New York – A New Yorker State of Mind

An Urban Spectacle

Above: Rudolf Persson's rendering of the main entrance to the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, designed by Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund. The exhibition was a landmark event that introduced Functionalism to Swedish architecture and design.(Svensk Form)

Architecture critic Lewis Mumford turned his exacting eye on exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art that looked to the future of building design. Of particular interest was an exhibit on those world expositions that have given us everything from the Eiffel Tower (1889 Exposition Universelle) to the car-dominated landscape that inspired millions of Depression-weary visitors at New York’s 1939 World’s Fair.

June 20, 1936 cover by **Adolph K. Kronengold.** Kronengold (1900–1986) created twenty-three covers for the *New Yorker from 1928 to 1947.* Born and raised in New Orleans, he frequently used watercolors and often painted scenes honoring his hometown. The June 20 cover was Kronengold’s seventeenth for the magazine.

Mumford made passing mention to the museum’s exhibit on government housing (he noted it was below MoMA’s standard) and then turned his attention to a review of world’s fairs, examining how they have inspired both waves of architectural achievement and “counterfeits of civic grandeur…”

BREAK FROM THE PAST…Images from the covers of MoMA’s exhibition catalogs depict the 1934-35 Carl Mackley Houses in Philadelphia (top, from the government housing exhibit) and the 1930 Stockholm Exposition. (MoMA.org)

STILL SERVING…the 1934-35 Carl Mackley Houses in Philadelphia have been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1998. *(Wikipedia)*

PONDERING what a modern exhibition should be, **Lewis Mumford** cited the granddaddy of them, the London Exhibition of 1851 (top), with its Crystal Palace, which he called “the first definitive monument of modern architecture,” as definitive and challenging as the Pavillon L’Esprit Nouveau (bottom), designed by **Le Corbusier** and **Pierre Jeanneret** for the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. *(devonandexeterinstitution.org/Wikipedia)*

SHAM AESTHETIC…Mumford referred to buildings in the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair (left) as “laborious limestone counterfeits of civic grandeur,” while praising the 1893 and 1900 Paris expositions for design innovations including the Art Nouveau style—at right is Le Pavillon Bleu, a lavish restaurant once located at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. It was built by French architect René Dulong in collaboration with Belgian architect and designer Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, one of the founders of the Art Nouveau movement. *(getzen.com/messynessychic.com)*

Looking ahead to the planned 1939 World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows, Mumford believed the age of grand world expositions had passed, especially those that moved the needle on design innovation. Moreover, he observed that the lack of real drama or rational purpose would threaten bankruptcy to future fairs, a symptom especially acute in America: “…a hasty transfer of attention from the agents of production to the organs of reproduction; a bevy of naked hussies remind the spectator that there are other wonders in Nature besides the harnessing of Niagara Falls, or the five-millionth Ford car.”

POINTING TO THE FUTURE..Rosalie Fairbanks, a guide to the 1939 New York World’s Fair, points to the theme of the exposition—the Trylon and Perisphere—after the entire sheath of scaffolding was removed for the first time on February 22, 1939. (Associated Press)

Earth-movers were already at work sculpting the fair’s site from the swampland and ash heaps along the Flushing River when Mumford assembled a self-anointed advisory group in 1936. This group— the “Fair of the Future Committee”—urged the fair’s leaders to abandon superficial commercialism and instead demonstrate how technology could serve the public good and restore ecological balance in American communities. That did not come to pass; when the fair opened in 1939, Mumford wrote in his “Sky Line” column (titled “Genuine Bootleg”) that the committee’s “hopes and proposals for a major contribution to urban design were progressively defeated. Today their wreckage is strewed about the Fair, so thoroughly smashed and disfigured that their own fathers could scarcely identify the corpses.”

FUTURAMA was a popular exhibit and ride at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Designed by **Norman Bel Geddes** for the General Motors pavilion, it proposed a sprawling car-based future that was the antitheses of **Lewis Mumford’s** vision of human-scaled, ecologically balanced development. *(Wikipedia)*

Mumford got one thing right. Although the 1939 fair attracted more than 45 million visitors, it lost a lot of money, recouping only 32 percent of its original cost.

* * *

Only a Memory

In “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White recalled the brief life of “America’s Little House” at 39th and Park in the Murray Hill neighborhood. The eight-room Georgian colonial was built in 1934 during the “Better Homes in America” campaign that promoted single-family home ownership as well as design innovations. The CBS radio network (which contributed $50,000 to the project) installed a studio in the house’s garage, from which it broadcast three national radio programs to a hundred stations across the country.

Open for about a year, the house was demolished in November 1935, its doors and interior furnishings sold to hostesses who had worked at the house. In its place William Van Alen—architect of the Chrysler Building—erected the all-steel “House of the Modern Age.”

CHANGE OF SCENE…At left, America’s Little House on Park Avenue and 39th Street, replaced by **William Van Alen’s** prefabricated steel house (right), “The House of the Modern Age,” detail from a photo by Berenice Abbott. (Wikipedia/cornell.edu)

…in the following week’s issue of The New Yorker, June 27, a back of the book ad from the Modernage Furniture Corporation touted the opening of “The House of the Modern Age”…

* * *

Fan Fans

Staying on the domestic scene, here is an excerpt from Barbara Blake’s “About the House” column, where she updated readers on the latest in electric fans (air-conditioning in private homes was still a rarity).

ELECTRIC WIND…**Barbara Blake** highlighted the latest in electric fans including, clockwise from top left, the Airflow Safefan, which moved air with looped ribbons; the Samson Safeflex employed rubber blades as a safety feature; the noted designer **Robert Heller** produced these fan designs (1936 and 1937) modeled on airplane propellers. *(worthpoint.com/ebay.com/Montreal Museum of Fine Arts)*

* * *

Billy’s Beef

In 1899 vaudevillian Billy Watson (aka Isaac Levie) formed his Beef Trust burlesque troupe of plus-sized women. Although his shows starred women in the 200-pound range, he also relied on slight-of-hand provided by the “Tights King” Morris Kohan, who apparently could produce tights that could make a person look either heavier or slimmer. “The Talk of the Town” explains in this excerpt:

WHERE’S THE BEEF?…**Billy Watson’s** burlesque troupe of plus-sized women—the Beef Trust— padded their profiles with the aid of specially designed tights. (Facebook.com)

* * *

Divine Dilemma

In Part Two of Father Divine’s profile, St. Clair McKelway and A.J. Liebling recounted the preacher’s 1931 arrest, prompted by ongoing complaints from the citizens of Sayville, New York about the traffic jams caused by Divine’s daily feasts as well as the noise generated by the faithful who would holler hallelujahs late into the evening. During one of these late night revivals police raided Divine’s property and fined each of the seventy-eight followers a few dollars apiece. Divine, however, insisted on a jury trial, which was held seven months later. The charge: Maintaining a public nuisance.

Jurors convicted Divine, with a request for leniency, but Justice Lewis Smith sentenced the preacher to a year in prison, calling him a “menace to society.” However, four days later the judge dropped dead of a heart attack, and Divine was freed. The notion that the judge’s death was divine retribution was naturally perpetuated by the media. A brief excerpt, with illustration by Abe Birnbaum.

GET OUT OF JAIL CARD…In 1931 **Father Divine** was arrested for maintaining a public nuisance. Following a jury trial and conviction, the presiding judge dropped dead, leading the preacher’s freedom a few days later. *(facebook.com/nydailynews.com)*

* * *

At the Movies

The drama film Private Number was based on the 1915 play Common Clay, which had already been made as a silent in 1919 and as a sound film in 1930. The play had a somewhat scandalous theme for the time (a young servant is fired when she becomes pregnant by her employer’s son), but thanks to the Hays Code, the more scandalous parts of the earlier films were omitted in 1936’s Private Number, leaving the viewer with little except for some “old-fashioned hocus pocus,” according to critic John Mosher.

THE BUTLER DID IT…In Private Number, **Basil Rathbone** portrayed a tyrannical butler with a personal interest in one of his new maids (**Loretta Young**). She in turn secretly marries the scion of the family (**Robert Taylor**) and bears his child. Clockwise from top left: Poster for the film; Rathbone, **Kane Richmon**d, and Young; Taylor, Young, and well-known canine actor Prince; rivals for a maid’s affection—Taylor and Rathbone. *(Wikipedia/imdb.com/basilrathbone.net)*

Thirty-nine-year-old Marion Davies appeared in one her final films, Hearts Divided, a musical based on the real-life marriage between American Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Patterson and Jérôme Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. Although in real life Napoleon annulled the marriage, Hollywood gave the couple a happier ending.

THREE’S A CROWD…Napoleon (**Claude Rains**) comes between lovers **Marion Davies** and **Dick Powell** in *Hearts Divided.* The two also shared an off-screen romance behind the back of William Randolph Hearst, with whom Davies had a long-term relationship and to whom she believed she owed her career. (imdb.com)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Illustrator R. John Holmgren drew up this non-partisan appeal for White Rock mineral water…

…Stage magazine touted its upcoming July issue, featuring the “Glamour Girls” of Hollywood…

…here is the cover of that July 1936 issue, illustrated by Abe Birnbaum, featuring caricatures of leading ladies including Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Merle Oberon, Myrna Loy, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, and Katharine Hepburn…

…longtime member of the New Yorker coterie and contributor Alexander Woollcott appeared in this full-page ad endorsing the work of the American Civil Liberties Union…

…from the 1920s to the 1940s the Powers Reproduction Corporation was a prominent, New York City photo-engraving firm that created high-quality color images for magazines and advertising agencies…

…these back of the book ads joined forces to promote the healing waters of Saratoga Springs and the Gideon Putnam hotel and spa…apparently the waters and other spa services treated everything from heart conditions to obesity…

…Dr. Seuss returned with another scenario for insecticide use…

…on the inside back cover, the distillers of Four Roses Whiskey conjured up a June bride as an apt metaphor for their blending techniques…

…while Lucky Strike reclaimed the back cover with an ad that promoted its low acid cigarettes, whatever that meant…

…on to our illustrators and cartoonists, we begin with Arnold Hall…

…and Robert Day…

…with other featured spots from John Groth…

…Richard Taylor…

…and Otto Soglow…

…James Thurber drew up an unusual development in the sheepfold…

…Barbara Shermund posed a challenge for a hair dresser…

…and Shermund again, revealing a tactic of the modern woman…

…Carl Rose commanded a two-page spread to tell his tale of sin and redemption…

…Ned Hilton needed a hand at the subway station…

…Mary Petty gave us a patient in need of a second opinion…

…while Alan Dunn weighed summer camp options…

…and we close with Dunn, and a true urban escape…

Next Time: Poppy Returns…

A Summer Night

Morris Markey embodied the ideal of “A Reporter at Large,” and for his Sept. 7 column he decided to stroll the steamy streets of Manhattan on a late summer night, finding the sidewalks alive with folks seeking a break from their stifling dwellings.

September 7, 1935 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

Markey (1899-1950) began “Summer Night” by describing a bus ride from Midtown to Washington Square with (I assume) his wife, Helen Turman Markey. They enjoyed the breeze atop the bus as they passed Central Park and heard the faint strains of music in the air.

FINAL NOTES…**Morris Markey** thought he heard music coming from the Central Park Casino (left) on that hot summer night; it would prove to be one of the Casino’s last summer nights since Robert Moses would have it demolished the following May; at right, **Adolf Dehn** lithograph *Central Park at Night, 1934. (NYC Parks/Art Institute of Chicago)*

AMID THE BUSTLE the Markeys hopped off the bus at Washington Square and set out on foot. At left, Washington Square by night, 1945; at right, cacophony on Fifth Avenue, circa 1940. *(Facebook)*

The scenes described by Markey offer a glimpse of what has changed and what still remains of Manhattan night life after ninety years.

GO BLOW YOUR HORN…Something taxis did then and do now; Markey described folks looking at hats in a shop window, probably similar to this 1930s store at right. (theguardian.com/Pinterest)

They concluded their stroll on the Lower East Side, where Markey noted a tenement clearance project on Allen Street. Considered one of the most densely populated places in the world, the street was widened by demolishing all of the buildings on its east side from Division to Houston Street.

HERE COMES THE SUN…The densely populated Allen Street was called “a place where the sun never shines.” The narrow street was mostly under the shadow of the elevated train tracks until it was widened in 1930s by demolishing all of buildings on its east side. Photo at left shows the public bath at 133 Allen Street (now used as a church). The demolition project, and the removal of the overhead “El” tracks in 1942, created a broad thoroughfare with a meridian mall in the center, as seen in the bottom photo of the intersection of Allen and Delancey circa 1950. *(mcny.org/leshp.org/Facebook)*

* * *

At the Movies

Film critic John Mosher finally found a film he could gush about in Anna Karenina, and most notably its star Greta Garbo, who in Mosher’s words “sets the pace and the tone for the whole thing.” Mosher was not alone in his praise: Writing for The Spectator in 1935, Graham Greene wrote that Garbo’s acting in the film overwhelmed the acting of all the supporting cast save that of Basil Rathbone. This observation was later echoed by Roland Barthes, who wrote in 1957 that Garbo belonged “to that moment in cinema when the apprehension of the human countenance plunged crowds into the greatest perturbation, where people literally lost themselves in the human image.” Here is Mosher’s review:

GARBO AND THE OTHERS…**Greta Garbo** dominated the screen in 1935’s *Anna Karenina.* Clockwise, from top left, MGM poster for the film; Garbo with **Fredric March** as Anna’s lover, Count Vronksy; Garbo with **Basil Rathbone,** who portrayed Anna’s husband Karenin, and child actor **Freddie Bartholomew** as their son, Sergei; **Maureen O’Sullivan** took a break from the Tarzan films to portray Anna’s friend Kitty (here with **Gyles Isham** as Levin). (filmforum.org/Wikipedia/IMDB)

As Mosher noted, Garbo also portrayed Anna Karenina in the 1927 silent film Love, in which she co-starred with John Gilbert as Count Vronsky.

BEEN HERE BEFORE…**Greta Garbo** as Anna Karenina and John Gilbert as Count Vronsky in the 1927 silent film Love, the second of four films they made together. They were also lovers off-screen in the 1920s, but with the advent of sound pictures her star rose as his began to fall; in their last film together, *Queen Christina* (1933), Garbo insisted that Gilbert be cast opposite her in a final attempt to revive his declining career. He essentially drank himself to an early grave, dying of a heart attack in January 1936. (rottentomatoes.com)

Mosher also enjoyed the dance moves of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Top Hat (although it could have used less “patter and piffle”), and brought out his hankie for The Dark Angel, where he once again encountered the acting of Fredric March.

DEFYING GRAVITY…**Ginger Rogers** and Fred Astaire made their complex dance moves look effortless as they glided through Top Hat, the fourth of ten films they made together. *(americancinematheque.com)*

TEARS FOR FEARS…**Fredric March** and Merle Oberon portrayed old friends and lovers facing a rival lover and the horrors of World War I in the 1935 weeper *The Dark Angel. (rottentomatoes.com)*

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We begin with a splash of color from the makers of Imperial washable wallpapers…not sure why a wire fox terrier is featured in the advertisement…they were a popular breed, and maybe Fido was the reason one needed washable walls…

…White Rock rolled out their tiny Colonel to promote mineral water as an ideal mixer…

…ever heard of Victor Moore?…well, he was quite the comedian back in the day, playing timid, mild-mannered characters on stage and screen…Moore (1876-1962) was also famous for his 1942 marriage to dancer Shirley Paige when Moore was 65 and Paige was 20…

…Camel rolled out another high society endorser, Maude Adele Brookfield van Rensselaer (1904-1945)…her color image is a watercolor by Leslie Saalburg…

…on to our cartoonists, we begin with spot art by Abe Birnbaum…

and Maurice Freed…

…also in the opening pages this wordless contribution by James Thurber…

…Gluyas Williams found this midday repast anything but relaxing…

…Otto Soglow found a new “man’s best friend”…

…Denys Wortman encountered some frank advice at the cosmetics counter…

…Helen Hokinson found appreciation for the “strong and silent” acting style…

…Peter Arno gave us a department store clerk in need of some time off…

…and we close with Richard Decker, finding some truth in advertising…

Next Time: Looking For Mister Wrong…

Not a Square Deal

Above: Postcard image of Washington Square Park, circa 1930. (citybeautifulblog.com)

New Yorkers know all about change, and especially during the 1920s and 30s when the city razed everything from Dutch settler houses to the Gilded Age mansions of Fifth Avenue. Landmarks such as the old Waldorf-Astoria were leveled to make way for the Empire State Building, while several blocks—22 acres of residential and commercial buildings—were scraped clean for Rockefeller Center.

June 8, 1935 cover by **Harry Brown.** This June bride-themed cover was Brown’s fourteenth of the eighteen covers he would create for *The New Yorker.*

Some things, like Washington Square, were still held dear by city residents. But very little was sacred to the city’s new park commissioner, Robert Moses, who had no problem leveling whole neighborhoods if they stood in way of a road or some other ambitious project.

It all seemed well at first when Moses called for the repair of neglected parks, including Washington Square. However, when changes to the park were revealed by the Villager, residents were outraged. Moses’ plan, designed by landscape architect Gilmore Clarke, was a complete reversal of the park’s existing design. In “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White explained:

Village residents organized a “Save Washington Square” committee and successfully blocked Moses from implementing his plan; in true Moses style, he responded by allowing the park to deteriorate.

MAKE NO LITTLE PLANS…Clockwise, from top left, Parks Commissioner **Robert Moses**; proposal to add colonnades to either side of the arch; landscape architect **Gilmore Clarke;** Clarke’s plan for the redesign. (Wikipedia/washingtonsqpark.org)

Moses, however, didn’t give up on Washington Square. Around 1940 he began floating the idea of building a double highway through the park. Local residents again rallied, joining business owners and NYU officials in blocking the audacious scheme.

White continued on the theme of city planning, calling on Moses this time to figure out a better plan for sidewalk cafés.

AL FRESCO…Postcard images of sidewalk cafés at 24 Fifth Avenue (top) and 23rd and Lexington, circa 1935. (picryl.com)

Additional note: The magazine’s June 15, 1935 issue featured Lois Long’s criticisms of sidewalk cafés in Manhattan:

Long did offer, however, a couple of recommendations for sidewalk dining, including the Breevort in Greenwich Village…

If you really wanted to eat outside, **Lois Long** suggested the Breevort in Greenwich Village. (New York Public Library)

…and the St. Moritz’s Café de la Paix at 50 Central Park South…

The St. Moritz’s Café de la Paix in the 1940s. (blog.bondbrand.com)

* * *

Sexily Danced the Burlesques

New Yorker writers loved to take shots at Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Fortune. Wolcott Gibbs famously satirized Time’s writing style in a parody profile in 1936: “Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind.” When Fortune decided to take a look behind the curtain at a burlesque show (February 1935), “The Talk of the Town” was ready to pounce.

The Fortune piece featured oil paintings by Stuyvesant Van Veen, including this one depicting the Proscenium at the Irving Place…

…Van Veen got behind the curtain to create this painting (below) of “Burlesque Queens,” and the magazine chastely demonstrated the “cycle of the strip act” with the help of Miss Jean Lee, aka Miss Jess Mack…

The New Yorker also took a sideways glance at Fortune’s stuffy approach to the subject of striptease, suggesting that it was much ado about nothing.

IT’S ALL AN ACT, FELLAS…**Gypsy Rose Lee** in 1943. (nypl.org)

* * *

Futures and Fascists

Before the days of television and the Internet, a world’s fair was the place to go to see the latest technologies and other attractions from countries around the world. Paris correspondent Janet Flanner filed a special report on the Brussels International Exposition of 1935, which attracted 20 million visitors in a little over six months.

EURO SPECTACLE…Clockwise, from top left, the menacing facade of the Italian Pavilion—its interior walls featured frescoes of marching fascists; the *Palais des Expositions* (*Grand Palais*) still stands today as the Brussels Exhibition Centre; an early demonstration of television; the U.S. featured an “Indian Village” at the Expo. (fomo.be/Wikimedia/en.worldsfairs.info)

* * *

Matchbox Cars

The New Yorker regularly checked the automobile competition from overseas, and found a tiny German car to be “perfectly amazing,” even if it didn’t go over so well with consumers.

IT’S CUTE, BUT…Due to its extreme unbalance of the Mercedes-Benz 130 H (two-thirds of the mass, including the engine, was on the rear axle), the car apparently was awkward to handle. It was discontinued in 1936. (automobile-catalog.com)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Anyway, most Americans preferred bigger cars, especially ones by luxury makers such as Lincoln, if they could afford them…

…Lincoln’s parent company, Ford, offered up a more affordable convertible with some flair of its own…automakers were fond of the marriage theme in advertisements, especially in the month of June…

…automakers and related industries were important advertisers during The New Yorker’s first years…

…indeed, the back cover of Issue #1 (Feb. 21, 1925) featured this ad from the United States Rubber Company, promoting its U.S. Royal Cord Balloon Tires…

…another faithful advertiser in the magazine’s first decade was the Bermuda Trade Development Board…

…this ad for Four Roses whiskey recalled “the glamorous days” (ahem) before the Civil War…

…and this colorful ad from World Peaceways reminded readers there was nothing to celebrate about wars…these ads pulled no punches (read the first few lines)…

…”most interesting country in the world today!” proclaimed this ad inviting tourists to the Soviet Union…during 1934-35 Joseph Stalin was ruthlessly purging the Party, and local leaders across the country were being annihilated…of the 2.3 million people who had been party members in 1935, just under half were executed or perished in labor camps…this fact probably wasn’t mentioned in the travel folder…

…the Webster Cigar Company hired Otto Soglow to create an ad doubtless based on the popularity of “The Little King,” but this isn’t the diminutive monarch…