July 2025 – A New Yorker State of Mind

A Double-Header

Heading into the dog days of summer we take a look at the last two issues of July 1935, both somewhat scant in editorial content but still offering up fascinating glimpses of Manhattan life ninety years ago.

July 20, 1935 cover by William Crawford Galbraith. He contributed seven covers and 151 cartoons to the magazine.

That includes the observations of theatre critic Wolcott Gibbs and film critic John Mosher, both escaping the summer heat to take in some very different forms of entertainment.

Gibbs found himself “fifty dizzy stories above Forty-second Street” in the Chanin Building’s auditorium, where he experienced New York’s take on Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. Founded in Paris by Oscar Méténier in 1897, Grand Guignol featured realistic shows that enacted, in gory detail, the horrific existence of the disadvantaged and working classes. It seems audiences were drawn to the shows more out of prurient interest (or sadistic pleasure) than for any desire to help the underclasses.

NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART…**Wolcott Gibbs** recommended the Grand-Guignol only for those who “admire a frank, uncomplicated approach to the slaughterhouse and the operating table.” (Image: Wikipedia)

PRETTY HORRORS…Clockwise from top left, the original Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, in the Pigalle district of Paris–it operated from 1897 until 1962, specializing in horror theatre; a poster from one of its productions; New York’s Chanin building, circa 1930s; the Chanin’s auditorium “fifty dizzy stories above 42nd Street”; fake blood applied to an actress’ neck before a scene from *The Hussy*; **Wolcott Gibbs** described a madhouse scene from **André de Lorde’s** *The Old Women,* which depicted the fury of ancient inmates performing “optical surgery” on a young woman. (*thegrandguignol.com/Wikipedia/NYPL/props.eric-hart.com)*

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Popeye to the Rescue

With the Hays Code in effect you wouldn’t see anything like the Grand-Guignol on the silver screen. Indeed, with the exception of a Popeye cartoon, critic John Mosher found little to get excited about at the movies. He did, however, enjoy the air conditioning that offered a break from the hot city streets.

THEY ALL COULD HAVE USED SOME SPINACH…Clockwise, from top left, **Popeye** and **Bluto** strike an unlikely partnership in *Dizzy Divers;* **Bette Davis** and George Brent in *Front Page Woman;* **Will Rogers** and Billie Burke in *Doubting Thomas;* **James Blakeley** and **Ida Lupino** in *Paris in Spring.* (brothersink.com / rottentomatoes.com / cometoverhollywood.com / classiccartooncorner.substack.com)

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From Our Advertisers

Just a few ads from this issue, first, a jolly appeal from one of the magazine’s newer advertisers, the makers of the French apertif Dubonnet…

…by contrast, this quaint slice of Americana from Nash…

…and a shot of pesticide from Dr. Seuss…

…our cartoonists include Constantin Alajalov, contributing this bit of spot art to the opening pages…

…Barbara Shermund explored the world of hypnotic suggestion…

…Peter Arno prepared to address the nation…

…William Steig checked the weather forecast…

…Helen Hokinson’s girls questioned the burden of a lei…

…Carl Rose found himself on opposite sides of the page in this unusual layout…

…Richard Decker joined the crowd in a lighthouse rendering…

…Ned Hilton reminds us that it was unusual for women to wear trousers ninety years ago…

…Mary Petty examined the complications of marital discord…

…and Charles Addams shone a blue light on a YMCA lecture…

…on to July 27, 1935, with a terrific summertime cover by William Steig…

July 27, 1935 cover by **William Steig,** one of his 117 covers for the magazine.

E.B. White (in “Notes and Comment”) was ahead of his time in suggesting that the city needed to build “bicycle paths paralleling motor highways” and invest in more pedestrian pathways.

NEW YORK’S FINEST…**Doris Kopsky,** who trained in Central Park, won the first Amateur Bicycle League of America Women’s Championship in 1937. Bicycle races were a big draw in the 1930s. (crca.net)

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Breaking News

“The Talk of the Town” checked in on the New York Times’ “electric bulletin,” commonly known as “The Zipper.” Excerpt:

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Dog Knots

“Talk” also took a look backstage at the Winter Garden, where burlesque performers shared the stage with a contortionist dog called “Red Dust.” Excerpt:

WOOF…Famed animal trainer **Robert “Bob” Williams** with one of his pupils. The dog in the photo is misidentified as Red Dust (he was actually a Malemute/chow mix).

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Suddenly Famous

Charles Butterworth (1896-1946) earned a law degree from Notre Dame before becoming a newspaper reporter. But his life would take on a new twist in 1926 when he delivered his comical “Rotary Club Talk” at J.P. McEvoy’s Americana revue in 1926. Hollywood would come calling in the 1930s, and his doleful-looking, deadpan characters would become familiar to movie audiences through a string of films in the thirties and forties. Alva Johnston profiled Butterworth in the July 27 issue. Here are brief excerpts:

**Charles Butterworth** (left) and Jimmy Durante in *Student Tour* (1934). A bit of trivia: Butterworth’s distinctive voice was the inspiration for the Cap’n Crunch commercials voiced by **Daws Butler** beginning in the early 1960s. Butterworth’s life was cut short in 1946 when he crashed his imported roadster into a lamppost on Sunset Boulevard. (Detail from film still via IMDB)

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Noisy Neighborhood

The “Vienna Letter” (written by “F.S.”–possibly Frank Sullivan) noted the rumblings of fascism in a grand old European city known for its many cultural delights as well as its many factions that included Nazis, Socialists and Communists (and no doubt a few Royalists). An excerpt:

CALM BEFORE THE STORM…Vienna in 1935, less than three years before the Anschluss, when Nazi Germany annexed Austria. (meisterdrucke.us)

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Ex Machina

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) penned this poem for The New Yorker that is somewhat appropriate to our own age and our fears of the rise of A.I. In “Nightmare Number Three,” Benét described a dystopian world where machines have revolted against humans.

BOTH CLASSY AND FOLKSY is how some today describe **Stephen Vincent Benét**, who in 1928 wrote a book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, *John Brown’s Body,* for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He was also know for such short stories as *The Devil and Daniel Webster,* published in 1936. (mypoeticside.com)

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From Our Advertisers

We begin with more extraordinary claims from R.J. Reynolds, who convinced a lot of folks that drawing smoke into your lungs actually improved your athletic stamina…

…the makers of Lucky Strike, on the other hand, stuck with images of nature and romance to suggest the joys of inhaling tar and nicotine…

…General Tire took a cue from Goodyear, suggesting that an investment in their “Blowout-Proof Tires” was an investment in the very lives of a person’s loved ones (even though they apparently drove to the beach without seatbelts or even a windshield)…

…another colorful advertisement from the makers of White Rock, who wisely tied their product to ardent spirits as liquor consumption continued to rebound from Prohibition…

…I toss this in for the lovely rendering on behalf of Saks…it looks like the work of illustrator Carl “Eric” Erickson, but he had many imitators…

…we do, however, know the identity of this artist, and his drawings on behalf of the pesticide Flit, which apparently in those days of innocence was thought appropriate for use around infants…

…great spot drawing in the opening pages…I should know the signature but it escapes me at the moment…

…James Thurber quoted Blaise Pascal for this tender moment ( “The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing”)…

…Peter Arno illustrated the horrors of finding one’s grandmother out of context…

…Helen Hokinson’s girls employed a malaprop to besmirch the good name of an innocent mountain…

…Richard Decker discovered the missing link(s) with two archeologists…

…Alan Dunn narrowly averted a surprise greeting…

…George Price added a new twist to a billiards match…

…Price again, at the corner newstand…

…Al Frueh bit off more than he could chew…

…and we close with Barbara Shermund, and a prattling mooch…

Next Time: La Marseillaise…

A German Problem

Above: A German American Bund parade in New York City on East 86th Street. Oct. 30, 1937. (Library of Congress)

Among the many ethnic enclaves of 1930s New York City was a neighborhood that was feeling the influence of world events, and not necessarily in a good way.

July 13, 1935 cover by **Helen Hokinson.** One of the first cartoonists to be published in *The New Yorker*, she appeared in the magazine for the first time in the July 4, 1925 issue. She contributed 68 covers and more than 1,800 cartoons to the magazine.

Journalist Chester L. Morrison looked at life among German immigrants on the Upper East Side for “A Reporter at Large.” Under the title “Muenchen Im Kleinen” (Little Munich), Morrison examined the everyday life of the Yorkville district between East 79th and East 96th streets.

Germans had settled in New York City almost from its first days, and by 1885 the city had the third-largest German-speaking population in the world, outside of Vienna and Berlin, the majority settling in what is today the East Village. Following the General Slocum disaster in 1904, German settlement migrated to Yorkville, which was commonly referred to as Germantown. Here are excerpts of Morrison’s observations:

ENCLAVE…Clockwise, from top left, Rudi and Maxl’s Brau-Haus at 239 East 86th; Oktoberfest celebration in Yorkville, undated; **Walker Evans** photo with Rupert Brewery sign in the background; the Yorkville neighborhood in the 1930s with the old Third Avenue El in the background. (postcardhistory.net/boweryboyshistory.com/metmuseum/gothamcenter.org)

With the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s, a pro-Hitler group called the German-American Bund began to organize street rallies and marches on 86^th Street and on 2^nd Avenue. Although they represented a minority of German settlers, the Bund made itself visible in parades and other public events that culminated in a mass demonstration at Madison Square Garden in 1939. The Bund also organized training camps for young men outside of the city, such as Camp Siegfried in Yaphank, L.I.

Morrison noted that Yorkville homes looked like many others across the city, that is until you saw the pictures on their walls.

SCOUT’S HONOR?…At a German-American Bund camp in Andover, New Jersey, young campers stand at attention as the American flag and the German-American Youth Movement flag are lowered at sundown, July 21, 1937. (AP)

THE MADNESS OF CROWDS…A German-American Bund color guard marches through Madison Square Garden, Feb. 20, 1939. (AP)

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Garden Varieties

Now for a palate cleanser as we turn to Lois Long and her “Tables For Two” column, in which she examined the confluence of hotel gardens and marriage proposals. Excerpts:

OASIS…**Lois Long** recommended the Hotel Marguery’s formal garden as a place to “fritter away” an afternoon. The hotel was demolished in 1957 to make way for the Union Carbide Building. (*Museum of the City of New York)*

A COOL, SWISS CHALET was how Long described the new Alpine Room in the basement of the Gotham Hotel. (daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com)

Long continued as she set her sights on Brooklyn…

HE WILL LIKELY SAY YES, according to Long, if you got your beau to accompany you to the roof of the Hotel Bossert in Brooklyn. (brownstoner.com)

THE TUNEFUL SURROUNDINGS of the Famous Door were a bit too crowded for Long, however this group seems to have had plenty of room to enjoy the greats **Ben Webster, Eddie Barefield, Buck Clayton,** and **Benny Morton** on stage at the Famous Door in 1947. (Wikipedia)

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Monster Mash-up

Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi are synonymous with 1930s monster flicks (they did eight together) but their latest outing, The Raven, left critic John Mosher wondering where the Poe was in the midst of this “sadistic trifle.”

BUDDY FILM…*The Raven* (which had almost nothing to do with **Edgar Allen Poe’s** famous narrative poem) was the third of eight films that featured **Boris Karloff** and Bela Lugosi. According to film historian **Karina Longworth,** thanks to a wave of monster movie hits in the 1930s, these two middle-aged, foreign, struggling actors became huge stars. (cerealatmidnight.com)

TYPECAST? WHO CARES?…**Bela Lugosi** and Boris Karloff in 1932. Despite being monster movie rivals, the two seemed get along well off-screen, perhaps appreciating their mutual good fortune. (beladraculalugosi.wordpress.com)

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Ode to Education

Clarence Day, best known for his Life With Father stories, also contributed a number of cartoons to The New Yorker that were accompanied by satirical poems…here he examines attempts at education in the arts and sciences…

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From Our Advertisers

We start at the back of the book, and a couple of one-column ads (appearing on the opposite sides of the same page) that catered to very different clientele…

…the makers of Lincoln luxury cars knew the type of client they were fishing for here…

…pin-up artist George Petty continued exploring his beauty and the beast theme on behalf of Old Gold cigarettes…

…and Camel offered more reasons why you should smoke your way to athletic glory…

…this inside back cover advertisement reminds us that we are indeed back in 1935…

…as does this one from Dr. Seuss, with a shot of insecticide for a talking toddler…

…on to our cartoonists, beginning with Charles Addams and some Navy hijincks…

…Gluyas Williams offered his latest take on American club life…

…William Steig took us to summer camp…

…Otto Soglow looked for a good night’s rest…

…Mary Petty explored the latest in bathing fashions…

…Perry Barlow introduced us to some proud parents…

…and to close with Helen Hokinson, who showed us some innocents abroad…

Next Time: A Double-Header…

Independence Day 1935

We mark the July 4 weekend with a lighter edition of A New Yorker State of Mind…

July 6, 1935 cover by William Steig, a contributor to The New Yorker from 1930 to 2003, including more than 2,600 drawings and 117 covers.

…and see what many New Yorkers were doing on that holiday ninety years ago…

TOGETHERNESS…New Yorkers celebrate the Fourth of July on a Coney Island beach, circa 1935. (coneyislandhistory.org)

Let’s look at some of the advertisements from the July 6 issue, beginning with this alarming image that greeted readers on the inside front cover…

…Goodyear continued its series of safety-minded advertisements (this one on the inside back cover) that played on the fears of parents with driving-age children…strange how no one then considered other hazards such as the hard steel dash, or worse, the steering column that often impaled drivers…also, is that how they taught folks to hold a steering wheel in the 1930s?…

…no stylish models, debutantes or famous athletes for the makers of Chesterfields, at least not in this back page ad which equated their cigarette papers (and by association, the cigarettes themselves) with wholesome milk and pure mountain water…

…we kick off the cartoons with Robert Day, who took to the roads with a touch of modernism…

…Gardner Rea topped off the calendar section with a nod to fireworks safety…

…known more for his New Yorker covers, Constantin Alajalov reflected on a visit to the Met…

…Ned Hilton was tied up on the phone…

…Fritz Wilkinson had one musician ready to play a different tune…

…James Thurber was up in arms…

…George Price found something fishy with two fishermen…

…and Price again, with the latest advances in personal hygiene…

…Rea Irvin gave us an early taste of Halloween…

…Barbara Shermund found some frank advice at the beauty counter…

…and we close with Peter Arno, in his element…

Next Time: A German Problem…

Happy Motoring

In 1933 the U.S. economy began a slow recovery from the 1929 market crash, but the recovery stalled in 1934 and 1935, and folks including E.B. White were looking for any indication of brighter days ahead.

June 29, 1935 cover by Barbara Shermund. A prolific contributor of cartoons to *The New Yorker* (600 in all), Shermund also illustrated eight covers, including this charmer.

White suggested that Americans look for smaller signs of normalcy, such as the new slogan, “Happy Motoring,” that was being rolled out by Standard Oil’s Esso.

IT’S A GAS…At left, *Gasoline Station, Tenth Avenue,* photo by **Berenice Abbott**, 1935; at right, newspaper ad, May 1935. (metmuseum.org/wataugademocrat.com)

Like many of us, White was a study in contradictions, enthusiastically embracing the age of air travel while rejecting the style and comforts of modern automobiles (he famously loved his Model T). It is no surprise that he also preferred Fifth Avenue’s spartan green and yellow omnibuses over the new streamlined buses that would soon be plying the streets of Manhattan.

NO THANKS…**E.B. White** preferred the spartan accommodations of the old Fifth Avenue buses to the comforts of their replacements. (coachbuilt.com)

White elaborated on the advantages of the older buses:

STYLE OVER COMFORT…Of the old Fifth Avenue buses, **E.B. White** wrote that he preferred the “hard wooden benches on the sun deck, conducive to an erect posture, sparkling clean after a rain.” (Ephemeral New York)

* * *

Cinderella Story

Challenger James J. Braddock achieved one of boxing’s greatest upsets by defeating the heavily favored (and reigning champ) Max Baer. For this feat he was given the nickname “Cinderella Man” by journalist Damon Runyon. The writer of the “Wayward Press” (byline “S.M.”) seemed less impressed, and mocked the national media for their sudden pivot on the bout’s unlikely outcome.

BRINGING THE FIGHT…Challenger **James J. Braddock** lays into defending champ **Max Baer** during a heavyweight boxing title match on June 13, 1935, at the Madison Square Garden Bowl in Long Island City. Although the national media dismissed Braddock’s chances of winning, Braddock trained hard for the fight while Baer spent more time clowning around than training. Braddock won by unanimous decision, eight rounds to six. (thefightcity.com)

* * *

Seemed Like a Nice Guy

Henry Pringle penned the first part of a three-part profile of Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948), who was also a former New York governor and U.S. secretary of state. William Cotton rendered a rather severe-looking Hughes in this caricature for the profile…

…although in reality he tended to look more like this…

PROGRESSIVE THINKER…Supreme Court Chief Justice **Charles Evans Hughes** in 1931. Known as a reformer who fought corruption, Hughes was a popular public figure in New York. (Wikipedia)

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From Our Advertisers

We begin with an advertisement that goes down easy, with its minimal style…

…by contrast, a busy Camel advertisement…R.J. Reynolds alternated full-page ads featuring society women with these health-themed spots that linked smoking with athletic prowess…

…this advertisement by Fisher claimed the 1935 Pontiac was “The most beautiful thing on wheels,” however here it looks perfectly ancient…

…as does this Nash on the inside back cover…

…the back cover was claimed by Highland Queen, a blend of some very fine distilleries…

…Theodore Seuss Geisel continued his ongoing saga against the mighty mosquito…

…and we have this back of the book ad for Webster cigars, who enlisted the talents of Peter Wells…

…Wells (1912–1995) was also a children’s book writer, most famous for contributing drawings to the Katzenjammer Kids comic strip …

**Peter Wells**, detail from the opening page from “The Katzenjammer Kids,” #16, Spring 1951, King Features Syndicate, Inc.

…and of course we are all familiar with Otto Soglow, who sold his beloved Little King to Hearst (and made a pile) but was still able to feature his diminutive potentate in the The New Yorker in a series of ads for Bloomingdales…