; at right, an image from 1941 of the lobby, dominated by the world’s largest indoor globe. (Wikipedia/Public Domain)

A LOBBY FOR LEARNING…The lobby includes an array of clocks, top left, that give the time in various global destinations. (Luke J. Spencer via atlasobscura.com)

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A Busboy’s Dream

Charles Pierre Casalasco left his life as a busboy in Corsica and studied haute cuisine in Paris before arriving at the shores of Manhattan in the early 1900s. He became a renowned headwaiter who by 1929 garnered enough financial backing from New York’s most powerful families to construct the exclusive Hotel Pierre. Writing under her pseudonym, “Penthouse,” New Yorker columnist Marcia Davenport described the building’s apartments to eager readers:

FUN WHILE IT LASTED…The 41-story, 714-room Hotel Pierre officially opened in October 1930 to great fanfare. The party would be short-lived, as the deepening Depression would force the hotel into bankruptcy just two years later. At right, photo of the Rotunda, before a 2017 remodeling. (New York Public Library)

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So Much For Title IX

Then as now, women athletes were held to a separate set of standards, not only judged for their athletic abilities, but also for their “sex appeal,” as John Tunis suggests more than a few times in his profile of English tennis champion Betty Nuthall (1911-1983). Excerpts:

HOW’S THAT BACKHAND?…**Betty Nuthall** greets American tennis star **Bill Tilden** in September 1930; on the cover of *Time* after winning the 1930 U.S. Open. (Digital Commonwealth/Time Inc.)

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Free Expression

Robert Myron Coates (1897–1973) was a writer of experimental, expressionistic novels who later became a longtime art critic for The New Yorker (he is credited with coining the term “abstract expressionism” in 1946). In the Aug. 23 issue he contributed the first installment of “Dada City,” here describing street life in Harlem. Excerpts:

STREET LIFE…Scenes around Harlem’s 125th Street, clockwise from top left: the Apollo Theatre marquee punctuates a busy street scene in 1935; NW corner of 125th and Broadway, 1930; Regal Shoes storefront, 1940s, photo by Weegee; 125th and St. Nicholas Avenue in 1934. (Skyscraper City/Museum of the City of New York)

AMERICAN ORIGINAL…**Robert M. Coates’s** *The Eater of Darkness* (1926) has been called the first surrealist novel in English. (Goodreads)

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From Our Advertisers

New Yorkers who were still enduring the brutal summer of 1930 could find relief, if they could afford it, on a New York Airways flight…

…or if you had the means, you could take your yacht out to sea, like this chap in a coat and tie who calmly steers with one hand while offering a box of chocolates to his guests with the other…

…our sailor wasn’t the only one dressed to nines…here are two ads offering suggestions to young folks returning to college or prep school…

…for comparison, this is how a group of college students at Columbia University dress today…

…Dr. Seuss continued to crank out drawings on behalf of Flit insecticide…

…and on to cartoons, yet another rerun (the sixth) of this Peter Arno drawing with a new caption (Dorothy Dix was a popular advice columnist)…