1930s cigarette ads – Page 4 – A New Yorker State of Mind

Strike Up the Band!

Before we launch into the Jan. 25 issue, the rendering of the old New York Aquarium in this Sue Williams cover bears some consideration.

Jan. 25, 1930 cover by **Sue Williams.**

The aquarium was housed within the historic walls the South West Battery, constructed off the tip of Manhattan between 1808 and 1811 as a defense against the British. Renamed Castle Clinton in 1817 (in honor of former Mayor/Governor Dewitt Clinton), it was deeded to the city in 1823 to be used as an entertainment center. From 1855 to 1890 it served as an immigrant landing depot, then remodeled in 1896 (by the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White) to become the popular New York City Aquarium.

FISH OUT OF WATER…Postcard image of the New York City Aquarium from the early 1900s; aerial view of the aquarium circa 1934; postcard image of aquarium interior; demolition of the aquarium in 1941, on orders from city planner **Robert Moses.** (thebattery.org/nycgovparks.org)

Although the aquarium proved to be a cultural and educational magnet, it stood in the way of master planner Robert Moses’s designs to build a bridge from The Battery to Brooklyn. After residents, preservationists and even Eleanor and President Franklin Roosevelt protested, the city opted instead to construct a tunnel under the East River. Nevertheless, Moses managed to get the aquarium knocked down before demolition was halted by the outbreak of World War II. After the war, Congress passed a bill declaring the site a National Monument, and preserved the walls of Castle Clinton.

HIGH AND DRY…Until it was demolished in 1941, the New York City Aquarium occupied the space in the center of Castle Clinton, which was added to National Register of Historic Places in 1966. (nps.gov)

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Now, About That Band…

A play that satirized America’s enthusiasm for war — Strike Up the Band — was loved by critics but spurned by audiences when it opened in Philadelphia in 1927. Written by George S. Kaufman, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, the play had the pedigree for success, but audiences weren’t quite ready for a show that poked fun at the U.S. military just nine years after the end of World War I (in the original play, America is goaded into declaring war on Switzerland by an American cheese tycoon).

Enter lyricist Morrie Ryskind, who reworked the script, softening its political message and remaking the war plot into a dream sequence. The revised play proved to a be hit, running for 191 performances at the Times Square Theatre. It also introduced a number of popular songs, including “The Man I Love” and “Strike Up the Band.” Robert Benchley was on hand for opening night:

TEAMWORK…Clockwise, from top, **Ira** (left) and George Gershwin at work circa 1930; lyricist **Morrie Ryskind**, who softened the tone of **George S. Kaufman’s** original script. (U of Michigan/Wikipedia)

Benchley noted that the antics of comedian Bobby Clark caused him to laugh so loud that his guffaws were even noted in the Herald Tribune’s review:

MAKE ‘EM LAUGH…The comedy team of **Paul McCullough** (left) and Bobby Clark were one of the play’s big draws. At right, *Herald-Tribune* illustration by **Al Hirschfeld** announcing the Broadway opening of Strike Up the Band. (aaronneathery.org)

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Duncan Yo-Yos

We’ve seen the Duncan Sisters (Rosetta and Vivian) before in this blog, the sister vaudeville act that became famous with the 1923 hit musical Topsy and Eva, which inspired a silent 1927 film starring the duo. They were back on the screen in late 1929 with It’s a Great Life, which the New Yorker’s John Mosher found to be “pretty dreary”…

NOT SO GREAT, THIS…Clockwise from top, promotional poster for It’s a Great Life; a scene from a dance number in the film; **Rosetta** (in blackface) and Vivian Duncan as Topsy and Eva (characters derived from the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin). It’s a Great Life flopped at the box office, along with the Duncan’s brief movie careers. In the years to follow the duo would became popular nightclub entertainers and would continue to perform their Topsy and Eva routine even though appearing in blackface was increasingly considered offensive. (Wikipedia/freewebs.com)

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Miracle Worker

The New Yorker profile, written by Robert Coates, featured Helen Keller (with illustration by Hugo Gellert). A brief excerpt:

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From Our Advertisers

Advertisers in the Jan. 25 issue included the new Fortune magazine, which announced its first issue with this full-page ad:

…the table of contents is fascinating, spare in descriptions of everything from “Hogs” to “Orchids”…

From left, issue No. 1, February 1930; table contents for the issue; a prototype of the magazine, September 1929. (*Fortune*) **please** **click to enlarge**

…also listed in the new magazine’s table of contents was the name of a 24-year-old photographer, Margaret Bourke-White…

A photo of coal piles by **Margaret Bourke-White** in the first issue of *Fortune* magazine. At right, **Bourke-White** photographing atop a skyscraper circa 1930. (*Fortune*)

…on to our other advertisements, we have this entry from Elizabeth Arden…ads from this salon chain in the 1920s and 30s featured this ubiquitous image of a woman with a distant stare, her head tightly bound — mummy-like — as part of a firming treatment called “muscle-strapping”…

…in contrast to the rather cold, clinical look of Elizabeth Arden ad, the Primrose House appealed more to social climbing than skin toning…

…while the makers of Pond’s cold cream continued to draw from their stable of debutantes and society ladies to move their product…

…long before there was Joe Camel, R.J. Reynolds also appealed to social climbers with a series of ads beautifully illustrated by fashion artist Carl Erickson…

…society’s smokers were advised to pack a tube of Bost toothpaste, or have their French maid do it for them…

…and once again we have an ad by Dr. Seuss for Flit insecticide that is very much of its time…

…as is this cartoon by I. Klein, perhaps the first in the New Yorker that depicted African Americans as something other than minstrel show stereotypes. Nevertheless, the rendering is still a bit crude — especially the boy’s face — as is the idea behind the “joke” — that a black boy could actually aspire to be a great violinist like Jascha Heifetz…

…John Reynolds explored a less troubling juxtaposition among the bohemian set…

…and we end with this peek into society life courtesy Barbara Shermund…

Next Time: The Wild Kingdom…

Death Avenue Revisited

For nearly 100 years, giant steam locomotives (and later diesels) rumbled through the streets of Manhattan’s West Side, serving warehouses and industries via a route known as “Death Avenue.”

Jan. 18, 1930 cover by **Constantin Alajalov** (who apparently had just visited St. Moritz, home of the 1928 Winter Olympics).

Beginning in 1846, freight trains began operating at street level along 10th, 11th and 12th avenues. When mixed with an ever-growing crush of pedestrians, wagons, cars and trucks — hundreds were killed or mutilated, many of them schoolchildren. One of these streets, 10th Avenue, earned the moniker “Death Avenue” for its large share of fatalities. Although protests over the unsafe rail lines had been going on for decades, it wasn’t until 1929 that an agreement was reached to build an elevated rail system (which is now the popular High Line elevated park). In late December 1929 Mayor Jimmy Walker pried out the first spike at 11th Avenue and 60th Street. In “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White wryly observed:

GOOD OLD DAYS…Freight trains were introduced to the west side warehouse district in 1846. Block-long trains would run through cross streets and congested traffic, maiming and killing along the way (image at left circa 1920). At some point in the late 19th century trains were required to send a man ahead on horseback waving a red warning flag (see images at right, circa 1900); nevertheless, in the decade 1890-1900 nearly 200 deaths were recorded, mostly schoolchildren from nearby tenements. **please** **click image to enlarge.**

WESTSIDE COWBOYs…Clockwise, from top left, a steam locomotive rumbles down 11th Avenue near 41st Street in the 1920s; men on horseback, known as the West Side Cowboys, rode ahead of the trains to warn pedestrians. Image at top right is of cowboy **William Connolly** on 11th Avenue in 1932; the last ride — **George Hayde** led the final ride of the West Side cowboys up 10th Avenue on March 24, 1941; aerial view of the High Line from 18th Street heading north. Opened in 1934, the elevated track lifted most freight train traffic 30 feet in the air. Today the High Line serves as a mile-and-a-half-long elevated park, and is one of New York’s biggest tourist draws. (Forgotten NY/AP/NY Times/thehighline.org)

A New Yorker illustrator/cartoonist who spent a lot of time hanging around the working class neighborhoods on the West Side was Reginald Marsh. One of the first cartoonists employed by the New Yorker, Marsh was also a “Social Realist” painter who had studied with the Art Students League. The prevailing theme at the League was life among the working poor, the unemployed, and the homeless, especially after the market crash of 1929. For the Jan. 18 issue Marsh contributed this cartoon featuring a Death Avenue subject…

…more than two years earlier (the Nov. 5, 1927 issue) Marsh provided this illustration of life on Death Avenue…

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Birds of a Feather

And speaking of the down and out, E.B. White commented on the thousands of panicked citizens who had flocked to the New York Life Insurance Company in search of some peace of mind under the wing of its leader Darwin P. Kingsley (1857-1932). Kingsley steered the company through the market crash relatively unscathed, thanks to its investments in government bonds and real estate, and not in common stocks.

DARWIN’S LAW…**Darwin P. Kingsley** saw the New York Life Insurance Company through the stock market crash. The company’s assets weathered the crash thanks to investments in government bonds and real estate, and not common stocks. At right, the New York Life Building at 51 Madison Avenue, designed by architect **Cass Gilbert** and opened in December 1928.(retropundit.wordpress.com)

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Oh Dear Me

As I’ve noted before, the New Yorker loved taking swipes at the New York Times, especially when the somewhat puritanical “Old Gray Lady” found it challenging to cover the more salacious side of life. In this case, according to E.B. White, it was the subject matter of a 1930 Broadway play Waterloo Bridge…

LES BELLES IMPURES…Actress **June Walker** (pictured here circa 1920) portrayed chorus girl Myra Deauville in the 1930 Broadway play *Waterloo Bridge.* In the play Myra finds herself out of work and stuck in London during World War I. She resorts to, um, prostitution to support herself. (IBDB)

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Nerd Alert

White also got a kick from reading accounts (presumably in the Times) about Albert Einstein’s “lecture” at the American Museum of Natural History. According to the New York Times’ Michael Pollak (F.Y.I., Aug. 10, 2012), “an unruly crowd of 4,500 stampeded through the (museum) to see a movie about Einstein’s work…it became known — relatively speaking — as the Einstein riot.”

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Not Ready For My Closeup

The actress Gloria Swanson (1899-1983) was a major star during the silent era who saw her career wane with the advent of the talkies, and then suddenly soar again with her unforgettable portrayal of reclusive silent film star Norma Desmond in the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard. In her profile of the actress, Helena Huntington Smith seemed to suggest that Swanson was something of an ugly duckling who managed to transcend her looks through a process of graceful maturation (Abe Birnbaum’s caricature notwithstanding). Some excerpts:

GLORIOUS FACES…**Abe Birnbaum** no doubt drew from images like these for his caricature of **Gloria Swanson**. From left, Swanson in a cloche hat in an undated photo; publicity photo for her 1928 film *Sadie Thompson*; publicity photo for 1929’s *The Trespasser*, Swanson’s first all-talking picture. (Pinterest/pixels.com)

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Good-Bye and Good Luck

Not too many 33 year olds write autobiographies, but then again Robert Graves was no typical 33-year-old. Good-Bye to All That, which Graves later described as “my bitter leave-taking of England,” was reviewed in the Jan. 18 “Recent Books” column. Note in the first paragraph how the reviewer (A.W.S.) suggested that writing about World War I (which ended less than 12 years earlier) was getting better “as the shock of the actual catastrophe wears off.” This is not unlike the writings (and films) about Viet Nam that began to emerge in the 1980s and 90s. An excerpt:

A LOT ON HIS MIND…from left, **Robert Graves** served in the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in World War I (photo is probably from 1915); first edition of his autobiography *Good-Bye to All That,* which he published at age 33; Graves in 1935. (Oxford U/Wikipedia/fundaciorobertgraves.org)

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From Our Advertisers

We begin with this elegant ad for a new art deco beauty salon at the Abraham & Straus department store on Fulton Street in Brooklyn…

…for reference, a photo of salon, from 1930…

…the Jan. 18 issue contained a slew of ads enticing New Yorkers to flee the winter and head south — smartly attired, of course — like the couple in the upper right hand corner who look fashionably disinterested as they head out for some “playtime” in Havana (love the man’s combo black tie and bucket hat)…

…and you have to hand it to the folks at Sterling, who put the chic into high-powered boat engines…

…this has to be one of the very few times, perhaps the only time, that a toilet seat was advertised in the New Yorker…note how the folks at the Church company played on consumers’ social anxieties, proffering the suggestion that an old toilet seat might be the one thing that lingers in the memories of your houseguests…

…of course a lot of people eased their anxieties by lighting up, something they didn’t have to worry about because they were told it was actually good for their health (the manufacturers of Old Golds, for example, claimed their cigarettes created a “smoke screen” that kept away colds and other “throat dangers”). Not to be left behind, the makers of Lucky Strikes claimed their “toasting” process removed “dangerous irritants”…

…speaking of Old Golds, cartoonist John Held Jr. picked up some extra pocket change with this “woodcut” illustration for the brand…

…as for Held’s fellow New Yorker cartoonists, we have some more social anxiety courtesy of Alan Dunn…

…a bit of chit chat among society ladies…Barbara Shermund looked in on a pair down in Palm Springs…

…while Helen Hokinson found her ladies contemplating new economic realities…

…and finally we have Peter Arno, and a punch line that failed to land…

Next Time: Strike Up The Band!

Brave New Year

The imposing of image of a fat, fearsome banker greeted readers of the Jan. 4, 1930 issue of the New Yorker, an apt symbol for the dawn of a new decade in a country whose fate seemed wholly in the hands of the old moneymen.

However bleak the outlook, the show still had to go on, and automakers did their best to entice crowds to the National Automobile Show at the Grand Central Palace. The New Yorker’s Nicholas Trott wrote of a “tentative modernism” on display at the show as automobile styles continued to transition from “horseless carriages” to something that looked decidedly modern. Trott’s column, illustrated by Peter Arno…

…made note of the modern angles of Art Deco that were creeping into the designs…

DAZZLING DASHES…Clockwise, from top left, the 1930 Essex sported an Art Deco instrument panel, as did the 1930 Hudson Great Eight Sedan. (hemmings.com/Free Library of Philadelphia)

…Trott also noted the increasing popularity of eight-cylinder cars (as evidenced in ads featured later in this blog post)…

TEMPLE OF TRANSPORTATION…Top left, postcard image of the Grand Central Palace exhibition building, circa 1916. At right and below, new automobiles on display at the Palace in the early 1930s. (Wikipedia/NY Daily News)

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Flappers Get Flappy

Automobile designs weren’t the only changes seen on the streets of New York. In “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White lamented the introduction of “ear flaps” on women’s hats…

THEY FLOP, JUST LIKE THE STOCK MARKET…A selection of women’s hats from a 1930 Chicago Mail Order Company catalog. (elfsacks.com)

…while on the other hand, in “The Talk of the Town” White welcomed the addition of a namesake hotel to the New York skyline…

NAMESAKE…The 43-story Hotel New Yorker at 481 Eighth Avenue, by architects Sugarman and Berger, opened on January 2, 1930, with more than 2,500 rooms starting at $3.50 a night. At left, the hotel following its completion; top right, construction on the hotel began just 22 months earlier; bottom right, the Terrace Room nightclub was a popular spot for dancing in the 1930s and 40s. (The New Yorker Hotel/americanfoodroots.com)

…White noted that the “New Yorker” name seemed to be popping up everywhere…

A NEW LEASE ON LIFE…The hotel as it appears today. With the decline of train travel (the hotel was near Penn Station), the Hotel New Yorker closed in 1972 and was purchased by the Unification Church in 1975. Subsequently much of the original Art Deco detailing was lost, and the hotel’s famed **Louis Jambor** murals were painted over. Beginning in the mid-1990s the New Yorker Hotel Management Company launched a $100 million capital improvement project (top right). Fortunately, the Art Deco doors of the Manufacturers Trust Company offices (below) were preserved, as was company’s lobby. (Wikipedia/Daytonian in Manhattan)

…and White marveled at the building’s massive scale…

WHAT LIES BENEATH…*Popular Science* (April 1930) offered a view into the bowels of Hotel New Yorker, 78 feet below street level. (tparents.org)

According to Tom Miller’s excellent blog Daytonian in Manhattan, the New Yorker was the largest hotel in city: “it boasted 2,500 rooms, murals by renowned artist Louis Jambor, the largest barber shop in the world (42 chairs and 20 manicurists), 155 chefs and cooks for the five restaurants. Employing 92 telephone operators, the hotel had one of the largest switchboards in the country…Its basement power plant was the largest private plant in the United States. The Great Depression apparently never heard of the New Yorker Hotel as satin-gowned movie stars and top-hatted politicians crossed its marble-floored lobby.” (Inventor Nikola Tesla spent the last ten years of his life in near-seclusion in Suite 3327).

The Unification Church purchased the building in 1975, removing Art Deco details and painting over the Jambor murals. In 1994 the New Yorker Hotel Management Company launched what would be a $100 million capital improvement project. Miller writes that during the renovation “the original marble floors were exposed from under yards of threadbare carpeting.” And happily, “when the doors to the old Manufacturer’s Trust Company were opened, the old 1929 lobby was intact…the Jambor murals (in the Trust’s lobby) survived. The Art Deco terrazzo floors remained. And the tiled corridor to Penn Station still stretches diagonally beneath 8th Avenue, now used as storage for security reasons.”

EPHEMERAL ART…Murals by renowned artist **Louis Jambor,** seen in this photo of the ballroom in the 1940s. The murals were painted over in the 1970s after the hotel was acquired by the Unification Church. (The New Yorker Hotel)

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Ways of Seeing

Art critic Murdock Pemberton (1888-1982) continued to ponder the meaning of the new Museum of Modern Art, which was staging its second-ever exhibition in its galleries on the 12th floor of the Heckscher Building on Fifth Avenue:

ARE WE NOT MODERN? **Charles Demuth’s** *My Egypt,* (oil on composition board, 1927) was among works featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s second exhibition, *Paintings by Nineteen Living Americans*. From left, cover of the exhibition catalog, a page from the catalog featuring Demuth’s painting, and as the work appears in color. (MoMA/WikiArt)

No doubt Pemberton, who came from humble Kansas roots, found it difficult to warm up to a gallery founded in November 1929 by three society women — Mary Sullivan, Lillie Bliss and Abby Rockefeller…

…and wryly suggested that perhaps another museum could be founded, “The Modernest Modern Museum,” for those who lacked clout or patronage with MoMA’s well-heeled board of directors…

Pemberton’s grumblings caught the attention of Alfred Barr Jr., the first director of the Museum of Modern Art, who sought a correction (printed in the back pages of the Jan. 4 issue) regarding some of Pemberton’s earlier observations of the museum. No doubt Barr was feeling some Rockefeller heat as well:

HERE’S MUD IN YOUR EYE…**Murdock Pemberton,** apparently endorsing Taylor’s Port in 1937. (observer.com)

For some insight into Pemberton’s populist views (the old meaning of the word, not the new one), the critic’s granddaughter, Sally Pemberton, had this to say in a 2012 New Yorker interview:

“Being from humble roots in Kansas and having worked to help support his family since he was a young boy, Murdock had a love-hate relationship with the upper echelon of society. He visited “plush hung galleries” and saw how museums treated art and artists in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, and he wanted art to be more accessible. He asked that the Met set aside a room for the work of living artists. He called for art to be displayed in libraries and universities, and in some cases to be sold in department stores. He wrote about what a wonderful thing it was when the W.P.A. put murals in post offices around the country and how that changed the American public’s perception of art.”

Ms. Pemberton is the author of Portrait of Murdock Pemberton: The New Yorker’s First Art Critic.

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From Our Advertisers

More ink for the newly opened Hotel New Yorker in this advertisement on page 47…

…and with the automobile show in town, the magazine was filled with numerous splashy car ads…Franklin with its air-cooled engine, Hupmobile with its powerful eight, and Pierce-Arrow—America’s answer to Rolls Royce—would all fall victim in the 1930s to the Great Depression…

…the magazine also featured numerous ads beckoning the well-heeled to warmer southern climes, including society snowbirds seeking respite at Palm Beach…