Janet Flanner – Page 2 – A New Yorker State of Mind

Germany’s Anti-Decor

The annual Salon of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs in Paris reflected the growing importance of design as a profession, although it was primarily attuned to an affluent urban elite. Then along came the Germans.

June 14, 1930 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

A radical new wind blew through Paris in 1930 when Bauhaus designers were invited to exhibit in their own special section at the Salon. According to the New Yorker’s Paris correspondent Janet Flanner, the Germans put on a display in their Section Allemande that left some French designers scratching their heads.

KEEPING IT CLEAN…Members of the Bauhaus Werkbund displayed their wares in the *Section Allemande* (German section) of the annual Salon of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs in Paris. Clockwise, from top left, examples of reception areas and workspaces by **Walter Gropius;** bottom left, inside pages of the exhibition catalogue for the *Section Allemande.* (journal.eahn.org)

STAIRWAY TO THE FUTURE…A staircase fashioned from galvanized chicken wire, by **Walter Gropius,** on display in *Section Allemande* of the 1930 *Salon of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs.* (journal.eahn.org)

UNKNOWN THEN, COMMON NOW…The *Section Allemande* also featured building models, including this multi-story apartment with communal facilities, designed by **Walter Gropius.** (*Journal of Design History*, 2004)

HOW IT STACKED UP…Rather than dazzle audiences with the latest in posh decor, the Germans confronted *Salon* audiences with their radical approaches to furniture and interior spaces. At left, chairs by **Marcel Breuer** and others; at right, *Light Prop for an Electric Stage* by László Moholy-Nagy. (journal.eahn.org/Artists rights Society)

Many critics and commentators at the time characterized the Salon as a nationalistic showdown between French luxury decor and German efficiency and standardization. Flanner suggested that while the Germans seemed to be throwing out the rule book, the French were accepting modernity at a much slower pace:

MODE DE VIE…Salon entries by French designers had a more art deco bent. Clockwise, from top left, vestibule of a boudoir by **Jean Dunand;** cover of the *Salon’s* catalogue; *Petit Salon* by **André Groult**; a living room by Jules Leleu. (Pinterest/art-utile.blogspot.com)

Of course we know how this story in turns out. In just three years the Nazis would shut down the Bauhaus, scattering its faculty and students abroad, including many to America, where they would find fertile soil to continue their work and eventually spread their design philosophy and aesthetic (for better or worse) across the U.S. and to every corner of the world.

* * *

A Gay Old Time

New Yorkers could escape the summer heat by taking in the latest incarnation of the Garrick Gaities at Broadway’s Guild Theatre. Character and voice actor Sterling Holloway Jr., (1905-1992) best known today as the voice of Disney’s Winnie the Pooh, appeared in all three Garrick Gaiety revues (1925, 1926, 1930), which were staged as benefits for New York’s Theatre Guild. Robert Benchley offered this review:

**Sterling Holloway,** left, with **June Cochran** in *Garrick Gaieties*.

Another familiar face in the Garrick Gaieties was Imogene Coca (1908-2001), a pioneer of early television (with Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows) who is best known today for her role as Aunt Edna in National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983).

KEEP ‘EM LAUGHING…Clockwise, from top left, Scene from the 1930 *Garrick Gaieties* revue, with **Philip Loeb** in the high hat and **Thelma Tipson** standing behind him. Also from left are **Ruth Chorpenning**, **Donald Stewart** and **Ted Fetter**; cover of the program for the 1930 revue; publicity photo from 1983’s *National Lampoon’s Vacation,* with **Imogene Coca** as Aunt Edna at right; Coca, far left, in the chorus line for the 1930 *Garrick Gaieties.* (New York Public Library/IBDB/ifccenter.com/Pinterest)

* * *

Ahh-Choo

A child of New York City’s suburbs, E.B. White developed a love of the natural world thanks to a severe bout of hay fever he had as a child — on the advice of a doctor, he was sent to Maine for the summer. White’s allergies, and his love of country living, would prompt him to buy a summer residence on the Maine Coast in 1933. He and his wife, New Yorker writer and fiction editor Katherine Angell White, would make it their permanent home four years later. In 1930, however, White was still putting up with the bad summer air of the city:

THANK GOD I’M A COUNTRY BOY…**E.B. White** on the beach with his dog **Minnie,** circa 1940s. (Wikipedia)

* * *

It Didn’t Work Then, Either

Some things never change. The Hawley–Smoot Tariff Act, sponsored by Representative Willis C. Hawley and Senator Reed Smoot and approved June 17, 1930, raised tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods. Promoted as a way to protect American businesses and farmers, it put additional strain on international markets already reeling from the effects of the Depression. A resulting trade war severely reduced imports and exports. Writing for “The Wayward Press,” Robert Benchley (under the pen name Guy Fawkes) shared these observations:

* * *

How Dry I Ain’t

Despite his sober demeanor, Henry Hastings Curran (1877-1966) was a champion for those seeking the repeal of Prohibition laws. A longtime city manager in several roles, in 1930 he was president of the Association Against Prohibition Amendment. According to profile writer Henry Pringle, Curran predicted the end of Prohibition in five years. Happily for the wet side, they would get their wish in just three. A brief excerpt from the profile, titled “The Wet Hope.”

**Henry H. Curran** (Underwood and Underwood)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

The Hotel Algonquin ran a series of ads in the back pages of the New Yorker that capitalized on its reputation as a place where stars and other notables gather. And although the Algonquin Round Table was a thing of the past, the hotel made sure to showcase names forever associated with the famed table, including Robert Benchley and the hotel’s manager, Frank Case…

…hoping for some crossover interest from New Yorker readers, William Randolph Hearst’s Cosmopolitan (then a publisher of fiction, not sex tips) promoted this fictionalized autobiography of a famous tap dancer in this full page ad…

…introduced in 1924, Kleenex was originally marketed as a cold cream remover, and not as something you would blow your nose into, for goodness sake…

…however, after 1930 Kleenex was being marketed with the slogan “Don’t Carry a Cold in Your Pocket”…

DON’T BLOW IT…Kleenex boxes circa 1925. (Kleenex.com)

…and artist Carl Erickson remained busy making Camel cigarettes look so darn appealing…

…from Macy’s we have a jolly ad illustrated by Helen Hokinson…

…and for our cartoons, Peter Arno, and an awkward moment in a parking lot…

…Reginald Marsh visited Coney Island…

…fresh off his first “Little King” strip for the New Yorker, Otto Soglow returned with this wry observation…

...Garrett Price looked in on a clash of cultures at a golf course (an image that seems quite relevant today)…

…Barbara Shermund found a bit of trouble at home…

…while Art Young offered this woman a choice of her daily mayhem…

Next Time: Robeson’s Othello…

Minding the Gap

Tens of thousands of commuters daily cross the George Washington Bridge, but in the din of modern commuting few give nary a thought to a span that was once considered a modern marvel.

Twice as long as any previous suspension bridge when it opened in 1931, the George Washington Bridge’s main span of 3,500 feet (1,100 m) would be the world’s longest until it was surpassed by San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in 1937. The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” (entry most likely by E.B. White) checked on the bridge’s progress for the May 3 issue:

MEN OF STEEL…Some 107,000 miles of wire were used in cables made by John A. Roebling’s Sons Company for the George Washington Bridge — the same firm also supplied wire for the Brooklyn Bridge 60 years earlier (**John Roebling** and his son, **Washington**, also designed and built the Brooklyn Bridge). Clockwise, from top, employees of John A. Roebling’s Sons pose atop cable bundles; bottom right, the bridge’s four main cables were each composed of a single strand carried back and forth across the river 61 times. Each strand itself is a bundle of 434 individual wires; bottom left, worker poses atop completed cable. (Flickr/Pinterest)

BY ANY OTHER NAME…Known as the Hudson River Bridge during its construction, the George Washington Bridge opened to traffic in 1931. During the first full year of operation in 1932 more than 5.5 million vehicles used the original six-lane roadway — today it is the world’s busiest motor vehicle bridge, carrying more than 100 million vehicles per year. Although the steel towers are iconic today, the original plan called for them to be clad in stone. (Wikipedia)

* * *

A Cabin in the Sky

Other signs of modern life were being seen in Midtown, where an “Aircraft Salon” hosted by the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce was taking place at Madison Square Garden.

Nicholas Trott was on hand to take in the exhibits, noting that advances in aviation included the use of metal bodies (instead of fortified cloth) and greater attention to interior decoration:

SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED…An attendee of the New York Aircraft Salon received a special postal stamp, and an autograph from aviator **Cy Caldwell**, at the Madison Square Garden show. (Joe Krantz)

Trott noted that designs of passenger compartments, still in their infancy, suggested something between automobile and nautical motifs:

SORRY, NO HEADPHONES…Clockwise, from top left, a Curtiss Condor 18 and its interior appointments; a Fokker Trimotor featured dining in its cabin. As peaceful as the scene appears, the noise from the motors must have been unbearable. (Wikipedia/dutch-aviation.nl)

Trott also commented on the debate surrounding metal vs. fabric in the construction of airplanes. Before 1930 most planes were constructed of wood covered with fabric (which were much lighter than metal craft). Although as early as 1920 the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics declared metal to be superior to wood, only five percent of aircraft in 1930 were of all-metal construction.

DON’T CALL ME WOODY…This eight-passenger Consolidated Fleetster was a rare example of metal construction in early 1930. The wings, however, were still fashioned from wood. (Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce 1931 Aircraft Yearbook)

* * *

Road to Nowhere

The New Yorker’s enthusiasm for modern marvels did not extend to the West Side Highway, a project that would extend from the late 1920s to the early 1950s. Here is E.B. White’s take on the opening of the highway’s first section:

White’s observations were somewhat prescient — constructed in tight confines, the road’s on-ramps proved too narrow and the turns too tight for use by large trucks. The roadway also lacked proper maintenance, and just two decades after it was completed a section of the highway collapsed under the weight of an asphalt-laden truck. The roadway was demolished between 1977 and 1989. Read more here about the West Side Highway’s surprising history at the Museum of the City of New York.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN, TAKEN…Left, West Side Express Highway and Piers 95-98, photographed by **Berenice Abbott** from 619 West 54th Street on Nov. 10, 1977; West Side Highway Ramp at 23rd Street reveals Art Deco ornamentation. Detail of photo by Jan Staller, 1978. (Museum of the City of New York)

* * *

For Pet Lovers

Our latest installment of James Thurber’s “Our Pet Department” column…

* * *

Hate Couture

The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent, Janet Flanner, using the pen name “Hippolyta,” contributed this profile of François Coty (1874-1934), a French perfumer and businessman. Flanner’s profile (the introduction included below) described Coty’s rags-to-riches rise in the perfume industry, and touched on his life as a sometime journalist and politician.

What doesn’t come across in the profile is Coty’s extreme right-wing stance on politics and his virulent anti-Semitism, which was often expressed in his newspaper, Figaro. Three years after Flanner’s profile Coty would co-found Solidarité Française, a fascist, paramilitary organization, and a year after that he would be dead of an aneurysm.

**François Coty** circa 1930. (aperfumeblog.com)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

The New Yorker’s bottom line reaped benefits from the big aviation show at Madison Square Garden…

…and even if you weren’t selling airplanes or flying lessons, you could still get in on the action…

…also from the fashion world, this colorful entry from Onyx Hosiery…

…and this weird ad from Saks, advertising shoes and a party dress but dominated by a caricature of designer Joseph Hergesheimer…

…on to our cartoons…Helen Hokinson paid a visit to the aviation show…

…on the domestic front, Garrett Price examined the challenges of home decor…

…Al Frueh offered an ironic twist on a room with a view…

…Peter Arno once again found humor in the partying life…

…as did Gardner Rea…

Next Time: All Quiet on the Western Front…

Garbo Speaks

Imagine your favorite Hollywood actress, maybe someone like Meryl Streep or Judi Dench. You’ve followed their careers and watched most of their movies, but you’ve never heard their voices.

March 22, 1930 cover by **Gardner Rea.**

That’s what it was like for Greta Garbo fans before March 1930, when she spoke her first onscreen words in the 1930 MGM drama Anna Christie, which was adapted from a 1922 play by Eugene O’Neill.

SWEDISH SPHINX…**Greta Garbo’s** mask-like qualities on display in this publicity still for *Anna Christie.* (IMDB)

The New Yorker’s film critic John Mosher, not always a fan of Garbo’s silent work (although she had plenty of fans), found a “special kind of glamour” in her first talking picture, even tossing out the word “legend” to describe this Swede who avoided publicity like a bad cold…

No doubt a few moviegoers saw the movie just to finally hear that voice, which Mosher described as “a surprise…a deep, low voice, a boy’s voice really, rather flat, rather toneless, yet growing more attractive as the picture advances”…

Director **William H. Daniels** (seated, left) with unidentified cameraman filming a scene from *Anna Christie* with actors **Greta Garbo** and **Clarence Brown**; at right, the actors contemplate the microphone hovering above them. Note how the camera in the first photo is contained in a soundproof case. (IMDB) *click image to enlarge*

Publicized with the tag line “Garbo talks!,” Anna Christie premiered in New York City on Feb. 21 and became the highest-grossing film of 1930. Later that year a German language version would be filmed featuring Garbo but with a different director and supporting cast.

SOUND DEBUT…Clockwise, from top left, **Greta Garbo** and **Marie Dressler** in *Anna Christie;* an MGM ad touting the film as one of the best pictures of the year (it would be the year’s highest-grossing, and Garbo would receive an Academy Award nomination); studio portraits of Garbo used in the film’s promotion. (IMDB)

And if you want to hear Garbo deliver those famous first lines — “Give me a whisky, ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby” — here it is, in a scene about sixteen minutes into the film…

* * *

Chicken and Cocktails

En route to the South Seas, the French artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954) paid a visit to New York City, and by all accounts had a good time there. His visit was described by Murdock Pemberton in “The Talk of the Town”…

I ♥ NEW YORK…**Henri Matisse** arriving in New York City on the S. S. Mauretania, December 15, 1930. He described the city as “majestic.” (artistandstudio.tumblr.com)

NICE PLACE, THIS…**Henri Matisse** sitting on the brick roof terrace of 10 Mitchell Place (formerly Stewart Hall), the Queensboro Bridge glimpsed in the background. The photo was taken in 1930 by his son, **Pierre Matisse**, who was living in New York. At right, 10 Mitchell Place today. A framed photograph of Matisse sitting on the rooftop hangs on the wall of the building’s lobby. (Henri-matisse.net/Ephemeral New York)

* * *

The Last Page

The death of author D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was reported to New Yorker readers by Janet Flanner, the magazine’s Paris correspondent, who briefly detailed the writer’s rather sad decline…

FLEETING DAYS…**D. H. Lawrence** (right) with fellow writer **Aldous Huxley** at Bandol, in the South of France, 1929. (Topham Picturepoint)

* * *

What Depression?

Nearly five months into the Great Depression, yet little evidence in the New Yorker of the catastrophe that was unfolding across the land. And true to form, the approach to the topic was made with humor, via E.B. White in “Notes and Comment”…

KNOW ANY GOOD JOKES?…At left, unemployed New York dockworkers; at right, folks enjoying the New York Public Library’s outdoor reading room in Bryant Park, 1930s. (Lewis Hine/National Archives and Records Administration/New York Public Library)

* * *

Cathedrals of Commerce

E.B. White also observed the changing skyline, and how the towering skyscrapers were quickly overshadowing the once prominent steeples of the city’s churches…

REACHING TO THE HEAVENS…Clockwise, from top left, Trinity Church Wall Street and St. Patrick’s have been eclipsed by the towers of Mammon, but St. John’s and Riverside still dominate their surroundings today. (Wikipedia/St. John’s/Riverside)

* * *

The Other House of Worship

Perhaps a certain skyscraper ennui settled in, as architecture critic George S. Chappell was not all that impressed by the “huge” Lincoln Building (which today still seems huge)…

SIZE DOESN’T MATTER…Although the new Lincoln Building proved to be a massive addition to the New York skyline, its style seemed outdated in contrast to its flashy new neighbor, the Chrysler Building — one of its gargoyles, at right, seems poised to devour the Lincoln Building. (nyc-architecture.com)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We have a bit more evidence of the Depression in the ads, including this one from Abercrombie & Fitch, with two sporting gents opting to go fishing to take their minds off the markets…

…if fishing wasn’t your thing, perhaps you just wanted to escape into the “quiet” of the wide streets in the East Seventies…

…or relax with a smoke, which artist Carl Erickson made look so appealing with his Camel ad illustrations…

…or take the humorous route to a relaxing smoke, with this ad for Murad as illustrated by Rea Irvin…

…on to our cartoonists, Garrett Price captured the mood of the times…

…while Alfred Krakusin captured an altogether different mood…

...Leonard Dove examined the path to stardom…

…I. Klein pondered modern art…

…William Crawford Galbraith found an unlikely victim of religious zeal…

…Mary Petty gave us a glimpse of a doctor’s office…

…and Leonard Dove again, this time at ringside…

Next Time: Noblesse Oblige…

In Search of Yuletide Cheer

E.B. White’s “Notes and Comment” column led off the New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town,” and as such helped set the tone for what was to follow in the magazine.

Dec. 14, 1929 cover by Theodore Haupt. Opening image: Construction workers line up for pay beside the first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York in 1931. (*NY Daily News*)

For the Dec. 14 issue White attempted to strike a positive note in the aftermath of the stock market crash, offering a few nuggets of hope for the holiday season:

HEAVYWEIGHTS…Both President Herbert Hoover and retired prizefighter **Gene Tunney** offered signs of stability to a nation reeling from economic collapse. At right, **Gene** and **Mary Tunney** return to New York on the ocean liner Vulcania after 14 months in Europe. (Wikipedia/AP)

Alexander Woollcott, however, described his financial woes in his “Shouts and Murmurs” column, where he parodied newspapers that listed charity cases during the Christmas season:

BOOK-END POOR…**Alexander Woollcott,** in a 1939 portrait by Carl Van Vechten. (Wikipedia)

Paris correspondent Janet Flanner noted how the ripples of the market crash were being felt in Paris: Americans no longer had wads of cash to lavish on booze, jewelry, antiques and real estate:

DON’T RAIN ON OUR PARADE…The Place de la Nation, Paris, 1930. (thevintagenews.com)

Flanner added that despite the past boorish behavior of American tourists, the level of schaudenfreude among the French was remarkably low…

* * *

Sinful Diversions

For yet another sign that the Roaring Twenties were decidedly over, it appeared that even “Sex” had run its course. Theater critic Robert Benchley noted that Mae West’s scandalous 1926 play inspired a spate of shows that had little new to offer, save for amping up the salacious content: A Primer for Lovers, The Amorous Antic, and Young Sinners. Audiences were unimpressed. A Primer for Lovers closed after just 24 performances, The Amorous Antic after just eight. Only Young Sinners would survive into the spring season.

JUST LOOK WHAT YOU STARTED…”Sex” was panned by critics as vulgar, but Broadway audiences in 1926 loved it. After 375 performances police arrested **Mae West** on obscenity charges, which landed her in a prison workhouse for ten days. (boweryboyshistory.com)

Actress **Phoebe Foster** (left) found success on Broadway, but not so much in *The Amorous Antic*, which closed after just eight performances. **Dorothy Appleby** (right) had better success with Young Sinners, which ran for 289 performances through August 1930. (IMDB)

* * *

Final Bows

Theater was changing in other ways too. In the late 19th and early 20th century audiences patronized various playhouses based more on their reputation and tradition than on a particular play. E.B. White, in the “Talk of the Town” noted the imminent passing of one such house, the Knickerbocker Theatre, slated for demolition in 1930. The 33-year-old theater was Broadway’s first to display a moving electric sign (1906).

A HOUSE OF GOOD REPUTE…The Knickerbocker Theatre at 1396 Broadway was built in 1896 and demolished in 1930. (Internet Broadway Database)

White noted that smaller venues like the Knickerbocker, with their own distinct character and clientele, were falling victim to big theater-owning corporations that introduced more homogeneity into the play-going scene. In White’s estimation just two old-timers remained:

Both buildings still stand. The New Amsterdam, constructed in 1902–03, is now the oldest theater on Broadway. In the 1910s and 1920s it hosted the Ziegfeld Follies on its main stage and the racier Ziegfeld Midnight Frolics on the building’s rooftop. The Music Box was constructed in 1921 by composer Irving Berlin and producer Sam H. Harris to house Berlin’s Music Box Revues.

DISNEYFIED…The New Amsterdam, constructed in 1902–03, still stands today, now operated by the Disney Company, which signed a 99-year lease with the city in 1993. When it was built it was the largest theater in New York, with a seating capacity of 1,702. (Wikipedia)

IRVING’S PLACE…The Music Box Theatre at 239 West 45th Street was constructed in 1921 by composer **Irving Berlin** and producer **Sam H. Harris** to house Berlin’s Music Box Revues. It was later co-owned by Berlin’s estate and the Shubert Organization until Shubert assumed full ownership in 2007. (Wikipedia)

* * *

Stocks Down, Arno Up

Peter Arno could be found all over the Dec. 14 issue: an ad promoting his new book Peter Arno’s Parade, a blurb in the book section touting the same…this ad for Peck & Peck featuring his handiwork…

…in the comics, a full pager with the economy as a theme…

…and this submission that was doubtless inspired by Arno’s own home life and his brief, tempestuous marriage to New Yorker colleague Lois Long…

…here’s a couple of comics featuring Milquetoast characters…this one by Garrett Price…

…and another by Leonard Dove…

…and two submissions from one of my favorite cartoonists, Barbara Shermund, so ahead of her time…

…Helen Hokinson examined a physician’s bedside manner…

…and I. Klein offered his take on the new economy…

* * *

We move right along to the Dec. 21, 1929 issue, where things seemed to turn a bit more sour…

…Elmer Rice’s serialized novel, A Voyage to Purilia, finally concluded in its 11th installment in the New Yorker…and E.B. White took on a more choleric disposition in his “Notes and Comment”…

Lois Long contributed a “Tables for Two” column, a feature that had become infrequent and would soon be shelved as she turned her full attentions to her fashion column “On and Off the Avenue.” In this installment of “Tables” we get her first mention of the market calamity…

…Robert Benchley finally found something to like on Broadway, because Billie Burke was the star attraction…

SHE”S THE GOOD ONE…**Billie Burke** in 1933. Most of us know her today for her performance as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the 1939 film *The Wizard of Oz*. (Wikipedia)

* * *

Violin Prodigy 2.0

The New Yorker raved about the 12-year-old violinist Yehudi Menuhin when he wowed audiences at the Berlin Philharmonic earlier in the year. So when the 10-year-old Ruggiero Ricci expertly fiddled with the Manhattan Symphony, well…

* * *

Namesake

Despite the market crash, the skyline continued to change at a rapid pace, and as we enter the 1930s the city would add some of its most iconic buildings to the skyline. George Chappell, the New Yorker’s architecture critic, had this to say about the magazine’s “namesake”…

ROOMY…The New Yorker Hotel, at 481 Eighth Avenue. When the 43-story Art Deco hotel opened 1930, it contained 2,500 rooms, making it the city’s largest for many years. (Wikipedia)

* * *

Art critic Murdock Pemberton continued his quest to make sense of the upstart Museum of Modern Art…

…and the American artists showcased there…

…I would add Edward Hopper, John Sloan, Lyonel Feininger, and Rockwell Kent (also displayed at the exhibition) but then again, I have the advantage of hindsight…

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We have more New Yorker cartoonists augmenting their income through advertising, including (once again) Rea Irvin for Knox Hatters…

…Raeburn Van Buren for G. Washington’s instant coffee (also a client of Helen Hokinson’s)…

…and Helen Hokinson for Frigidaire…

…and on to cartoons for Dec. 21, Hokinson again…

…and we end with Peter Arno, and another peek into marital bliss…

Next Time: The Curtain Falls…

American Royalty

Although the United States declared its independence from British Empire nearly 250 years ago, the royal family and all of its requisite trappings persist in the American imagination like a phantom limb.

Oct. 5, 1929 cover by **Theodore G. Haupt.**

E.B. White observed as much in the “Notes and Comment” section of the Oct. 5 issue, in which he offered his views regarding the “pother” over the wedding of Calvin Coolidge’s son, John, to Florence Trumbull, the daughter of Connecticut Governor John Harper Trumbull…

White could have looked no further than the pages of the New Yorker for further evidence to his claims. The bourgeois yearnings of its readers were reflected in countless advertisements laced with anglophilic pretensions. Here are examples from 1929 issues we have previously examined:

LIVE LIKE A BARON…Ads from the *New Yorker* of the 1920s often featured illustrations of regal, priggish types such as the couple above, deployed to sell everything from apartments and ginger ale…

…to no-frills automobiles and menthol cigarettes. No product was too pedestrian for the royal treatment.

Writing under the pseudonym “Guy Fawkes,” Robert Benchley commented further on the Coolidge-Trumbull nuptials in the “Wayward Press” column:

HEY CAL, IT’S A WEDDING, NOT A FUNERAL…The former U.S. President **Calvin Coolidge** was known as “Silent Cal” for good reason, given his reserved demeanor that rarely produced a smile (although he apparently had a dry wit). He poses here at the wedding of his son, John. Left to right are **Grace Goodhue Coolidge, President Coolidge, Florence Trumbull Coolidge, John Coolidge; Maud Pierce Usher Trumbull**, and **Gov. John Trumbull.** (patch.com)

NOT EXACTLY KING’S ROAD…Onlookers line the street near the Congregational church in Plainview, Conn., hoping for a glimpse of the bride and groom, who were united in a simple ceremony. (AP)

CUTE COUPLE…**Florence Trumbull** and **John Coolidge** during their engagement, 1928. (crackerpilgrim.com)

* * *

Modest Mussolini

We go from famous faces to infamous ones, namely the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, aka Il Duce, who received the adoration of his public while trying to remain inconspicuous at the cinema. “Talk” recounted…

NOW PICTURE HIM UPSIDE DOWN…A 1929 postcard image of the once-revered Italian dictator **Benito Mussolini**. Sixteen years later he would be shot by his own people and strung up by his feet from the roof of a Milan gas station. (worthpoint.com)

* * *

Going Down

“Talk” also commented on the growing trend for high-rise apartments to provide swimming pools and other amenities below street level:

TAKING THE PLUNGE DOWN UNDER…Few indoor swimming pools were available to New Yorkers during the 1920s. Two of the nicer ones were found underground at the Shelton Hotel (above) and the Park Central. Sadly, both pools no longer exist. In 2007 the Shelton’s pool was removed and the cavernous space was divided into three levels. I’m not sure when Park Central’s disappeared, but it’s fate was doubtless similar to the Shelton’s.(daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/hippostcard.com)

* * *

How About a Catch?

As I’ve noted on previous occasions, the New Yorker of the 1920s all but ignored major league baseball. The magazine gave regular coverage to seemingly every sport, from hockey and college football to polo and yacht racing, but regular coverage of baseball was nonexistent, even when the Yankee’s Murderers’ Row (Ruth, Gehrig among others) won back-to-back World Series titles in 1927-28.

Still no coverage in the Oct. 5 issue, but the sport did get a brief mention in Howard Brubaker’s “Of All Things” column…

…and the issue was filled with baseball imagery, including the cover…

The Oct. 5 issue was filled with baseball-related items, but no actual coverage of the games. Images from the issue included, from left, the cover by Theodore Haupt; a filler sketch by **Constantin Alajalov;** and a Johan Bull illustration of umpire Bill Klem for the issue’s “Profile” section.

* * *

In a Sentimental Mood

Robert Benchley checked out George White’s latest version of his Scandals revue at the Apollo Theatre, and found the sometimes risqué show to be in a sentimental mood…

BETTER SENTIMENTAL THAN DEPRESSED…The chanteuse **Frances Williams** (pictured on the show’s sheet music and at right) likely provided the only spark to the 1929 edition of George White’s Scandals. (amazon/psychotronicpaul.blogspot.com)

Benchley also looked in on Elmer Rice’s latest, See Naples and Die, featuring veteran English actress Beatrice Herford and the up-and-coming Claudette Colbert…

VETERAN AND ROOKIE…Veteran English actress **Beatrice Herford** and the up-and-coming Claudette Colbert headlined **Elmer Rice’s** *See Naples and Die.* Colbert (pictured at right in a 1928 Broadway publicity photo) would go on to massive stardom in the 1930s. (Alchetron/Wikipeda)

Benchley applauded the veteran Herford’s performance, but found the otherwise reliable Colbert miscast as a wisecracking, Dorothy Parker type (Benchley, as we know, was close friends with Parker, so he knew what he was talking about)…

* * *

An (Ugly) American in Paris

Off to Paris, we find correspondent Janet Flanner joining with Parisians in deriding the behavior of American tourists, who were on a course to drain every last drop from the Île–de–France before departing for the bone-dry USA:

DRINKING IN THE SIGHTS…American tourists at a Parisian *café*, circa 1920s. (tavbooks.com)

* * *

Party Pooper

With her infant child (Patricia Arno) at home, it is doubtful Lois Long was seeing as much nightlife as she did during her first weeks at the New Yorker, when “nights were bold.” And indeed, her nightlife column “Tables for Two” would end for good in June 1930. Her Oct. 5 column took a cursory spin through the various nighttime offerings, ending on this note regarding a fan letter and a message from comedian Jimmy Durante:

THE GREAT SCHNOZZOLA **Jimmy Durante** brought a smile to the face of **Lois “Lipstick” Long.**

* * *

From Our Advertisers

With the latest Paris fashions splattered across newstands all over Manhattan, retailers scrambled to get “replicas” to consumers…Macy’s had “couturier bags”…

…the Hollander Dressmaking Department was ready to make a perfect copy of Patou’s “Quiproquo”…

…and this Chanel frock could be had in misses’ sizes for $145 (roughly equivalent to about $2K today)…

…Philip Morris hadn’t yet discovered the “Marlboro Man,” and were still hawking their cigarettes through a “distinguished handwriting contest.” The latest winner was Edmund Froese…

…who would go on to become a popular mid-century landscape painter…

*Port of New York,* by Edmund Froese (undated)

…another artist in the midst of our ads is Carl “Eric” Erickson, who created these lovely images for R.J. Reynolds that would induce people to take up the habit with a Camel…

…and then we have some rather unlovely ads from the back pages, including these two that would not go over well with today’s readers…

…or this from Dr. Seuss, still sharpening his skills with Flit insecticide…

…or this ad from Abercrombie & Fitch, wrong on so many levels…

…on to happier things, here’s an illustration by Reginald Marsh that ran along the bottom of “Talk of the Town”…(click to enlarge)

…Alan Dunn found love in the air above the streets of Manhattan…

…and Leonard Dove revealed the hazards of apartment rentals…

Next Time: Race to the Sky…

The So-So Soprano

Although its founding editor, Harold Ross, was raised in the rude surroundings of a Colorado mining town and often displayed the manners of a backwoodsman, the New Yorker nevertheless looked down its sophisticated nose at most anything west of the Hudson, and the middle west was reserved for particular ridicule in its homespun piety and small city boosterism.

April 20, 1929 cover by **Adolph K. Kronengold.**

Enter one Marion Talley, a child prodigy from the tiny town of Nevada, Missouri. After appearing in a lead role at age 15 for the Kansas City Grand Opera, excited civic leaders raised enough money to send Talley to New York to study voice. Four years later (February 1926) she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Gilda in Rigoletto — at that time the youngest prima donna to appear on the Met stage. A delegation of Kansas City’s two hundred leading citizens (including the mayor) travelled to New York via special train to attend the performance. Adding to the spectacle, a noisy telegraph machine was set up backstage so Talley’s father could send dispatches back home during the performance. Writing in his “A Reporter at Large” column for the New Yorker’s Feb. 27, 1926 issue, Morris Markey scoffed at the hype and Babbitry on display:

THE MANY PHASES OF MARION…Clockwise, from top left, 18-year-old **Marion Talley** in 1925 in a detail of an image that appeared on the cover of *Time*; Talley in 1927 (detail of a portrait by **Edward Steichen**); an autographed portrait dated May 1936; with co-star **Michael Bartlett** in her only movie, *Follow Your Heart* (1936); promoting Ry-Krisp crackers, sponsor of her NBC radio show, 1937. (Getty/famousfix.com/imdb.com/mnopedia.org)

The New Yorker (via E.B. White in “Notes & Comment”) caught up with Talley more than three years later in the April 20, 1929 issue, her short career seemingly over, her voice perhaps destined for nothing more than “hog-calling”…

When Talley’s Met contract was not renewed for the 1929 season, she announced her plans to retire to a wheat farm in Kansas (hence the hog calling reference). She did, however, try to revive her career on concert tours and then on her own NBC Radio program (1936-1938), sponsored by Ry-Krisp. She made one film, the 1936 musical Follow Your Heart, but after its tepid reception the 30-year-old Talley decided to retire from show business.

ONE MORE TRY…Testimonial ads promoting weight reduction usually signal the end of a career, and for **Marion Talley** her Ry-Krisp diet endorsement was no exception. (imdb)

How good a singer was Marion Talley? We will never really know, but you can get some sense of her style and range from this 1927 Vitaphone short (the Vitaphone sound method synchronized the film with what was essentially a record player):

Talley married twice — to pianist Michael Rauchelsen (1932–1934) and to music critic Adolph Eckstein (1935–1942), the latter with whom she had a daughter, Susan. Talley died in 1983 in Beverly Hills, California.

* * *

Dark Clouds on the Horizon

The April 20, 1929 “Talk of the Town” made passing mention of a man who would be instrumental in the stock market crash later that year—National City Bank President Charles E. Mitchell:

The “Talk” item references a $25 million advance Mitchell offered to stock market traders who were getting the yips in an overheated market. This happened after a “mini crash” on March 25, 1929, when the Federal Reserve told its banks to withhold all loans to finance securities. Mitchell’s announcement apparently reassured the public enough to stop the panic, but in reality it only delayed the inevitable—a major market crash brought on in large part by the over-selling of securities by Mitchell’s bank.

RUNAWAY BULL…**Charles E. Mitchell’s** reckless overselling of securities played a large role in the October 1929 stock market crash. Arrested and indicted for tax evasion in 1933, Mitchell would be acquitted of criminal charges but would end up paying a million dollars to the U.S. government in a civil settlement. At right, Walker’s stately townhouse on Fifth Avenue, now home to the French consulate. (geni.com/daytonian in manhattan)

The “Talk” item continued with this observation on the Panic of 1907, and how banker J.P. Morgan had also offered $25 million to bring the market back to earth:

PANIC ATTACK…banker **J.P. Morgan** (left) used a pile of money to calm the stock market during the Panic of 1907. His son, **J.P. Morgan Jr.**, (right) would try to do the same following the October 1929 crash, when he and other bankers attempted to prevent a depression by purchasing some overpriced blue chip stock. As we know, their actions had little effect. (Library of Congress)

* * *

Funny Girl

One of Broadway’s biggest stars in the 1920s, Fanny Brice (1891-1951) was profiled by Niven Busch Jr. in the April 20 issue. In addition to her work with the Ziegfeld Follies and other stage productions, by 1929 the comedian, singer and actress had recorded two-dozen songs and appeared in the 1928 film, My Man. Brice’s star would continue to rise in the 1930s and 40s, especially on the radio portraying the bratty toddler “Baby Snooks.” Here are the opening lines of the profile, which included a caricature of Brice by Miguel Covarrubias:

Top right, caricature of Fanny Brice that accompanied the *New Yorker* profile, drawn by **Miguel Covarrubias.** Below, publicity photo of Brice as Baby Snooks, 1938. (Photofest)

* * *

From its very beginnings comic verse played an important role in the pages of the New Yorker. The subjects of my previous blog post (Generation of Vipers), sisters Elinor Wylie and Nancy Hoyt, both contributed comic poems to the magazine, as did Clarence Knapp, a former mayor of Saratoga, New York, who also wrote prose pieces on that city’s famed horse racing scene. According to Judith Yaross Lee (Defining New Yorker Humor, p. 354), Knapp was a New Yorker insider who penned a total of 14 mock-melodramatic “sob ballads” between 1927 and 1930. Lee observes that Knapp’s ballads followed a fixed formula, two 16-line stanzas followed by eight-line refrains, that “joked about present social values by invoking past forms.”

* * *

They Loved a Parade

After the passing of literary giant Victor Hugo in 1885 (his funeral attracted two million mourners), Paris became known for its spectacular funeral processions. So when famed French general and (WWI) Supreme Allied Commander Marshal Ferdinand Foch died on March 20, 1929, the City of Light turned out in droves to say goodbye. On hand to report the scene was the New Yorker’s Paris correspondent, Janet Flanner, aka Genêt:

A PARIS FAREWELL…The Tricolor-draped coffin of Marshal **Ferdinand Foch** is escorted by the Allied Commanders from the Great War (WWI) during the funeral procession. The American General **John J. Pershing** can be seen marching alongside the catafalque in the center of the photo. (Associated Press)

By Flanner’s account, Foch’s send-off easily matched Hugo’s in terms of crowd size:

* * *

The Art of Smoking

Cigarette manufacturers used a variety of marketing techniques to promote their tobacco products. During the late 1920s and early 30s R.J. Reynolds sought to attract more women smokers through a series of stylish ads for its Camel brand that evoked a softly elegant world. These ads were illustrated by Carl Erickson (1891–1958), a fashion artist whose work was widely seen in Vogue and in promotions for Coty cosmetics. This ad appeared in the April 20 issue of the New Yorker:

While studying at Chicago’s Academy of Fine Arts, Erickson was nicknamed “Eric,” a name he later used to sign his works. Also a successful portrait artist, Erickson lived part of his professional life in France (1920 to 1940) with his wife, the fashion illustrator Lee Creelman. Below are several examples of Erickson’s Camel work, including two back page illustrations from Delineator, a women’s fashion magazine that featured Butterick sewing patterns.

Clockwise from top, left, ad from *Delineator*, July 1930; 1929 ad from unknown source; unknown date and source; **Carl “Eric” Erickson** at work circa 1950; ad from the *Delineator*, July 1929. (Delineator/fashionising.com/periodpaper.com)

And From Our Other Advertisers…

With our Cuba relations once again eroding, let’s look back 89 years to a time when affordable, care-free living could be yours in sunny Havana…

…or in the days before foam rubber, “ozonized” animal hair gave bounce to your rugs…

…or the modestly well-off could contemplate an apartment on Park Avenue…

View from a 16th floor condo at 784 Park Avenue, yours today for a cool $8 million. (triumphproperty.com/stribling.com)

Our cartoons come courtesy of Garrett Price (1895-1979), who would contribute hundreds of cartoons as well as 100 covers during his more than 50 years with the New Yorker. An excellent look at Price’s life and work can be found in The Comics Journal…

**Garrett Price**, circa 1918, and one of his *New Yorker* covers from May 21, 1949. (*The Comics Journal*)

…Denys Wortman (1887-1958) looked in on a bookseller with a “spoiler” problem. From 1924 to 1954 Wortman drew the nationally syndicated comic strip Metropolitan Movies for the New York World. The beautifully drawn strip offered a naturalistic portrayal of daily life in New York City…

**Denys Wortman** at work in an undated photo. At left, an example from his *Metropolitan Movies* comic strip, dated May 11, 1932. (*New York World/New York Times*)

…and John Reynolds looked in on the challenges of the architecture profession. Reynolds contributed 34 drawings to the New Yorker from 1928 to 1930.

Next Time: Hello Molly…

That Moderne Feeling

A defining moment for Art Deco design in America occurred at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art during a 1929 exhibition that showcased everything from household furnishings to garden design.

March 9, 1929 cover by **Theodore Haupt.** Between 1927 and 1933, Haupt would illustrate 45 covers for the *New Yorker.*

Before we delve into the Met’s exhibition, The Architect and the Industrial Arts, a quick note about the New Yorker’s Theodore Haupt-illustrated cover, which referenced the annual Six-Day Cycling Race that was taking place at the Madison Square Garden Velodrome. The event, which began at the old Madison Square Garden in 1891 and lasted until 1950, featured a beer garden (after Prohibition) in the center of the oval and drew such celebrities as Bing Crosby, Barbara Stanwyck and Peggy Joyce. It was said that Crosby even paid the hospital bills of riders who fell during the race.

THIS MIGHT TAKE AWHILE…The Six-Day Cycling Race at the Madison Square Garden Velodrome, 1932. (Victoria & Albert Museum)

The March 9 issue was lively with another contribution from Groucho Marx (“Press Agents I Have Known”) and an Alexander Woollcott-penned profile of playwright and screenwriter Charles Gordon MacArthur (husband of stage actress Helen Hayes and father of James “Book ’em Danno” MacArthur).

But as the blog title suggests, it was also filled with articles and ads that told of a city embracing all things new and modern, including a piece by architecture critic George S. Chappell on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s eleventh Exhibition of Contemporary American Design, titled The Architect and the Industrial Arts. It was curated by the Met’s Richard F. Bach, who organized 15 annual exhibitions of contemporary industrial art at the museum between 1917 and 1940.

The 1929 exhibition of Art Deco works was the biggest yet, inspired by the Art Moderne movement in Europe and particularly the 1925 Paris Exposition International des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels). The Met exhibition, wrote Chappell, “should not be missed”…

PORTAL TO THE FUTURE…Entrance to *The Architect & the Industrial Arts* exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, designed by **Joseph Urban.** The above exhibition poster (seen mounted on the doorway in the photo) was by **W.A. Dwiggins.** (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Ornaments created by **W.A. Diggins** for the exhibition catalogue included, from left, “Conservatory,” for a section on **Joseph Urban;** ornament on a page devoted to curator **Richard F. Bach;** “Backyard Garden” for a section on Ely Jacques Kahn; and an ornament that graced the acknowledgements page. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, via paulshawletterdesign.com)

NOT YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S GARDEN…Mosaic semi-circular bench designed by **Austin Purves, Jr.** was featured in architect **Ely Jacques Kahn’s** “Backyard Garden” display by at the *The Architect & the Industrial Arts* exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (*Pencil Points Magazine*, January 1929)

Chappell found the exhibit to be “stimulating,” although he hoped designers in the future would “curb cleverness” and focus more on fundamentals:

DINING IN STYLE…A dining room designed by Finnish architect **Eliel Saarinen** for *The Architect and the Industrial Arts* exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

VISIONARIES…The Cooperating Committee for 1929 *The Architect and the Industrial Arts* exhibition were, standing, left to right, architects **Raymond Hood, Eugene Schoen** and Ely Jacques Kahn. Seated, left to right, architects **Ralph T. Walker, John Wellborn Root, Jr.** and Eliel Saarinen; ceramist, painter and graphic artist **Leon V. Solon**; and architect, illustrator and scenic designer **Joseph Urban.** (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

COZY…**Ralph Walker’s** “Man’s Study for a Country House” at the *The Architect and the Industrial Arts* exhibition. (architectsandartisans.com)

ALL BUSINESS…**Raymond Hood’s** “Business Executive’s Office” featured at *The Architect and the Industrial Arts* exhibition. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Writing in the February 1929 Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, curator Richard S. Bach posed bold questions for this new age: “What is the tempo of our day? What are the dominant elements of our culture, our activities, our thinking? Is this a speed age or are we sedate? Have we time to be dignified and stately about frills or are we air-minded? Do we wait for months, as once all did, for the silkworm to complete his labors before beginning to make thread from his cocoon…or (do we) make a few bales of vegetable silk out of chemically treated wood fiber between breakfast and lunch as a regular chore of a business week-day? And is this the mechanistic millennium which shrivels the soul and makes mockery of imagination, or are these fabulous industries, these automatic instruments of production, the means of bringing within range of vision the real potentialities of our crowded lives and of interpreting our aspirations and achievements?

Pumping Iron Into the Sky

The architecture firm Starrett & van Vleck saw the “real potentialities of our crowded lives” when they designed a new Art Deco skyscraper to house the Downtown Athletic Club. Writing in Lost City News, Mary Hohlt cites the architect Rem Koolhaas, who sees the Downtown Athletic Club as “the ideal of a hyper-reality in the burgeoning urban form of hyper-density and congestion.” The Club is “the everything-at-your-fingertips self-improvement incubator for men…It is a place for men to indulge on self-improvement; to better themselves in a place only the constructed, hyper-reality of Manhattan can provide.”

SELF-IMPROVEMENT INCUBATOR…the Downtown Athletic Club by Starrett & van Vleck, 1930. (4.bp.blogspot.com) ***click to enlarge***

Hohlt writes that Koolhaas sees the Downtown Athletic Club as a sterile place: “Towering in the sky, the Club removes men from the rest of the world and allows them a kind of aesthetic improvement that cannot be passed on.” E.B. White took a less jaded view in this “Talk of the Town” segment:

STILL A WINNER…Famous for serving as the site of the annual awarding of the Heisman Trophy, the Downtown Athletic Club closed in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks. The club was within a “frozen zone” closed to the public during the long clean-up that followed, and could not withstand the financial impact of such a long closure. It reopened in 2005 as a residential tower. (newyorkitecture.com)

Another New Yorker who saw the “real potentialities of our crowded lives” was insurance salesman Milton A. Kent, who in 1928-29 erected a brick and terra-cotta Art Deco tower that could park 1,000 cars using an automatic elevator system.

MONUMENT TO THE CAR…The May 1928 issue of *Modern Mechanix* featured this cutaway illustration of **Milton Kent’s** high-rise, automated parking garage. (boweryboyshistory.com) **click image to enlarge**

Once again E.B. White was on hand to render this observation for “Talk”…

HUMAN SCALE…Kent’s fantastic garage still stands at West 61st Street, but today it serves as—you guessed it—an apartment building. (boweryboyshistory.com)

* * *

Death of a Can-Can Dancer

The sad death of Louise Weber, aka La Goulue, was announced in Janet Flanner’s “Letter from Paris” column. Weber was a can-can dancer at the Moulin Rouge in Paris and a model for some of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s most famous cabaret paintings. Flanner wrote of La Goulue’s rise to fame…

JUST FOR KICKS… Louise Weber, aka La Goulue, circa 1890, and an 1891 poster by Toulouse-Lautrec advertising the performers La Goulue and “No-Bones” Valentin at the new Paris dance hall Moulin Rouge. (Wikipedia)

…and her sad downfall into a life of poverty among the rag-pickers:

SAD DECLINE…**La Goulue,** her face freshly powdered, sat on the steps of her small trailer for an unknown postcard photographer in the 1920s. This image is a detail of the original photograph, held at the Wheaton College Permanent Collection.

* * *

From Our Advertisers

An advertisement on page 45 for Mohawk carpets featured two Cockney charwomen admiring the new carpets at the General Motors headquarters:

A corresponding note: Shreve & Lamb’s 1927 General Motors Building was the hub of Columbus Circle’s Automobile Row. A hideous 2012 remodel, which clad the entire structure in reflective glass, has rendered the former landmark unrecognizable:

Museum of the City of New York/nyc-architecture.com

Getting back to all things “moderne,” these facing ads on pages 8-9 offered some new looks for spring…

…and in the cartoons, a tongue-in-cheek vision of a modern high-rise by Al Frueh, prompted by the news that Florenz Ziegfeld planned to build a 44-story building in his native Chicago. Thanks to the market crash later in the year, it was never realized.

In drawings sprinkled across pages 24-25, Helen Hokinson examined various approaches to tax season, including these two examples…

…and finally, Peter Arno caught a theatre performer with his pants down…

Next Time: Babbitt Babble…

At Home With the Capones

In 1928 Al Capone bought an estate on Miami’s Palm Island as a getaway from the hustle and bustle of Chicago gangster life. He was apparently basking in the Florida sun on Feb. 14, 1929 when four of his associates gunned down seven members of a rival Irish gang on Chicago’s North Side.

March 2, 1929 cover by **Adolph K. Kronengold.**

WINTER RETREAT…**Al Capone’s** estate on Miami’s Palm Island. (miami.curbed.com / sallyjling.org)

It is widely believed Capone ordered the killings, given that he dominated Chicago’s illegal bootlegging, gambling and prostitution trades and was known for his ruthless elimination of rivals. On the heels of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, James Thurber contributed this item in the New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” describing a more mundane side of gangster life:

Shortly after Thurber’s article appeared in the March 2, 1929 New Yorker, Capone would be arrested in Chicago by FBI agents on a contempt of court charge and again in May 1929 on a weapons charge. The following March Capone would be referred to as “public enemy number one” by the Chicago Crime Commission, and a month later he would be arrested on vagrancy charges during a visit to Miami—the Florida governor wanted him out of the state. In 1932 Capone would be sent to Federal Prison for tax evasion.

SNOW BIRD OF A DIFFERENT FEATHER…**Al Capone** relaxes at his Palm Island estate, left, and tries his hand at deep sea fishing off the Florida coast, circa 1929. (miami-history.com)

TEN YEARS LATER…Al Capone and his wife Mae (at right), with their son, **Albert** and their soon-to-be daughter-in-law **Diana Ruth Casey**. The photo was taken at Palm Island in 1940 after Al Capone’s release from prison. (AP)

When Capone finally returned to Palm Island in 1940, he was a very different man. When he entered the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta in 1932 he was found to be suffering from both syphilis and gonorrhea, and when he was released seven years later his mental capacities were severely diminished due to late-stage syphilis. In 1946 a physician concluded Capone had the mentality of a 12-year-old child. He died on Jan. 25, 1947, having just turned 48 years old.

Another mention of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre could be found in Howard Brubaker’s column “Of All Things”…

MY ALIBI…**Al Capone** poses with boxer **Jack Sharkey** in Miami on Feb 13, 1929, the day before the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Sharkey was in training for his bout with **Young Stribling**. (classicboxingsociety.blogspot.com)

MEANWHILE IN THE WINDY CITY…The *Chicago Herald-Examiner’s* front page coverage of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. (Chicago Public Library)

* * *

Pierre’s Hotel

Back in New York, patrons of famed chef Charles Pierre Casalasco were abuzz over his plans for a luxury high-rise hotel. Writing in “Talk of the Town,” Leonard Ware made these observations about Pierre’s big plans:

A BUSBOY’S DREAM…Lloyd Morgan’s 1928 rendering of the Hotel Pierre (left), and the Hotel Pierre today, as viewed from Central Park. The hotel’s builder, **Charles Pierre Casalasco,** started out as a busboy in his father’s restaurant in Corsica. (Half Pudding Half Sauce / Wikimedia Commons)

Ware recounts how Pierre went from humble busboy to renowned haute cuisine restaurateur:

The Rotunda of the Hotel Pierre. (Wikimedia Commons)

The 1897 **Elbridge T. Gerry** mansion, designed by **Richard Morris Hunt,** was torn down to make way for the Hotel Pierre. French artisans were hired to construct the elaborate wrought iron *porte-cochere* at the main entrance. (New York Public Library / *American Architect & Building News)*

* * *

Famed Bluestocking

The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent, Janet Flanner, who wrote under the pen name Genêt, wrote under her own byline for the first time in a profile of the famed novelist Edith Wharton, featured in the March 2 issue. Although born a New Yorker, Wharton mostly lived in France after 1914. Below is a drawing of Wharton by Hugo Gellert that accompanied the profile, of which a few excerpts are included below:

VIVE LA FRANCE…**Edith Wharton** at her spring and winter home in France, Sainte-Claire du Chateau, circa 1930. She finished her novel, *The Age of Innocence* at Sainte-Claire. (Pinterest)

STILL LOVELY…Sainte-Claire du Chateau today. (sydneynearlydailyphot.blogspot.com)

GOLDEN YEARS…**Edith Wharton** in her garden at Sainte-Claire du Chateau, circa 1930.

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Automobile manufacturers were keen to snob appeal even 90 years ago, as can be seen in this advertisement for Dodge cars—the company had been acquired the previous year by Walter Chrysler. Dodge cars were noted for dependability and value, but this ad suggested even blue bloods would find them appealing…

…Chrysler did however take a more direct aim at the top-hat set with a new model— Imperial—to compete with luxury carmakers such as Lincoln and Cadillac…

…just for kicks, this is what the Chrysler Imperial would look like just 30 years later…

…not to be left out, Cadillac placed its downscale luxury model next to Mont-Saint-Michel in this illustrated advertisement. The LaSalle was comparable in price to the Imperial (around $2,500 to $3000) while top-of-the-line Caddies were priced up to $7000…

…and what do you put in your fine automobile to make it purr? Why gasoline mixed with tetraethyl lead, of course!

Speaking of mixing, I like this advertisement for Cliquot Club, whose manufacturers finally—and not so subtly—hint at how their product is to be enjoyed…

…and finally, this ad for the new Fuller Building, which touted gallery spaces for “superior merchandise” on its first six floors…

ART DECO GEM…The 1928-29 Fuller Building by Walker & Gillette at 41 East 57th St. The crown (at left), and a view of the entrance. The lower floors still serve as gallery spaces for art dealers such as Neuhoff and Emmerich. (nyc-architecture.com)

In the cartoon department, we have I. Klein’s take on recent activities associated with the inauguration of President Herbert Hoover…

…and Abe Birnbaum, who provided this sketch of Hoover for the opening pages…

…Otto Soglow’s manhole denizens looked for signs of spring…

…and finally, a comment on the diversification of drugstore wares, by a cartoonist signed as “Kinol.” I’ve had no luck tracing this name, so if anyone has the scoop on this artist, please drop me a note!

Next Time…Sky-High Fitness…

The Bootleg Spirit

As I noted in my previous post, Prohibition never really caught on in New York City, and instead the law gave rise to thousands of the famed (or to some, infamous) speakeasies tucked away in the nooks and crannies of Jazz Age Manhattan.

Jan. 19, 1929 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

However, there were periodic attempts to reign in the city’s lawbreaking drinkers, including U.S. attorney Emory Buckner’s padlocking of speakeasies in the mid-1920s and New York Police Commissioner Grover Whalen’s strong-arm tactics in early 1929.

BOTTOMS UP!…New York speakeasy patrons in the 1920s. New York Police Commissioner **Grover Whalen** estimated there were 32,000 illegal speakeasies operating in the city in 1929. (boweryboyshistory.com)

The New Yorker took issue with Whalen’s attempt to enforce Prohibition at the end of a billy club (ironically, Whalen was appointed to the post by Mayor Jimmy Walker, who openly flaunted Prohibition). The magazine also attacked the New York Telegram for conspiring with Whalen to spread rumors among the public about poison alcohol being served in the city’s speakeasies. Research chemist Beverly L. Clarke took the Telegram to task in the New Yorker’s “A Reporter at Large” column:

IN YOUR CASE, I’LL MAKE AN EXCEPTION…New York **Mayor Jimmy Walker** swears in Grover Whalen as New York Police Commissioner in the fall of 1928. Whalen, a product of Tammany Hall, no doubt looked the other way when the mayor, another Tammany alum, openly violated Prohibition laws. (Getty)

There is also the oft-told account of the U.S. government adding poison to alcohol to discourage illegal consumption, but in truth the government never set out to poison anyone. Rather, it was continuing a practice used long before Prohibition to “denature” alcohol, usually by adding methyl alcohol (commonly referred to as “wood alcohol”) to grain alcohol to make it unfit for human consumption. According to Snopes, adding poison to alcohol was a way to exempt producers of alcohol used in paints and solvents from having to pay the taxes levied on potable spirits. Other denaturing agents were added to grain alcohol by mid-1927, including these listed in Clarke’s article:

ACETONE, WITH A MERCURY TWIST…An assortment of confiscated, adulterated spirits from the Prohibition era. (prohibition.themobmuseum.org)

Clarke not only accused the Telegram of spreading misinformation, but also of encouraging Whalen’s ruthless enforcement of Prohibition. Whalen was famously quoted as saying, “There is plenty of law at the end of a nightstick.” Clarke continued:

Clarke concluded that it was “patently unfair to discriminate” against the city’s speakeasies on the basis of “pseudo-scientific” evidence:

Illustration by **Constantin Alajalov** that accompanied Clarke’s article.

* * *

He Was No Coward

The Jan. 19 issue also featured a lengthy profile of Noël Coward, written by his longtime friend Alexander Woollcott, a critic and commentator for the New Yorker and a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table.

American illustrator and portrait painter **Neysa McMein** with friends Noël Coward (center) and Alexander Woollcott (right). (spartacus-educational.com)

Woollcott wrote of his friend’s work ethic while taking a wry shot at the New Yorker magazine’s early days:

Abe Birnbaum provided this sketch of Coward for the profile:

By 1929 Coward was one of the world’s highest-paid writers, but he did have his setbacks, as Woollcott noted:

Woollcott was referring to Coward’s 1927 play Sirocco, which depicted free love among the posh set and was greeted with loud disapproval in London. According to Dick Richards in his 1970 book, The Wit of Noël Coward, Coward later remarked that his “first instinct was to leave England immediately, but this seemed too craven a move, and also too gratifying to my enemies, whose numbers had by then swollen in our minds to practically the entire population of the British Isles.”

* * *

Par Avion

The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent, Janet Flanner, noted that 1929 would usher in a new era in French passenger air service:

Advances in aviation in 1929 were remarkable considering the Wright Brothers first flight occurred just a little more than 25 years earlier (for those of us in 2018 who can recall 1993, that isn’t a lot of time).

And although only the wealthy could afford to fly back then, it was definitely not for the faint of heart. According to an article by Georgia Diebelius for the Daily Mail, the engine noise could be deafening in the thinly-walled cabins (sometimes little more than painted canvas). The engines of a Ford Tri-Motor, for example, reached 120 decibels on take-off, just 40 decibels below the level that would result in permanent hearing loss. Diebelius writes that because of the noise level, flight attendants had to speak to their passengers through megaphones. As for the flight itself, planes would suddenly drop hundreds of feet at a time, causing passengers to make good use of air sickness bowls placed beneath their seats. Nevertheless, passenger travel increased from just 6,000 annually in 1930 to 1.2 million by 1938.

AND WE THINK WE HAVE IT ROUGH…London chorus girls help bring a French Air Union and Golden Ray (Rayon d’Or) passenger plane onto the tarmac at Croydon, England, in 1932, inaugurating the new summer service from London to Le Touquet. (Getty)

ODD DUCK…This strange-looking Dyle et Bacalan DB 70 was also designed for French passenger service in 1929, but only one was built. The design was later adapted in the 1930s as a bomber. (Collection Hugues de Suremain)

* * *

Skin As Soft As An Armadillo’s

Sampling the advertisements from Jan. 19 we have this message from Amor Skin announcing a youth treatment utilizing something called dasypodine hormones. The term “dasypodine” refers to critters related to the armadillo, so one wonders what they putting on their faces. The armadillo is known carrier of leprosy, so I don’t think I’d be using this stuff, thank you very much…

…and I include this ad for Murad cigarettes because it features artwork by A. H. Fish, renowned for depictions of members of high society. She illustrated dozens of magazine covers for The Tatler and Vanity Fair as well as hundreds of inside and spot illustrations for Condé Nast…

…another cigarette brand, Lucky Strike, convinced American silent movie star Constance Talmadge to endorse their “toasted” smoke…

…and our final advertisement, from Pan American Airliners. Could you imagine an ad for an airline today depicting a man firing a rifle at one of their airplanes?

I include this comic by Alice Harvey for its reference to the song, “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby,” made popular by Broadway’s hit musical revue Blackbirds of 1928. The song continues to be recorded to this day, and was even included on a 2014 collaborative album, Cheek to Cheek, by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga.

And finally, a different perspective on Manhattan’s changing skyline, courtesy of Reginald Marsh:

Next Time: Life Among the Snowbirds…

The Tastemakers

Modernism in interior design gained a wider audience in the 1920s thanks in part to a series of major exhibitions sponsored by some of New York City’s leading department stores.

Although the New Yorker continued to feature advertisements for traditional styles of furniture, such as this one from the Sept. 22, 1928 issue…

…it was clear that the appetites of the city’s younger “smart set” were being whetted by retailers such as Macy’s, who in May 1927 hosted an “Exposition of Art in Trade” that included 100 exhibitors of modern European and American silver, pottery, books, textiles and furniture. The following spring Macy’s hosted the “International Exposition of Art in Industry,” where more than 250,000 visitors saw the work of more than 300 exhibitors from six countries. (This blog’s opening photo features a 1928 sideboard by Kem Weber, one of the exhibitors at Macy’s 1928 show. Photo courtesy Cooper Hewitt Collection).

TRENDSETTERS…R. H. Macy & Co. hosted the International Exposition of Art in Industry in the spring of 1928. At right, an interior scene at the exposition, with a chair designed by **Walter Von Nessen.** (socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/wright20.com)

Macy’s inspired other exhibitions by such retailers as Wanamaker’s, Abraham & Straus, Frederick Loeser, Lord & Taylor, and B. Altman & Co., which advertised its “20th Century Taste in the New Expression of the Arts in Home Furnishings” in the Sept. 29, 1928 issue of the New Yorker:

Writer Bertram Bloch reviewed the exhibit in the Oct. 6 issue. Although he suggested that he had some “hard, cruel things” to say about the show, overall he believed it something not to be missed. Excerpts:

THE SMART LOOK…B. Altman & Company showcased designs including, clockwise, from upper left, a dining room by **Charles B. Falls**; a conversation room by Steele Savage; a bedroom by **Charles B. Falls**; and a salon section by **Dominique**. (Art Institute of Chicago)

FADED GLORY…Clockwise, from upper left, The B. Altman flagship store at 34th Street and 5th Avenue and a closer view of the front entrance in 1915; closed in 1989, the flagship store is now used by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, among other tenants. The mahogany-paneled Fifth Avenue foyer survives intact, however the exterior looks a bit hosed-down, with the Ionic capitals removed from the columns as well as the lintels that banded the windows and the cornice on top. (Museum of the City of New York/daytoninmanhattan)

While on the topic of modern furniture, Ilonka Karasz, who painted a total of 186 New Yorker covers from 1924 to 1973, showcased her own furniture designs (along with other artists from the American Designers’ Gallery), at an exhibition the following month.

NEW YORKER COVER ARTIST **Ilonka Karasz** designed this dining room for the American Designers Gallery Exhibition in October 1928. (Art Institute of Chicago)

* * *

The Singing Fool

The New Yorker generally detested the introduction of sound in motion pictures, but for some reason didn’t mind it so much when Al Jolson opened his mouth. This time he followed up his blackface performance in The Jazz Singer with another blackface routine in The Singing Fool. E.B. White wrote about the film’s big opening in “The Talk of the Town”…

…and in the magazine’s film review section, yet more praise for Jolson, whose singing apparently compensated for the mediocre dialogue:

SERVED WITH A SIDE OF HAM…One of a series of promo slides for *The Singing Fool,* featuring **Al Jolson,** child actor **Davey Lee,** and the saccharine lyrics for *Sonny Boy*, said to be the first pop record to sell more than million copies. (nitrateville.com)

THAT WAS ENTERTAINMENT…Theatre lobby card for 1928’s *The Singing Fool.* (IMDB)

The Sept. 29 issue illustrates the dichotomy in how the New Yorker depicted African Americans in the 1920s. Blacks in the magazine’s cartoons and illustrations were often portrayed as minstrel characters, picaninnies or mammies. However, a serious artist like Paul Robeson received a much different treatment. Indeed, the magazine shamed the racism of a fictional character in Dorothy Parker’s short story “Arrangement in Black and White” (Oct. 8, 1927), in which a wealthy, white woman condescends to a black singer who might well have been modeled after Robeson. The journalist and author Mildred Gilman profiled Robeson in the very same issue that praised Jolson’s tired blackface routine. An excerpt, accompanied by a Hugo Gellert illustration:

* * *

Next Time Wear a Disguise

The newlywed Gene Tunney (also newly retired from boxing) was spending some time in Europe, probably hoping to get a break from the adoring crowds back in the States. Upon entering a French café with his friend, the author Thornton Wilder, he soon discovered that adoring crowds awaited him on the other side of the pond, as related by the New Yorker’s Paris correspondent Janet “Genêt” Flanner:

ENJOYING SOME DOWN TIME…The boxer Gene Tunney, left, and the writer George Bernard Shaw on a 1929 vacation to Brioni. (Associated Press)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Although by 1928 Americans (and particularly New Yorkers) were flouting Prohibition laws, alcoholic beverages still could not be legally produced or marketed (except for “religious” or “medicinal” purposes). Advertisers, however, found clever ways to market non-alcoholic beverages like ginger ale with the allure of liquor or fine wine. But then again, few were actually drinking straight ginger ale…

And if you formerly grew grapes for winemaking, what’s preventing you from selling unpasteurized grape juice that remains free from fermentation “as long as the factory seal remains unbroken”…? Also, note the not-so-subtle cocktail shaker at the top left of the photo:

And for our cartoons, Barbara Shermund explored the modern ways of love…

…while Peter Arno continued probing the comic imbalance of rich old men and their young mistresses…

Next Time: A Bird’s Eye View…