Above: Illustration of the Dorchester Hotel’s ballroom in the 1930s. (dorchestercollection.com)
Lois Long took her nightlife column, “Tables for Two,” to London and its famed nightclub scene, where everyone from British royalty to gangsters reveled in a boozy, bohemian scene.
July 7, 1934 cover by Ilonka Karasz.
Prince Edward, a well-known party animal (who would serve as king for less than a year and abdicate in 1936) was known to get up on the stage of the Embassy Club and perform drum solos, while at the Savoy his fellow toffs would sip Champagne and glide in elegant dress across the dance floor. London nightlife included a lively jazz scene in edgy Soho basement clubs, featuring such greats as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie.
Long hoped that the visit to London, her first in eight years, would give her some much-needed rest and a change of scene. What she found instead was a red-hot, all-night party, where the smart set took dinner near midnight and danced until dawn.
SAVVY SAVOY….Clockwise from top left, the famed Savoy bartender Harry Craddock, credited with inventing the White Lady and the Corpse Reviver, at the Savoy’s American Bar in the 1930s; a Savoy elevator operator in 1926; diners at the Savoy circa 1930s; Savoy entrance. (madamgenevaandgent.co.uk/The Savoy/YouTube)LONDON SWINGS…More Lois Long haunts in London included, clockwise from top left, the Dorchester Hotel; the crowded dance floor at the Monseigneur with Roy Fox and his Orchestra (photo from 1932); patrons kicking up their heels at the Embassy Club on Old Bond Street; the Café de Paris, where American actress Louise Brooks demonstrated a new dance craze, The Charleston, in 1924. (dorchestercollection.com/albowlly.club/lucyjanesantos.com/Wikipedia)
* * *
Misery Loves Company
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White observed that almost everyone was “made miserable” by the Depression, but if one looked around there were signs that things weren’t so bad after all.
REASON FOR CHEER…For those still feeling blue about the Depression, E.B. White suggested watching kids cool off at a pier, such as these lads seen diving into the East River on the Lower East Side on July 3, 1935. (Jack Gordon/New York Daily News)
* * *
He Came Up a Bit Short
Howard Brubaker, in his column “Of All Things,” made this observation about Adolf Hitler’s prediction that Nazism would endure a thousand years.
And now a retreat into the cool darkness of the cinema, where John Mosher singled out Bette Davis’s performance in Of Human Bondage…Mosher’s instincts were correct—the film proved to be Davis’s breakout role on her road to major stardom.
ROAD TO RUIN…Bette Davis wowed the critics with her portrayal of a tearoom waitress who seduces a young medical student (Leslie Howard) and leads him down a path of self-destruction. The film was based on the 1915 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. (IMDB)
Mosher also took in the “bright” performances of William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man, a pre-Code comedy-mystery based on the Dashiell Hammett novel by the same name. Powell and Loy portrayed Nick and Nora Charles, who added spice to their leisurely lives through numerous cocktails, flirtatious banter, and crime-solving. Critics loved the film, as did audiences, spawning five sequels from 1936 to 1947.
CHEERS…Top photo: Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) enjoy a drink with their client’s fiancee (Henry Wadsworth) in The Thin Man (1934); Bottom photo: Charles takes aim at a Christmas ornament (with a BB gun) while Nora enjoys the comforts of her new fur coat in a scene from The Thin Man. (Daily Beast/Austin Chronicle)
Another star of the show was Asta, the Charles’s wire fox terrier. Asta was portrayed by Skippy, a dog actor who not only appeared in The Thin Man films but also acted alongside Cary Grant in 1937’s The Awful Truth and in 1938’s Bringing Up Baby. Skippy appeared in three Thin Man movies and in more than twenty films altogether between 1932 and 1941. Being an actor in the film must have been good for one’s health: Powell lived 91 years, Loy 88 years, and Skippy, 20 years—a good long life for any pooch.
ROUGH NIGHT…Nick (William Powell) and Asta (Skippy) tend to Nora (Myrna Loy), who nurses a hangover in The Thin Man. (Wikipedia)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
While Chrysler’s styling of their streamlined Airflow proved to be too far advanced for the buying public (the Depression didn’t help), Studebaker’s own foray into the streamlined future caused a sensation…
…thanks to Studebaker’s brief merger with Pierce-Arrow (1928–33), Studebaker’s designers took cues from Pierce’s streamlined 1933 Silver Arrow and created more than 800 cars with “Year-Ahead” design features—the positive reception convinced the company to continue the style in 1935…here is a top-of-the-line 1934 President Land Cruiser…
1934 Studebaker President Land Cruiser with “Year-Ahead” design features, yet not as radical as Chrysler’s Airflow. (hemmings.com)
…we continue with those round rubber things that held the cars up…a lot of tire ads in the 1930s emphasized safety—blowouts were common back then…funny how it took nearly four decades to add seat belts to cars…those tires wouldn’t help much in a head-on collision, especially with your kid standing on the from seat…
…now let’s cool off with crisp Canadian Ale, thanks to Carling’s entry into the American market…
…Carling’s Black Label beer was popular in the states…my parents had a set of these coasters with the Black Label tagline…
…Budweiser continued its artful series of ads featuring the well-heeled enjoying its product…here it appears old dad (wearing some kind of medal) is getting to know his daughter-in-law over some cold chicken…”hey boy, she’s one of us!”…
…and we move on to three very different approaches to selling cigarettes, beginning with Spud, continuing its message that menthol cigarettes are as refreshing as a shower on a July afternoon…
…a close up of the message…
…Camel, on the other hand, continued its campaign against irritability…it apparently did wonders for this woman, who seems to be on something more than nicotine…
…and from the people who brought us the tagline “blow some my way” in 1928 (as a way to encourage women to take up the habit), by 1934 she is owning that cigarette, and apparently setting some ground rules with the gentleman…
…contrast with the more submissive pose in the Chesterfield ad from the late 1920s…
…on to our cartoons, we begin with spot art by Alan Dunn, which appears to have originated as a captioned cartoon…
…William Steig offered up this bit of art for a profile of an “insurance man” by St. Clair McKelway…
…Helen Hokinson drew up a full page of cartoons along the theme of outdoor dining…
…we continue Rea Irvin’s series on native birds…
…George Price found a way to save on the cost of light bulbs…
…and we close with James Thurber, and a welcome to the family…
Above: For this Hollywood-heavy post we feature stars of the 1930s—the two Joans, Joan Blondell (left) and Joan Crawford, marking the Fourth of July holiday.
The New Yorker marked the Fourth of July with this William Steig cover featuring a patriotic “strap” along the binding and one of his precocious “Small Fry”…
June 30, 1934 cover by William Steig.
We’ve been looking at ways New Yorkers kept their cool in the hot summer of 1934, and one way to beat the heat was to escape into the air-conditioned darkness of a movie theater. It was not uncommon for folks to remain seated after the credits rolled and watch the feature all over again, just enjoy some cold comfort.
Film critic John Mosher no doubt enjoyed this particular perk, and perhaps this made him a bit more agreeable to whatever was playing on the big screen, including three rather dull pictures featuring actresses Marion Davies, Kay Francis and Elissa Landi.
Marion Davies (1897–1961) was the veteran of the group, beginning her film career in 1917 and appearing in thirty silent films before breaking into sound movies. Sadly, her talents as an actress and comedian were overshadowed by her reputation as William Randolph Hearst’s mistress. Known for her aristocratic bearing, Austrian-American actress Elissa Landi (1904–1948) appeared in several British silents and on Broadway before signing with Fox Films in 1931. Kay Francis (1905–1968) began her film career with the advent of sound movies in 1929. A major box-office draw for Warner Brothers, by 1935 Francis was one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors (she was also a former roommate and longtime friend of The New Yorker’s Lois Long).
BEFORE SCARLETT AND RHETT…Gary Cooper and Marion Davies as star-crossed lovers in the 1934 Civil War drama Operator 13. Davies portrayed actress Gail Loveless, recruited by the Union to infiltrate a Confederate camp, where she falls for Capt. Jack Gailliard, a Confederate officer played by Cooper. (IMDB)
Perhaps one of the more notorious examples of a white actor in blackface, Operator 13 featured Davies as a Union spy who poses as a Black maid to infiltrate a Confederate camp…
FOOLING NO ONE…Marion Davies, in blackface, with Sam McDaniel in Operator 13. (IMDB)PLAYING DOCTOR…Kay Francis and Warren William in the 1934 Pre-Code drama Dr. Monica. (IMDB)JUST KEEP PRETENDING UNTIL THE CREDITS…From left, Adolphe Menjou, Elissa Landi, and David Manners in the 1934 romantic comedy The Great Flirtation. (IMDB)
* * *
Sentimental Journey
Another critic enjoying the cool of the theater was Robert Benchley, who used this break in the Broadway season to reveal his passions regarding a number of stage actresses. An excerpt:
BENCHLEY’S BROADWAY…Robert Benchley’s all-time favorite Broadway actresses included, from top row, left to right, Maud Adams, Florence Reed, Gladys Hanson, and Charlotte Walker; second row, from left, Laura Hope Crews, Julia Marlowe, Maxine Elliott, and Ethel Barrymore; third row, Janet Beecher, Ina Claire, Marguerite Clark, and Jane Cowl; fourth row, Elsie Ferguson, Martha Hedman, Marjorie Rambeau, and Pauline Frederick. (NYPL/Wikipedia/IMDB)
* * *
A Poke at Palooka
In his column “Of All Things,” Howard Brubaker took a shot below the belt at the new heavyweight boxing champ, Max Baer.
WHO SEZ I CAN’T READ?…Max Baer in the 1930s. (boxing.fandom.com/wiki)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
It was hot outside, folks were cooling off with their favorite beverages, and advertisers responded in kind…we begin with a familiar green bottle, and with apologies to Max Baer, you didn’t need to know how to read to know this was a bottle of Perrier…
…if your taste was more on the domestic side, there was White Rock…
…a series of Hoffman Club Soda ads sought to convince consumers about their superior carbonation…
…or how about a brandy, perhaps lightly chilled, especially if it’s late in the evening, and you happen to be sitting on a breezy hotel rooftop…
…or you could cool down with a Lion beer…considered a heritage brewery, Lion Brewery is one of only ten pre-Prohibition breweries that has independently and continuously operated since the repeal of Prohibition…
…a fairly new brand of cigarettes, Marlboro, was still taking out these bargain-sized ads to build brand recognition…Flit insecticide, on the other hand, was well-known thanks to these ubiquitous Dr. Seuss ads…
…the folks at General Tire & Rubber were the latest advertiser to tie their product to the glamour of aviation…
…and on to our cartoons, we begin with another installment of native birds via Rea Irvin…
…Al Frueh chimed in with this three-panel encounter at a nudist colony…
…Robert Day presented a case of indigestion…
…Garrett Price welcomed us aboard a dream cruise…
…George Price gave us this gem in the “Goings On About Town” section,,,
…Gardner Rea gave us his spare line to illustrate an enormous space…one of his specialties…
…Gilbert Bundy marked the Fourth with an entitled jaywalker…
…and we close with Mary Petty, and a banker’s contentment…
Above, Stewart's Cafeteria in Greenwich Village, May 1933. (New York Public Library)
Although Sherwood Anderson is mostly known for his short story collections and novels, in the 1930s he also worked as a journalist, and for the June 9, 1934 issue of the New Yorker he explored the “centre of proletarian high life,” Stewart’s Cafeteria in Greenwich Village.
June 9, 1934 cover by Helen Hokinson.
What is particularly interesting about Anderson’s page 77 article for the “A Reporter at Large” column is what it doesn’t report, namely, that Stewart’s Cafeteria (later the Life Cafeteria) was known as a popular gay and lesbian hangout in addition to being a place for gawkers, assorted bohemians, and bohemian wannabes.
Anderson was a man of the world, so he knew exactly what Stewart’s was all about. But even the New Yorker wasn’t in the business of outing anyone, and editor Harold Ross, whose eccentricities included a puritanical strain, would not have allowed anything associated with “sexual deviance” to be printed in his magazine. Here is an excerpt from Anderson’s article, “Stewart’s, On the Square,” in which he subtly hints at the cafeteria’s “third life.”
NIGHT LIFE…Paul Cadmus depicted Stewart’s in this sexually charged painting, Greenwich Village Cafeteria, 1934, oil on canvas,Museum of Modern Art. (All archival images for this entry were obtained via nyclgbtsites.org/site/stewarts-cafeteria)
While Anderson tiptoed around the topic of homosexuality, gossip rags such as Stephen Clow’sBroadway Brevities put it front and center. Described as one of the most vicious show business gossip magazines ever published, Brevities also provided Clow with some side income: Clow and his collaborators often threatened to blackmail wealthy businesspeople and show business figures who frequented places like Stewart’s—outing them in his tabloid unless payment was made.
(McGill Institute via HuffPost.com)
Naturally such reporting helped attract gawkers to Stewart’s and its successor, Life Cafeteria. According to the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, “Stewart’s closed in the mid-1930s and was subsequently reopened as the equally popular Life Cafeteria. Regulars included a young Tennessee Williams and Marlon Brando (though they didn’t meet each other until years later on a beach in Provincetown). Of the space, Brando later recalled, ‘The rednecks [on the street] were pointing at the diners like animals in a zoo. I was immediately intrigued and ventured in. Before I left that afternoon, I discovered that many of the homosexual men were actually putting on a show for the jam .'”
ON DISPLAY...According to the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, the large plate glass windows at Stewart's (later renamed Life Cafeteria) put gay life on full display to the late-night crowds who frequented the busy intersection. Artist Vincent La Gambina depicted one scene that gawkers might have taken in: Life Cafeteria, Greenwich Village, 1936. (Museum of the City of New York)TODAY, the building still stands, although it is a bit less lively as a home for a CVS store and a Bank of America branch. Just around the corner is the famed Stonewall Inn. (Google Maps Image)
According to the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project:
...in 1935 the manager of Stewart’s was convicted of operating a “public nuisance” and “disorderly house” and “openly outraging public decency” by allowing objectionable behavior in the interior and large crowds to gather outside. Specifically, the district attorney’s complaint cited “certain persons of the homosexual type and certain persons of the Lesbian type, to remain therein and engage in acts of sapphism and divers [sic] other lewd, obscene, indecent and disgusting acts” and that the cafeteria was “used as a rendezvous for perverts, degenerates, homosexuals and other evil-disposed persons.” Much of the testimony centered on the gender non-conforming dress and behavior of the patrons.
Here is another excerpt from Anderson's article, where he delves into the nighttime scene at Stewart's:
* * *
Nightlife, Part II
In my previous post E.B. White pondered the fate of the Central Park Casino, a favorite haunt of deposed Mayor Jimmy Walker and other members of the smart set who openly flouted Prohibition laws. In "Tables for Two," Lois Long made this observation (below) at the conclusion of her nightlife column, believing that Parks Commissioner Robert Moses would give the management a chance to lower food prices and allow common folks to enjoy its sumptuous atmosphere. Little did she know that Moses was feasting on a diet of revenge rather than food, and had plans to tear the place down, regardless of its lower prices.
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We kick off the ads with another Ponds celebrity endorsement from dancer and actress Francesca Braggiotti (1902-1998), who was married to actor, politician, and diplomat John Davis Lodge...
POWER COUPLE...John Davis Lodge and Francesca Braggiotti in 1932. They were married for 56 years. (Pinterest)
...Dr. Seuss was back with more ads for Flit insecticide...he was still two years away from his first children's book: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street...
...and with a splash of color, Bermuda beckoned New Yorkers to a "Real Vacation"...
...however, before you headed to Bermuda, you'd needed to do something with the kids...
...on to our cartoonists, we start with spot art from Abe Birnbaum...
...Birnbaum again with an illustration of boxer Max Baer for the profile section...
...more spot art from James Thurber in the "Goings On About Town" section...
...and Thurber again with some alarming news for a potential suitor...
...Rea Irvin kicked off his series, "Our Native Birds"...
...a famed advertising agency launched a new door-to-door survey, per Perry Barlow...
...Helen Hokinson gave us a hopeful gardener...
...Barbara Shermund looked in on the "modern girl" scene...
...and Peter Arno examined a sad medical case...
...and we close the June 9 issue with this item from E.B. White, who commented on a recent rally of American Nazis and some fighting Irish...
...the Nazi rally was also alluded to in the June 2 issue (I have the issues reversed this time to support the narrative)...
June 2, 1934 cover by Harry Brown.
...where Howard Brubaker was keeping things light in his column "Of All Things." I was surprised how little was mentioned in either issue about the meeting of 20,000 Nazi sympathizers on May 17, 1934, at Madison Square Garden.
Let's explore further: According to the Jewish Virtual Library, America's first established anti-Nazi boycott group was the Jewish War Veterans (March 19, 1933), followed by the American League for the Defense of Jewish Rights (ALDJR), which was founded by the Yiddish journalist Abraham Coralnik in May 1933. By 1934 the ALDJR was led by Samuel Untermyer, who changed the organization's name to the "Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights." Nazi sympathizers targeted Untermyer as the face of boycott efforts, and at the May 17 rally the mere mention of his name prompted shouts of "Hang him!"
AMERIKA...The site for hockey games and dog shows became a site for ugliness on May 17, 1934, when 20,000 Nazi sympathizers gathered in Madison Square Garden to denounce boycotts against Adolf Hitler's regime. (The Archive Project)
This excerpt from the May 18, 1934 edition of The New York Times gives some idea of what transpired at the rally:
REALLY? Americans gathered at Madison Square Garden on May 17, 1934 to show their support for Nazi Germany and denounce American boycotts. (The Archive Project)
* * *
Dueling Muses
Film critic John Mosher always seemed upbeat about anything involving Disney, but given that animation was still in its infancy (its plastic trickery still rather novel), it didn't take much to outshine the otherwise drab fare (the "Grim") being coughed up by Tinseltown.
MAN OR MOUSE? The star-studded cast of Hollywood Party included Jimmy Durante, seen here duking it out with Mickey Mouse. (IMDB)
The grim included the Pre-Code drama, Upper World, about a rich, married man who falls to his ruin via a romance with a stripper (don't they always?), and Now I'll Tell, another Pre-Code drama, this one loosely based on the doings of racketeer and crime boss Arnold Rothstein.
SHAKE IT WHILE YOU CAN...Ginger Rogers performs “Shake Your Powder Puff” in a burlesque show in the film Upper World, one of the last of the Pre-Code dramas. It featured Warren William as a wealthy married railroad tycoon whose friendship with a showgirl (Rogers) leads to blackmail and murder; at right, five-year-old future child star Shirley Temple with Spencer Tracy in Now I'll Tell, which was loosely based on the autobiography of Carolyn Green Rothstein, wife of New York gambler Arnold Rothstein. Temple's role was a minor one, however her appearance in the musical Stand Up and Cheer!, which was released a month earlier, would make her a star. (IMDB)
* * *
More From Our Advertisers
We cool off by a taking a dip in the pool...er, rather by enjoying the "No Draft Ventilation" of a car body by Fisher...the model might want to stay in the pool, since air-conditioning in cars was still a good twenty years away...
...and yes, this is also a car-related ad, if you can believe it, the bride looking forward not to years of wedded bliss but rather her new La Salle (a Cadillac product)...
...another bride, and a car...is that a car body by Fisher? Who cares, the wedding is over and its time to fire one up...
...this woman seems to have it all thanks to Daggett & Ramsdell of Park Avenue, who are prepared to coat her in a "complete range of all the essential creams, lotions, face powder...cold cream soap, dusting powder" etc. etc....
...Dr. Seuss again for Flit, with baby in tow...
...on to our cartoons, we have Robert Day checking on the progress at Mt. Rushmore...
...Alan Dunn reveals pandemic worries of a different nature...
...and we close with Helen Hokinson, and a sudden change of mood...
The penitentiary on Blackwell's Island, later named Welfare Island, in the 1910s. Today it is known as Roosevelt Island. (NYC Municipal Archives)
Until the reform Mayor Fiorello La Guardia took up the reigns at City Hall in 1934, weak or non-existent leadership in city government, coupled with Tammany graft and corruption, had allowed all sorts of institutions to go off the rails.
May 26, 1934 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
The New York City Department of Corrections was a prime example, so La Guardia tapped the no-nonsense assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Austin H. MacCormick (1893–1979) to clean up Corrections, and MacCormick didn’t waste any time going after the No. 1 target: Welfare Island. Previously known as the notorious Blackwell’s Island, MacCormick described its cellblocks as a “vicious circle of depravity” unfit for humans, a place where some inmates lacked basic food and shelter while others, including a pack of gangsters and thugs who essentially ran the place, lived in grand style.
In late January, 1934, MacCormick led a well-organized raid on Welfare Island, finding littered cells full of drug addicts and large caches of weapons. According to an account in Time (Feb. 5, 1934), sixty-eight prisoners virtually ran the place. “They cowed their guards through outside political influence. They sold to some 500 inmates the best of vegetables and meats. Star boarders prepared this food in their own cells, and the prison library of more than 1,000 volumes had entirely vanished as cooking fuel. Since the food was looted from the prison commissary, the other 1,200 prisoners virtually starved on greasy cold stews.”
In his profile of the “The Four-Eyed Kid,” Arthur C. Bartlett attempted to shed some light on what made this stubborn Scotsman tick. Excerpts:
KIBOSH…After taking office in January 1934, New York’s Commissioner of Corrections Austin H. MacCormick wasted no time in cracking down on the vice and corruption that was rampant on Welfare Island (pictured at right in 1934). (ceanational.org/NYPL)INSIDE JOB…Mobster Joie Rao lived a lavish lifestyle while incarcerated at Welfare Island. Wielding more power and authority than the warden himself, Raio fed steak to his pet dog and maintained a staff of servants to cater to his every whim. Not that the warden had it all that rough; his home (at right) featured an in-ground pool. (Pinterest/rihs.us)READ ALL ABOUT IT…The New York Daily News (left) and the New York Times offered extensive coverage of the raid in their Jan 25, 1934 editions. (Pinterest/NY Daily News/NYT)
MacCormick literally wrote the book on prison reform. His The Education of Adult Prisoners (1931) called for the introduction of fundamental academic education in prison systems that would provide inmates with the intellectual tools needed for everyday life. His “four goals” included vocational, health, cultural and social education.
MacCormick broke up the gangster ring at Welfare Island and eventually transported its remaining inmates to the newly built prison at Rikers Island. The Welfare Island prison was torn down and replaced by Goldwater Hospital, today the Coler Specialty Hospital on Roosevelt Island. For a little more insight into MacCormick’s tactics, here is the conclusion to Bartlett’s profile:
ALL ABOARD…Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island) was once accessible by taking a trolley halfway across the Queensboro bridge, where passengers would take an elevator (contained in the structure in the top image) down to the island. (Greater Astoria Historical Society/rooseveltislander.blogspot.com)
* * *
You’re Next
Last week we looked at Robert Moses’s plans for Riverview Park, which would quickly sweep away the yacht clubs on the Hudson. Another playground for the rich, the Central Park Casino, would soon be next, as E.B. White correctly surmised.
STICKER SHOCK…It has been suggested that Robert Moses determined to tear down the Central Park Casino after being presented a $27 dinner bill for four persons (roughly $500 today), but in reality Moses hated the Casino’s most famous denizen, the deposed Mayor Jimmy Walker. It’s too bad Moses didn’t appreciate the Joseph Urban’s stunning interiors (the ballroom, right), that crumbled with the building when it was razed in 1936. (NYC Department of Parks & Recreation)
* * *
Schenck’s Schlock
In the 1920s and 30s documentary and docudrama filmmaking was still in its infancy, and for every Nanook of the North (1922)—still considered one of the best documentary films of all time—there were dozens of schlocky films like Harry Schenck’sBeyond Bengal, reviewed here by John Mosher for the New Yorker.
The film must have made quite an impression around the New Yorker’s offices, or at least one particular scene that depicted a British scientist, a “Miss Joan Baldwin,” coming down with a fever, rather unconvincingly. Both Mosher and E.B. White (below) found her performance intriguing:
WHAT A CROC…Clockwise, from top left, movie poster for Beyond Bengal; early in the film a scientist, “Miss Joan Baldwin,” is suddenly (and unconvincingly) seized by tropical fever—the remainder of the film entails Harry Schenck’s attempt to return Baldwin to civilization; Schenck accompanies Baldwin across a crocodile-infested river, shooting at anything that moves while the “natives” swim ahead, perilously clearing a path through the sea of crocs; back in civilization, Schenck and Baldwin prepare to head home. The whole film is available on YouTube, if you’re up for that sort of thing. (IMDB/YouTube)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We kick off with the latest installment from Lucky Strike, and another smartly dressed customer…
…the silk merchants struck back against the synthetics with this splash of color…
…the makers of Kingsbury Pale offered up some color of their own, although the illustration itself is a bit strange, what with the molten bubbles in the beer bottles, the bejeweled, disembodied arm that somehow supports them, and the woman who isn’t even looking at the beer…perhaps she was hoping for a cocktail or Champagne…
…there’s no doubting this fellow’s enthusiasm for a glass of Rheingold…
…Wamsutta Mills enlisted the aid of a “fat man” to prove the durability of their sheets…
…and what drives a man to commit murder? In this case, neglecting to pay the extra two cents for leaded gasoline…
…I wonder if the Hays Code extended to advertising…looks like the new “Neo-Angle Bath” caused the folks at Standard Sanitary Manufacturing to lose their inhibitions…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with some spot art by Doris Spiegel (1901-1996), who was especially known for her depictions of street life…
…George Price supplied this bit of merriment for the event listings…
as did James Thurber…
…Thurber again, this time baring it all…
…it appears that same day delivery, for even a mere trifle, is nothing new…per Gardner Rea…
…Alain (Daniel Brustlein) gave us a film editor with the sad task of censoring Joan Blondell…
…tame by today’s standards, this 1932 promotional photo of Blondell for the film Three on a Match was later banned by the Motion Picture Production Code…
…and we close with Perry Barlow, and more wisdom from the mouth of babes…
Power broker Robert Moses always made sure he was few steps ahead of any possible opposition to his grand development plans in and around New York City. That included the yacht clubbers along the Hudson River, who were more or less erased from the scene by Moses in one fell swoop.
May 19, 1934 cover by Ilonka Karasz.
The Upper West Side’s Columbia Yacht Club probably thought it was just swell that the city was dumping waste and rock along the shores of the Hudson River, since it eventually created driveway access for members who previously had to access the club via a footbridge over the New York Central’s tracks. What hadn’t occurred to them was that nearly 25 years-worth of infill had also created a new strip of land that extended from 79th to 96th street, land that Moses envisioned as an expansion of Riverside Park (and the abrupt end of the West Side yacht club scene). “The Talk of the Town” explained:
LOCATION, LOCATION…Two views of the Columbia Yacht Club at West 86th Street, circa 1930. The club was razed to make room for Robert Moses’s expansion of Riverside Park. Moses’s ambitious project, which cost twice as much as Hoover Dam, put the train tracks underground and topped the park with the Henry Hudson Parkway. (newyorktoursbygary.blogspot.com/NYPL Digital Collections)HEADS UP…Elsie Henneman dives into the water near the Hudson River Yacht Club, circa 1930. Located at the foot of West 74th Street, the club moved onto a barge at 145th Street to escape Moses’s park expansion plans, but it was eventually banished from the West Side. (Reddit)
* * *
Ode to the Road
We now shift gears to E.B. White, who was poetically inspired by an advertisement in the Herald Tribune that featured Prince Alexis A. Droutzkoy (a member of the exiled White Russian colony in New York) praising the “magic silence” of the new “Dodge Six” automobile:
SILENCE OF THE CAMS…The 1934 Dodge Six. (detail from a vintage ad)
* * *
Führer’s Filmmaker
The ability (or inability) to separate art from an artist’s personal conduct or beliefs has been a particular topic of the last two decades, given the litany of stars who have been “cancelled” despite the quality or importance of their work. The work of German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003), still debated nearly ninety years after her collaboration with Nazi leaders, demonstrates the fine line many a film historian or critic must walk when assessing the career of an innovative artist (for an American example, see filmmaker D. W. Griffith). Riefenstahl’s 1932 film, The Blue Light (Das blaue Licht), made prior to her Nazi collaborations, was praised for its beauty by American critics, including the New Yorker’sJohn Mosher, when it was released in the U.S. in 1934.
The Blue Light also captivated Adolf Hitler, who saw the attractive and athletic Riefenstahl as an ideal of Aryan womanhood. A subsequent meeting with Hitler would result in Riefenstahl’s controversial 1935 Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens). We will explore that film, and Riefenstahl’s role, in a later post.
CAREER MOVE…Clockwise, from top left, Leni Riefenstahl demonstrated her acting ability, athleticism and filmmaking talents in 1932’s The Blue Light (Das blaue Licht); Riefenstahl filming in Nuremberg during the 1934 Nazi Party congress—the footage was used in 1935 Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will; working at a film cutting table, 1935; with Adolf Hitler at Nuremberg, 1934. (IMDB/Library of Congress/UTK Cinema Studies/The Irish Times)HI HITLER…Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler pay a visit to Leni Riefenstahl at her Berlin estate, circa 1937. (Roger-Viollet)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We begin with more Carl “Eric” Erickson-inspired artwork, here promoting the bygone elegance of transatlantic travel…
…perhaps a bit less upscale but still pretty nice, the “Santa” line of ships operated by the Grace Line between New York and Latin America included air-conditioned interiors paneled with aluminum (a fireproofing measure) and spacious cabins with private baths that faced to outside…
…this ad must have been a happy sight to folks who had to endure more than a decade of bootleg Scotch during Prohibition…
…Smirnoff vodka had its origins in 1860s Russia, capturing two-thirds of the Moscow market by the mid-1880s…forced to leave Russia in 1904 after the Tsar nationalized the Russian vodka industry…Smirnoff relocated to Turkey, then Poland, and then Paris, each time with limited success…at the end of Prohibition the brand relocated once again to a distillery in Bethel, Connecticut, hence this advertisement…
…the habanero pepper has been used to infuse everything from tequila to vodka to whiskey…this particular product was marketed as something new that could be mixed with a variety of spirits or topped up with club soda or ginger ale…
…I include this ad from the maker of Spud cigarettes for its sheer audacity…it claims your mouth will feel dewdrop fresh after an entire day of smoking menthols…
…stunt driver Billy Arnold was one of the “Hell-Drivers” Chrysler employed to tout the safety of its low-priced Plymouths at promotional events…
…including Chicago’s “Century of Progress”…below, a crowd watches Arnold take his Plymouth for a roll and emerge unscathed…
…the folks at Redi-Spred employed a murder theme to promote their “Pâté de Foie”…which foie was used…duck, goose or lord knows what, is not specified…
…the signature is muddled, but this looks like another illustration by Herbert Roese, who never published a cartoon in the New Yorker but sure had its style down, especially Peter Arno’s…
…Harold Ross’s high school friend and cartoonist John Held Jr. was a frequent contributor to the New Yorker from 1925 to 1932 (he also contributed to Life, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar), but when demand for his Jazz Age cartoons and illustrations fell off in the 1930s, he turned to painting and illustrating children’s books. So it was a surprise to catch this glimpse of Held’s work in a one-column ad promoting a Held-drawn map of New England inns…
…speaking of elusive illustrators, I am often challenged to discover the identities of spot illustrators in the early issues…this one appears to be signed by “Maurice Dreco”…
…the signature on this one looks like “Saphire,” but again, it is not clear…
…but there is no doubt this little gem is by Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein…
…which leads us to Richard Decker, and a hostage situation gone flat…
…and Decker again, with a back-handed compliment…
…James Thurber was in his familiar world of dogs and battling sexes…
…Mary Petty found some good news on the dentistry front…
…Otto Soglow’s Little King believed more is merrier…
…and we close with William Crawford Galbraith, and a wedding day surprise…
Above: British architect Norman Foster's 2010 recreation of R. Buckminster Fuller's 1933 Dymaxion car. (Wikipedia)
Despite the limitations of 1930s technology, a few architects and designers were hell-bent on building a streamlined future that until then was mostly the stuff of movies and science fiction magazines.
May 5, 1934 cover by Rea Irvin.
One of them was R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983), architect, designer, and futurist probably best known today as the inventor of the geodesic dome (think Disney’s Epcot Center). In the 1930s Fuller was all about a concept he called Dymaxion. Derived from the words dynamic, maximum, and tension, when applied to architecture and design it would supposedly deliver maximum gain from minimal energy input. The writer of the New Yorker article (pseud. “Speed”) was fascinated by the Dymaxion’s motorboat-type steering, no coincidence since Fuller intended to adapt his futuristic car for use on and under the water, as well as in the air.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME…Clockwise, from top left: Workers at a Bridgeport, Conn., plant creating the first of three Dymaxion cars; the Dymaxion at Chicago’s 1933 Century of Progress exposition—the car was involved in a fatal accident at the fair; interior view of the Dymaxion; using the same engine and transmission as a Ford sedan (pictured), the Dymaxion offered three times the interior volume with half the fuel consumption and a 50 percent increase in top speed. (Buckminster Fuller Institute/Poet Architecture)THINKING WITHOUT THE BOX…In 1927 R. Buckminster Fuller (pictured) developed a Dymaxion House, a “Dwelling Machine” that would be the last word in self-sufficiency. Although the aluminum house was intended to be mass-produced, flat-packaged and shipped throughout the world, the design never made it to market (however its ideas influenced other architects); at right, a Fuller geodesic dome at Disney’s Epcot Center in Florida. (archdaily.com/Wikipedia)
The 1933 Century of Progress exposition in Chicago was supposed to be a major showcase for Fuller, but when professional driver Francis Turner was killed while demonstrating the first prototype of the Dymaxion, the car’s prospects dimmed considerably. According to an article by Stephanie d’Arc Taylor (cnn.com Oct. 30, 2019), during the demonstration a local politician tried to drive his own car close to the Dymaxion—to get a better look—and ended up crashing into the unwieldy prototype, which rolled over, killing the driver and injuring its passengers. “The politician’s car was removed from the fracas before police arrived, so the Dymaxion was blamed for the accident,” writes Taylor, who notes that the rear wheel–powered car, though unconventional, was not necessarily the problem. However, “the thing that made the Fuller death-mobile singularly deadly was the fact it was also steered by the rear wheel, making it hard to control and prone to all kinds of terrifying issues.”
That history did not stop architect Norman Foster from building a replica of the Dymaxion in 2010. Foster worked with Fuller from 1971 to 1983, and considers Fuller a design hero.
GIVING IT ANOTHER GO…Architect Norman Foster with his 2010 recreation of the Dymaxion. To build a new Dymaxion, Foster sent a restorer to the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada (home of the only surviving Dymaxion, Car No. 2), and after thousands of photos and measurements Foster had the car recreated using only materials available in 1933: Foster’s Dymaxion consists of an ash frame sheathed in hand-beaten aluminum, mounted on the chassis of an old 1934 Ford Tudor Sedan. (CNN/The Guardian)
According to Taylor, Foster cleaved so closely to Fuller’s original designs that he refers to his creation as a fourth genuine Dymaxion—not a replica. “The car is such a beautiful object that I very much wanted to own it, to be able to touch as well as contemplate the reality for its delight in the same spirit as a sculpture,” said Foster. “Everything in (the car) was either made in 1934, or recreated using techniques and materials that Bucky would have had access to in that period.”
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Meanwhile, At The Tracks…
If Fuller’s attempt at the streamlined future was a bit of bust, the Burlington railroad was making a splash with its gleaming new Zephyr. E.B. White reported:
ZOOM ZOOM…The Burlington Zephyr set a speed record for travel between Denver and Chicago when it made a 1,015.4-mile (1,633 km) non-stop “Dawn-to-Dusk” dash in 13 hours 5 minutes at an average speed of almost 78 mph (124 km/h). In one section of the run it reached a speed of 112.5 mph. Following a promotional tour that included New York, it was placed in regular service between Kansas City, Missouri, and Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, on November 11, 1934. Other routes would be added later in the Midwest and West. (BNSF)
…we continue with E.B. White, here with some observations regarding Mother’s Day and bank robber/murderer John Dillinger, who had escaped from prison in March 1934 and was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List…
I REMEMBER MAMA…John Dillinger posed with Lake County prosecutor Robert Estill, left, in the jail at Crown Point, Ind. while he awaited his trial for murder in January 1934. Dillinger would escape from the jail in March and would be on the lam until July, when FBI agents would gun him down outside a Chicago movie theatre. (NY Daily News)
…and a last word from White, about an important change at Radio City:
* * *
Voice In The Wilderness
A combination of newsreel footage, documentary, and reenactment, Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr’sHitler’s Reign of Terror played to capacity crowds for two weeks in New York City, despite the refusal of the state’s censor to license the film. Disinherited by his parents when he became a newspaper publisher, Vanderbilt was a determined journalist, covertly filming scenes in Nazi Germany and even briefly encountering Adolf Hitler outside the Reichstag, where Vanderbilt yelled to Der Führer, “And what about the Jews, Your Excellency?” (Hitler ignored the question and referred Vanderbilt to one of his lackeys). Unfortunately, Vanderbilt wasn’t much of a filmmaker, and although he warned Americans about the emerging threat in Germany, few took the film, or his warning, seriously, including John Mosher:
UNHEEDED…Audiences flocked to see Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr’sHitler’s Reign of Terror, but critics dismissed the rather amateurish film—Film Daily scoffed at the film’s prediction that Hitler’s Germany was a future threat to world peace; at right, in the film Vanderbilt confronted “Hitler” in a recreation. (TMDB/Library of Congress)
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From Our Advertisers
It wouldn’t seat eleven people like a Dymaxion, but a Body by Fisher (coach builder to General Motors) certainly impressed this young woman…but better check with the hubby just in case…
…in this next ad, we find what looks like the same woman, perhaps celebrating her decision with a nice smoke…
…this spot seems out of place in the New Yorker, like it snuck over from Better Homes & Gardens...
…on to our cartoons…with James Thurber’s war of the sexes over, life returned to normal…
…and both sides shared in the gloom of a rainy afternoon…
…by contrast, Perry Barlow brightened things up with this life of the party…
…but a good time doesn’t always translate over the airwaves, per George Price…
…Alain illustrated the consequences of losing one’s nest egg…
…Peter Arno didn’t leave any room for dessert…
…and Charles Addams returned, a macabre cast of characters still percolating in his brain…
…on to May 12, 1934…
May 12, 1934 cover by Leonard Dove.
…and back to the movies, this time critic John Mosher found more cheery fare in 20th Century, a pre-Code screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks and starring John Barrymore and Carole Lombard. Battling alcohol abuse since age 14, Barrymore nevertheless managed to display his rare genius as a comedian and turned in what is considered to be his last great film performance.
GETTING HER KICKS…Top, Carole Lombard delivers a swift one to John Barrymore in the screwball comedy 20th Century. Below, director Howard Hawks with the cast. (greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot.com)
* * *
Playing the Ponies
Horse racing correspondent George F. T. Ryall (pseud. “Audax Minor”) considered a losing wager at the Kentucky Derby in his column, “The Race Track.”
A HORSE OF COURSE…Jockey Mack Garner rode Cavalcade to victory at the 1934 Kentucky Derby. (Appanoose County Historical Society)
* * *
More From Our Advertisers
We begin with Camel cigarette endorsers Alice and Mary Byrd, residents of Virginia’s famous Brandon plantation and cousins of Virginia Senator and Governor Harry F. Byrd, known for his fights against the New Deal and his “massive resistance” to federally mandated school desegregation...
…also to the manor born, Whitney Bourne, a New York deb who would go on to a brief stage and film career that would end when she married her first husband (diplomat Stanton Griffis) in 1939…
AN EYE FOR STYLE…Whitney Bourne in a scene with Solly Ward in 1937’s Flight From Glory. Named in 1933 as one of America’s best dressed women, Bourne was a noted New York socialite, skier, golfer and tennis player as well as an occasional actress.
…we move along from the effervescent Whitney Bourne to the sparkling waters of Perrier…
…Gardner Rea followed other New Yorker cartoonists by illustrating an ad for Heinz…
…which brings is to more cartoons, where according to Richard Decker, the move to streamlined trains wasn’t welcomed by everyone…
…Carl Rose illustrated this two-page spread with an imagined right-wing response to the recent left-wing May Day parades…
…William Steig eavesdropped onto a saucy little conversation…
…Barbara Shermund continued her explorations into the trials of the modern woman…
…James Thurber was back to his old tricks…
…and we conclude our cartoons with Eli Garson, and a new perspective…
Before I close, a bit of housekeeping. The first issues in 1925 sometimes ended “The Talk of the Town” with…
…but on May 23, 1925, “Talk” signed off with —The New Yorkers. That continued until the March 31, 1934 issue (below), the last time the New Yorker signed off “The Talk of the Town” with —The New Yorkers:
Above: Modeling agency founder John Robert Powers poses with participants of a fashion queen contest at the 1939 New York World's Fair. (NYPL)
John Robert Powers was a household name in the 1930s, founder of one of the world’s first modeling agencies—he supplied countless advertisers with mostly female models, some moving on to Hollywood careers.
April 21, 1934 cover by Abner Dean.
Writing for “A Reporter at Large” under the title “Perfect 36,” frequent New Yorker short story contributor Nancy Hale (1908 –1988) looked into the mysteries behind the fabled “John Powers Book” and its collection of sophisticated models.
TYPING BOOK…John Robert Powers (1892–1977) wrote a bestselling 1941 book, The Powers Girls, that told “the story of models and modeling and the natural steps by which attractive girls are created,” organizing various models by type; at right, a page from the book featuring Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Gibbons—despite her Alabama roots, she was described by Powers as being “The Urban Type.” (Wikipedia/lastyeargirl.blogspot.com)
Hale was given a tour by a company representative who described the types of women the Powers company represented, noting the successes of women who landed in major cigarette ads or went on to become Hollywood stars:
SMOKE AND MIRRORS…Clockwise, from top left: Powers model Janice Jarratt (in a 1934 publicity photo from her only film, Kid Millions), who for a time was known as the “Lucky Strike Girl” as well as the “most photographed woman in the world”; Jarratt offering a Lucky to a nervous young man in a 1935 ad; Powers model Ethelyn Holt in a publicity photo for the Billy Rose Theatre; Holt in a 1933 ad for Camel cigarettes. (MGM/NPR/NYPL/propadv.com)
A number of Hollywood stars got their start or were discovered through their work with Powers, who himself was a sometime actor and the subject of a 1943 musical comedy, The Powers Girl.
POWER STARS…Former Powers models turned Hollywood stars included, from left, Norma Shearer,Frederic March and Kay Francis. (TCM/TMDB)
A note about the author, Nancy Hale: A brilliant short story writer, Hale published her first short story in The New Yorker in 1929 (when she was just 21) and would publish more than eighty stories in the magazine through 1969—she holds the record for the most stories in the magazine in a single year, publishing twelve between July 1954 and July 1955. New Yorker editor William Maxwell regarded Hale’s writing technique as “flawless.”
PROLIFIC…Nancy Hale published more than a hundred short stories in her lifetime, ten of which were recipients of an O. Henry Prize. Writer Joanne O’Leary (London Review of Books) notes that Hale also worked for Vogue (where she “pinch-hit as a model”) and became the first female news reporter at the New York Times. Above left, Hale in an undated photo; at right, Hale photographed in 1936 for Harper’s Bazaar. (Nancy Hale Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College)
* * *
Tat For Tat
Alva Johnston explored the world of “tattooed people” in his second installment of a three-part profile series titled “Sideshow People”…
MARKED FOR LIFE…Alva Johnston noted such celebrated tattooed ladies as Mae Vandermark (left, circa 1920s), and Lady Viola, pictured at right with tattoo artist Fred Clark, 1930s. (Vintage Everyday)INKSLINGER…Charlie Wagner, a tattoo artist who lived from 1875 to 1953, is considered one of the kings of American tattooing. Practicing his art in New York’s Bowery, he not only developed an influential art style; he invented new machinery that helped spread the art of modern tattooing. (nyctattooshop.com)
* * *
Bloody Satisfying
Film critic John Mosher declared David O. Selznick’s production Viva Villa! to be “thoroughly satisfying”—with a screenplay by Ben Hecht and starring actor Wallace Beery as Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, the film was considered violent and bloody by 1934 standards.
REVOLUTIONARY…Clockwise, from top left, Pancho Villa (Wallace Beery) finds himself attracted to a benefactor’s sister (Fay Wray); MGM film poster; Beery with Katherine DeMille (who was Cecil B. DeMille’s adopted daughter) and Stuart Erwin; Beery striking a pose on the set of Viva Villa! (IMDB)
Mosher found some of the film’s violence to be startling. Being one the last Pre-Code films, censors would start clamping down on such scenes in the coming years.
MAKE SURE YOU GET MY GOOD SIDE…Pancho Villa (Wallace Beery) faces a firing squad before receiving a last-minute reprieve in Viva Villa! (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
MGM took out a full-page ad to tout the success of Viva Villa and other MGM “hits”…
…note the bottom left hand corner of the MGM ad—a cartoon by Otto Soglow promoting the upcoming film Hollywood Party, a star-studded comedy musical featuring Laurel & Hardy, Jimmy Durante, Lupe Velez and Mickey Mouse…
…those looking for a different kind of entertainment could have been enticed by this lavish center-page spread from German ocean liner companies…they were inviting Americans to Oberammergau, Germany to witness the “only performances of the Passion Play until 1940″…the play was usually performed every ten years (years ending in the digit zero) but in 1934 a special performance was supported by the Nazi Party…incidentally, the 1940 play was cancelled due to World War II…
…the same German-American shipping companies also advertised an African cruise…with some racist imagery…
…perhaps you wanted to go to Europe on a ship with fewer Nazis on board…in that case you could grab a berth on a ship with the United States Lines, and hang out with these stiffs…
…the makers of Old Gold referenced a previous ad featuring Jimmy Durante with a new spot starring actor/comedian Eddie Cantor…both ads depicted impressionable young women admiring the smoking wisdom of older men…
…for reference, the creepy Durante ad…
…the famous “Call for Philip Morris” advertising campaign began during World War I, but in 1933 Johnny Roventini, a bellhop at the Hotel New Yorker, would become the living symbol of the cigarette brand…
…by contrast, Frankfort Distilleries showed us an image of man who would not represent them, namely Jed Clampett…
…Chevrolet continued its rebranding campaign, positioning itself as an affordable choice that was nevertheless favored by the posh set…
…who would rather be driving a Packard, here appealing to the nostalgic sensibilities of old-timers who had the means to afford one…
…on to our cartoons, and some “Small Fry” baseball from William Steig…
…an unusual captioned cartoon (from George Price) featured in the opening “Goings On About Town” section…
…Syd Hoff gave us an alarmed matron confronting the unthinkable…a doorman as a son-in-law…
…we haven’t seen Isadore Klein’s work in awhile—understandable, as he was busy in his career as an animator––in 1934 he worked on films for Van Beuren Studios (Rainbow Parade Cartoons) and in 1936 he would move to Disney’s Silly Symphonies…
…Paul Manship’sPrometheus at Rockefeller Center is iconic today, but when it was installed in 1934 it puzzled more than a few onlookers, including Robert Day…
…and we close with James Thurber, and a turn of events in his “war”…
Above: Robert Moses in 1939 with a model of his proposed Battery Bridge Park Reconstruction; at right, 1934 Bryant Park renovation, view to the south on 6th Avenue from 42nd Street. (Wikipedia/NYC Parks Department)
The title for this entry comes from Robert Caro’s landmark 1974 biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, which questioned the benefit of Moses’s monumental projects.
March 10, 1934 cover by Abner Dean.
Like him or not, few unelected officials have wielded more power than Moses, who through various appointed positions, including New York City Parks Commissioner, he was able to impose his will on mayors, legislators, congressmen, wealthy burghers, and even, on occasion, The White House. In turn he imposed his will on the city itself, clearing whole neighborhoods to lay down new roads that extended from Manhattan to the tip of Long Island, where neither farmer nor landed gentry could stand in his way. A profile written by Milton MacKaye examined what made Moses tick. An excerpt:
DON’T YOU DARE PUT ME ON HOLD…Relentless doesn’t begin to describe Robert Moses’s pursuit of power. Clockwise, from top left, Moses circa 1930; one of the swimming pools at the west bathhouse at Long Island’s Jones Beach, a project that helped launch Moses’s road to power; Long Island Expressway, which transformed Long Island from farm country (and a retreat for the rich) into a land of bedroom communities and public parks; the east parking field at Jones Beach. (Britannica/Library of Congress/U.S. National Archives)
In another excerpt, MacKaye noted that Moses had been named a member of the Triborough Bridge Authority; Moses would ultimately become chairman, and through this position would possess enormous, unchecked power and influence. Moses was skilled at creating legal structures that would favor his ambitions, burying language into legislative bills and other documents that would make him impervious to influence from mayors, legislators, governors and other elected officials.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF PLAYGROUND…Moses intensely disliked former New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, who used the Central Park Casino (top left) as his personal playground. Moses exacted his vengeance by having the historic casino razed in 1935 and replaced with the Rumsey Playground; at right, the 1936 Triborough Bridge (Berenice Abbot photo), a cluster of three separate spans connecting the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens. It was developed through Moses’s Triborough Bridge Authority, which was impervious to influence from mayors, legislators and governors. While the city and state were strapped for funds, Moses reaped millions from tolls, which financed his other ambitions; bottom left, Moses in 1938. (Wikipedia/transalt.org/Library of Congress)
Final note, I highly recommend Caro’s The Power Broker—it’s a doorstop of a book, but also one of the best biographies of the 20th century and a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand how present-day New York came to be, and how it really works.
* * *
Let’s Talk About the Weather
Robert Benchley, writing under the pseudonym Guy Fawkes, took a turn at “The Wayward Press” column, commenting on the sensationalistic coverage of the weather by the local press. In all fairness to the press, New York City had endured a blizzard as well as the coldest temperature ever recorded for the city: 15 below zero (Fahrenheit) on Feb. 9, 1934. (According to newspaper accounts, it was 14.3 below).
Benchley also commented on journalist Ernest Gruening (1887–1974), who was the editor of the New York Post for only four months in 1934, but during those four months he really shook things up.
EASY BOSS…Ernest Gruening was editor of the New York Post for only four months in 1934, but during that time he made life better for his newsroom employees by implementing an unheard of 40-hour work week. Gruening went on to serve as the governor of the Alaska Territory from 1939 until 1953, and as a U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1959 until 1969. (Photo from 1935 via Wikipedia)
Robert Benchley thought the press made too much of the city’s snowy weather, but these newsreels tell a different story:
* * *
Punch Drunk
Critic John Mosher found slim pickings at the local movie houses, opting for Jimmy Durante’sPalooka as the best of crop:
RIBALDRY AT RINGSIDE…Clockwise from top left, Knobby Walsh (Jimmy Durante) tries to press his advantage during the weigh-in of boxer Al McSwatt (portrayed by William Cagney, the look-alike younger brother of James Cagney) in 1934’s Palooka; Durante thinks he’s found a winning fighter in Joe Palooka (Stuart Erwin); Joe’s father, Pete Palooka (Robert Armstrong) demonstrates why he’s nicknamed “Goodtime” with the help of Trixie (Thelma Todd); Durante with Lupe Vélez, who portrayed glamorous cabaret singer and fortune hunter Nina Madero. (IMDB)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We start with a couple ads from the back pages…the promoters of Chicago’s famed Stevens Hotel offered a unique perspective as they appealed to New Yorkers to come check out the “Century of Progress” World’s Fair, which proved so popular that it planned to reopen in May for a second year…at right, The Gotham catered to the ladies with a special cocktail bar that only allowed men in the company of a woman…
NICE DIGS…At left, The Stevens Hotel (now Hilton Chicago) and, at right, The Gotham (now The Peninsula) are happily still with us today. (Wikipedia)
…cigarette manufacturers continued to work on their biggest growth market with ads like this one from the Lorillard Tobacco Company…here a perceptive woman chooses to ignore the “brazen claims” of other tobacco companies and makes an informed decision to inhale an Old Gold…
…Liggett & Myers, on the other hand, stuck with this subservient pose, suggesting both are happy with their cigarette, and their station in life…
…another colorful ad from the makers of Schlitz beer…following the end of Prohibition Schlitz quickly became the world’s top-selling brewery, a position it would hold into the 1960s until it switched to cheaper brewing methods…
…the makers of Fisher car bodies (owned by General Motors) continued their lavish two-page spreads touting the homey comforts of their interiors…
…and no more staid ads from luxury carmaker Packard, who ran this full-color, full-bleed spot…
…it’s almost springtime for Hitler, and Germany welcomed American tourists with promises of “Dreaming Villages” (whatever those are), charming health spas and places of romance and beauty…hmmm, no mention of swastika flags hanging from every building, or parades of goose-stepping thugs…
…this public service ad promoted the effectiveness of the National Recovery Act, offering the uptick in underwear sales as a sure sign of economic growth…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with Helen Hokinson experiencing the results of the recent blizzard…
…as did Henry Anton, with a befuddled meteorologist…
…Alain (Daniel Brustlein) gave us this wordless gem…
…while Garrett Price presented a sculptor’s greatest challenge…
…Alan Dunn gave us two women who expected more pizzazz from a recent funeral…
…Peter Arno contended with some Peeping Toms…
…and James Thurber looked in on recent maneuvers in his war between the sexes…
On April 28, 1933, just two days before the RCA Building was to open to new tenants, artist Diego Rivera added a portrait of Vladimir Lenin to the mural he was painting in the building’s lobby.
Feb. 24, 1934 cover by Garrett Price.
When Nelson Rockefeller asked Rivera to replace Lenin with a portrait of an “everyman,” Rivera refused, stating that he would prefer to see the whole mural destroyed than to alter it. Two weeks later Rivera was paid and dismissed from the job; carpenters immediately covered the mural in a white cloth. Fast forward to Saturday, February 10, 1934, when workers showed up late in the evening and began chipping away at the plaster bearing the mural, reducing Rivera’s artwork to dust. E.B. White, in his “Notes and Comment,” had this to say about that fateful night:
DUST TO DUST…Diego Rivera working on his mural, Man at the Crossroads, in the RCA Building lobby in 1933. At right, workers quickly covered up the mural after Rivera was dismissed from the job. One of Rivera’s artist assistants, Lucienne Bloch, clandestinely took the photo before she was escorted from the building. (Wikipedia/6sqft.com)ARTEM INTERRUPTUS…Mexican artist Diego Rivera stands with a copy of the mural he painted at Rockefeller Center that was eventually destroyed. (A. Estrada /Courtesy of Museo Frida Kalho)
Rea Irvin shared his own thoughts on the issue with this illustration below, which referenced the hateful rhetoric of Charles Coughlin, a Canadian-American Catholic priest and populist leader and one of the first public figures to make effective use of the airwaves to spew his invective.
FAMILIAR RING…Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest and populist leader, promoted antisemitic and pro-fascist views while also acting as a champion to the poor and a foe of big business. In the midst of the Depression he spoke to the hopes and fears of lower-middle class Americans throughout the U.S. One supporter recalled: “When he spoke it was a thrill like Hitler. And the magnetism was uncanny. It was so intoxicating, there’s no use saying what he talked about…” (BBC/NPR)
* * *
Dog Days
E.B. White also chimed in about boorish behavior he witnessed at the Westminster Kennel Club show at Madison Square Garden. Terriers had dominated Westminster; the fox terrier that ultimately won the 1934 competition represented the 21st terrier of any type to win Best of Show since that category was introduced in 1907.
YOU AGAIN? Ch Flornell Spicy Bit of Halleston, a Wire Fox Terrier, took Best of Show at Madison Square Garden in 1934. (westminsterkennelclub.org)
* * *
Anybody Home?
After the wealthy owner of the New York World, Joseph Pulitzer, died in 1911, his family moved out of his lavish East 73rd Street mansion, which was designed by Stanford White to resemble an Italian palazzo. The building sat empty until 1930, when investors planned to knock it down and replace it with an apartment building. The Depression foiled their plans, and another attempt to raze the mansion in the 1950s also miraculously failed, and the building was eventually converted into a co-op with sixteen apartments. Writing in “The Talk of the Town,” James Thurber pondered the Pulitzer mansion’s expected fate. An excerpt:
THEN AND NOW…With so many buildings reduced to dust these days in NYC, it’s good to see the Pulitzer mansion still standing. You can buy one of its sixteen apartments for roughly $6 million, if and when they become available. (ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
The makers of Camel cigarettes combined three previous ads into one, featuring endorsements from society matrons in Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York…
…while Fanny Brice and the cast of the 1934 Ziegfeld Follies offered a chorus of endorsements for Lux detergent in this two-page spread…
…the Graham-Paige Motors Corporation is long gone, but in the early 1930s the company was still going strong, introducing many innovations (described in the ad below) that would be copied by other carmakers…
…in the 1930s an exiled Russian noble, Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, was known for his streamlined automobile designs…he influenced the look of the 1934 Nash Ambassador Eight, which was touted here as the choice of the budget-minded toff…note how the illustrator exaggerated the car’s length in this ad…
…as compared to an actual model of a Nash Eight…
A restored 1934 Nash Ambassador Eight. (classiccars.com)
…on to our cartoonists, Alan Dunn floated above the “Goings On About Town” section…
…William Steig gave us a tactless grocer…
…Howard Baer offered up some finer points from Madison Avenue…
…Gardner Rea illustrated a very special delivery…
…and James Thurber’s war continued to be waged on a snowy battlefield…
…on to our March 3, 1934 issue…
March 3, 1934 cover by Harry Brown.
…which featured a profile of singer Kate Smith (1907–1986), written by none other than Joseph Mitchell (1908-1996), who began his career at The New Yorker in 1933. Smith was an American contralto often referred to as “The First Lady of Radio,” well known for her renditions of When the Moon Comes over the Mountain and Dream a Little Dream of Me. She was enormously popular during World War II for her rendition of God Bless America among other patriotic tunes.
Smith got her start in New York in 1926 when she appeared on Broadway in Honeymoon Lane. That year also saw the emergence of countless humiliating wisecracks about her weight that would dog her long career. A reviewer in The New York Times (Oct. 31, 1926) wrote, “A 19-year-old girl, weighing in the immediate neighborhood of 200 pounds, is one of the discoveries of the season…” In 1930, when Smith appeared in George White’sFlying High, she served as the butt of Bert Lahr’s often cruel jokes about her size.
An excerpt from the opening lines of Mitchell’s profile:
RISING STAR…At left, Kate Smith performing in the 1932 Paramount Pictures musical, Hello Everybody!; at right, on the cover of the October 1934 issue of Radio Mirror. (medium.com)
Toward the conclusion of the profile Mitchell suggested that Smith’s future was “doubtful.” She would prove that prediction wrong, however…
…23 years after her death her rendition of God Bless America would be discontinued pretty much everywhere when it was revealed that in the early 1930s she recorded such songs as That’s Why Darkies Were Born and Pickaninny Heaven (which was featured in Hello, Everybody!).
CANCELLED STAR…Since the late 1960s a rendition of God Bless America by Kate Smith served as a good luck charm for the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team. “The team began to win on nights the song was played,” The New York Times wrote in Smith’s 1986 obituary. Smith sang the tune live during game six of the 1974 Stanley Cup finals, which the Flyers went on to win against the Boston Bruins. When Smith’s racist songs were rediscovered in 2019, a statue of the singer that stood outside the Flyers’ arena was covered and ultimately removed. (Daily Mail)
A note on Joseph Mitchell, whose first credited piece in The New Yorker was a Nov. 11, 1933 “A Reporter at Large” column titled “They Got Married in Elkton.” The article described a small Maryland border town that became known for discrete “quicky” marriages. Mitchell would become known for his finely crafted character studies and expressive stories found in commonplace settings. His 1943 McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon is a prime example.
MAN ABOUT TOWN…At left, Joseph Mitchell circa 1930, wearing a brown fedora he was rarely seen without; at right, Mitchell in Lower Manhattan near the old Fulton Fish Market, as photographed by his wife, Therese Mitchell, circa 1950. (Estate of Joseph Mitchell)
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Acquired Taste
Occasionally New Yorker film critic John Mosher found himself at odds with other reviewers, and such was the case when Mosher sat down to watch Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night. While he described the 1934 pre-Code romantic comedy as “nonsense” and “dreary,” other critics found it generally enjoyable, and although it took audiences awhile to catch on, the film eventually became a smash hit.
In all fairness to Mosher, even the film’s co-star, Claudette Colbert, complained to a friend after the film wrapped, “I just finished the worst picture in the world.” As it turned out, It Happened One Night became the first of only three films to win all five major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is now widely considered one of the best films ever made. Go figure.
Back to Mosher, who thought so little of the film he didn’t even lead his column with the picture’s review:
PRE-CODE AND TOPLESS…An heiress (Claudette Colbert) and a reporter (Clark Gable) find themselves hitchhiking (and sharing a motel room) after their bus breaks down in It Happened One Night. The film famously featured a scene in which co-star Gable undresses for bed and takes off his shirt to reveal that he is bare-chested. An urban legend claims that, as a result, sales of men’s undershirts declined noticeably. (IMDB)
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More From Our Advertisers
If you wanted luxury with the price, you could buy a Nash Ambassador Eight for $1,800 (about thousand less than other luxury models) or opt for Studebaker’s Berline Limousine, practically a steal at $1,295…
…or you could opt for this fancy-looking Buick with “Knee-Action wheels”…Knee Action was a GM marketing term for independent front suspension, which made for a smoother ride…
…always colorful, the makers of Cinzano vermouth made their splash in The New Yorker…
…the folks at Lucky Strike continued their theme of colorful ads featuring attractive women enjoying their cigs…
…on to our cartoonists, Leonard Dove illustrated a domestic spat…
…Mary Petty captured a romantic interlude on the dance floor…
…and James Thurber introduced a new twist—espionage—into his “war”…
Above: Surgery being performed at the Hospital of Saint Raphael (Conn.) in the late 1930s. Operating rooms were often located near large windows and under skylights to offer greater illumination. (Yale New Haven Hospital)
For all the challenges of 21st century, I always remind myself that advances in medicine during the past ninety years have made our lives better, and substantially longer, even if our current health care system is far from ideal.
Feb. 3, 1934 cover by E. Simms Campbell.
People could live to a ripe old age in the 1930s, however the average life expectancy at birth in 1930 was only 58 for men and 62 for women. The Depression didn’t help matters, and neither did the Dust Bowl, unregulated urban smog, the dramatic rise in smoking, and the lingering effects of more than a decade of bootleg alcohol consumption.
Polio was a serious problem in the 1930s, as was syphilis, which affected as many as ten percent of Americans. Blood groups would not be identified until 1930 (by Nobel Prize-winner Karl Landsteiner), and human nutrition remained something of a puzzle—Vitamin C wasn’t identified until 1932. There was exciting chatter about penicillin (discovered in late 1920s) and the antibacterial effects of sulfonamides (first observed in 1932), but it would be years before antibiotics would come into common use. So yes, infection was also a big killer.
Nevertheless, progress had been made, as told by Morris Markey in the column, “A Reporter at Large.” An excerpt:
FORTRESS ON THE HEIGHTS…Top, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center loomed large when it opened in Washington Heights in 1928; below, New York Hospital, most likely the building described in Morris Markey’s column; at left, Dr. George Crile, Sr., completing his landmark 25,000th thyroid operation in 1936. (CUIMC/Wikipedia/Cleveland Clinic)
This next excerpt describes the work of the anesthetist after the patient receives a spinal injection of novocaine, which had replaced cocaine as a pain blocker. At the start of the 1930s, the most-used anesthetic was ether, used in this account to calm the patient. Ether carried its own risks—in was unstable, and sparks from X-ray machines and other equipment could cause an explosion.
NO SMOKING, PLEASE…Anesthetist in the 1920s carefully administers ether while surgeon swabs a patient with iodine (inset). Ether was unstable, and sparks from equipment could cause an explosion. (Internet Archive/Flickr)
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And Then There’s Maude
American actress and stage designer Maude Ewing Adams (1872–1953) defined the role of “the boy who wouldn’t grow up” in her Broadway adaptations of Peter Pan in the early 1900s (1905, 1906, 1912 and 1915). She would appear in 26 Broadway productions between 1888 and 1916, but after a severe bout of the Spanish flu in 1918 she retired from the stage and focused on developing better stage lights with General Electric; her electric lights ultimately set the industry standard with the advent of sound movies. As this excerpt from “The Talk of the Town” revealed, Adams was also quite shy and highly valued her privacy.
THE RETIRING SORT…Maud Adams in a Broadway publicity photo, circa 1900. (Vintage Everyday)
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In The Trenches
Just before the Nazis decided to turn their country back into a warlike state, Victor Trivas and George Shdanoff wrote and directed an allegorical anti-war film. Niemandsland (released in the U.S. as Hell on Earth) featured five soldiers, from different backgrounds, who find themselves together in a dugout in no man’s land and together come to terms with the absurdity of war. The film premiered in Berlin in December 1931 and was greeted by thunderous applause. A little over a year later it was banned by the Nazis. Critic John Mosher made these observations:
WAR, WHAT’S IT GOOD FOR?…Niemandsland (released in the U.S. as Hell on Earth) featured five soldiers from different backgrounds on a front lines during WWI: a carpenter from Berlin, a mechanic from Paris, an English officer, a Jewish tailor and a Black dancer (the only one who understands everyone’s languages). Actor and dancer Louis W. Douglas (top right) was a Philadelphia native who moved to Paris in 1925 with his dancing partner, Josephine Baker, in the popular La Revue Nègre. He went on to establish a successful musical and film career in Germany until his death in 1939. (silverinahaystack.wordpress.com/IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
We begin with this jolly color image from Lucky Strike representing the joys of cigarette smoking…
…a trio of ads culled from the back pages, everything from “Tiara Trouble” (apparently a common problem) to a smoking penguin introducing a new line of menthol cigarettes, KOOL, challenging the dominance of the Spud menthol brand (we know who won that battle)…in the final ad, Atlantic City resort hotel Haddon Hall attempted to drum up business using a slavery/emancipation theme—Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is at hand…why not slip the shackles of work and run away to sunshine and freedom?…
…These Paul Whiteman ads were ubiquitous in the 1930s…the distinctive caricature of his pudgy, mustachioed face—Whiteman’s “Potato Head” emblem—was featured in ads and on 78 rpm record labels and various promotional items…on the more classical side, violinist David Rubinoff sawed away on his famed $100,000 Stradivarius for audiences at the Roosevelt Hotel…
…automobile ads continued to grace the pages of The New Yorker, including this one suggesting that young blue bloods would look quite smart in a ’34 Chevy…
…in the 1930s Studebaker marketed car lines including the high-end President, the mid-priced Commander, and the low-priced Dictator…the Dictator was introduced in 1927, so named because it “dictated the standard” other automobile makes would be obliged to follow…the rise of Mussolini and Hitler attached unsavory connotations to the car’s moniker…it was renamed “Director” for European markets and was finally abandoned in 1937…
…Chrysler continued to push its radical new Airflow, here demonstrating how it blows the doors off of an old-timer…
…as we jump into our cartoons, Kemp Starrett referenced the Airflow in his latest contribution to The New Yorker…
…the issue included two from George Price…a playful pairing in the events section…
…and a somewhat unkind nod to new Hollywood star Katharine Hepburn…apparently David O. Selznick had misgivings about casting a “horse face” like her…well, she obviously proved him wrong…
…the magazine pulled out this old illustration by H.O. Hofman to break up the copy in Howard Brubaker’s “Of All Things” column…
…more antics from the precocious set, courtesy Perry Barlow…
…Mary Petty offered this observation on the state of medicine in 1934…
…a sobering and topical contribution from Alan Dunn…
…Carl Rose made preparations for the annual Charity Ball…
…and James Thurber gave us Part III of his “War Between Men and Women”…
A New Yorker State of Mind 