Peter Arno – Page 16 – A New Yorker State of Mind

Son of Hammerstein

The Hammerstein name looms large in the history of both stage and screen, an extended family of theater impresarios and composers descended from the German-born Oscar Hammerstein I (1846 – 1919).

It was Oscar’s son, Arthur Hammerstein (1872 – 1955), who would bring the nostalgic musical Sweet Adeline to the Broadway stage, with music by Jerome Kern. Arthur’s nephew, Reginald Hammerstein, directed, and Reginald’s brother, Oscar Hammerstein II, provided the lyrics (and would later collaborate on such Broadway hits as Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music). Sweet Adeline opened on Sept. 3, 1929 at Arthur’s Hammerstein Theatre (known today as Ed Sullivan Theater), and the New Yorker’s Robert Benchley was on hand for opening night…

The title of the musical was a pun on the famous barbershop quartet song first published in 1903 — a time that seemed quaint to Jazz Agers. To get a sense of how rapidly American society had changed in the 1920s, in the paragraph above, Benchley referred to the musical’s setting (1898) as “old-time.” I’m not sure we would refer to 1987 as “old-time,” but who knows? Benchley continued…

OLD-FASHIONED FUN…Clockwise, from top left, the famed 1920s torch singer **Helen Morgan** (pictured on sheet music for one of her songs from the musical) starred as “Addie” in 1929’s *Sweet Adeline;* **Arthur Hammerstein** in undated photo; stage and screen actress and vaudeville comedian Irene Franklin portrayed a burlesque queen in the musical, while comedic actor **Charles Butterworth** played the part of a “young rounder.” (YouTube/findagrave.com/Wikipedia/lbarsanti.wordpress.com)

As for the performances by Helen Morgan (who more or less invented the torch singer’s boozy, draped-over-the-piano style), Benchley noted that her personality was “almost oppressively lush at times”…

A note regarding Helen Morgan: She began her career singing in Chicago speakeasies before moving to New York in the mid-1920s, where she continued to sing in nightclubs (including one attached to her name, Chez Morgan) while also performing on Broadway. Morgan became a heavy drinker, and was often drunk during performances (hence Benchley’s comment regarding her “lush personality”). Cirrhosis of the liver would claim Morgan’s life in 1941. The same disease would claim Benchley four years later.

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While we are the topic of Broadway, the Sept. 14 “Talk of the Town” featured a brief profile of John Murray Anderson, (1886 – 1954) who was celebrating the success of his own Broadway musical revue Almanac…

HE WORE MANY HATS…**John Murray Anderson** made his Broadway debut in 1919 as writer, director, and producer of *The Greenwich Village Follies*, which had a five-year run. At left, a cover for sheet music from a 1920 production. At right, postcard image of the Follies from 1922. (Pinterest)

In this excerpt, “Talk” recounted how Anderson finally hit it big in 1919 with his Greenwich Village Follies. It noted that he had a “genius”…

Clockwise from top left, *Almanac* featured comedians **Roy Atwell** and **Jimmy Savo**; singer and comedian Trixie Friganza; and actress **Eleanor Shaler**. (royatwell.net/American Vaudeville Museum/secondhandsongs.com/Pinterest)

…and a bit more about Anderson…

In Michael Maslin’s terrific book, Peter Arno: The Mad, Mad World of The New Yorker’s Greatest Cartoonist, Maslin notes that Arno “was whisked onto the Manhattan theater scene by Murray Anderson, whose twenty-nine scene Almanac opened to excellent reviews at the two-year-old Erlanger Theater, just off Times Square.” Maslin cites the famed New York columnist O.O. McIntyre, who wrote “Arno was one of several ‘conspirators’ responsible for Broadway backdrops whose ‘exaggerated whimsicalities…in black and white…when unfolded usually get what Variety calls a belly laugh.'”

At left, **Peter Arno** contributed this advertisement for Camel cigarettes in the Playbill edition for *Almanac*; top right, **John Murray Anderson** at work; cover for sheet music from the revue. (attemptedbloggery.blogspot.com / Wikipedia)

And in the following issue of The New Yorker (Sept. 21), Peter Arno contributed this drawing for the theater review section (it doesn’t entirely look like an Arno, but then again his style at this time seemed to fluctuate almost weekly)…

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Flapper Joan

No stranger to Broadway herself, the young actress Joan Crawford was making a name for herself in Hollywood and garnering consistently positive reviews from the New Yorker’s film critic John Mosher, who found that the 25-year-old actress— who portrayed a fun-loving flapper in Modern Maidens — could shine even in the midst of an average screenplay:

THEY’RE NOT ACTING…At top, **Douglas Fairbanks Jr.** and Joan Crawford in MGM’s *Our Modern Maidens* (1929). The film led to a widely publicized romance and marriage between the co-stars; below, publicity photo for the film, with (from left) **Josephine Dunn, Crawford,** and Anita Page. (IMDB/joancrawfordbest.com)

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Silence is Golden

Cultural critic Gilbert Seldes contributed a casual titled “In a Loud Voice With the Tongues of Angels,” joining the chorus of voices at The New Yorker skeptical of (but resigned to) the advent of sound motion pictures. Excerpts:

SOMETHING HAS COME BETWEEN US…a microphone moves in close on **Spencer Tracy** and **Bette Davis** in a scene from 1932’s *20,000 Years In Sing Sing.* (cinecollage.net)

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Das Speedboat

“The Talk of the Town” reported on the fuss created by the German passenger liner Bremen after it completed its maiden voyage to New York. It set a new world record in the process — four days, 17 hours, and 42 minutes later —and captured the westbound “Blue Riband” from the famed Mauretania with an average speed of 27.83 knots (the Blue Riband was an unofficial honor bestowed on the fastest passenger liners crossing the Atlantic)…

LOWRIDER…Top, the low, streamlined profile of the *Bremen* against the backdrop of the New York skyline. Center and below, among its many unique features, the Bremen had a catapult on the upper deck between the two funnels that launched a small seaplane, which facilitated faster mail service ahead of the ship’s arrival. (YouTube/nnapprentice.com)

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Up In Smoke

Another “Talk” item explored the decline of cigar and pipe smokers thanks to the rise of cigarette advertising (and women smokers) in the 1920s…

…as an aside, it appeared golfer Walter Egan was still a pipe smoker, as this illustration by Johan Bull for the issue’s “Tee and Green” column attested…

…”Talk” laid the blame (or the credit) on Lucky Strike’s successful ad campaigns that that particularly made a “big impression” on women…

…and to begin our advertising section, a Lucky Strike ad from the same issue:

…the Liggett & Myers tobacco company, on the other hand, promoted their Fatima brand as a higher quality, and slightly more expensive, alternative…

…in this ad for The Shelton Looms we find the elongated style popular in fashion ads of the era…the illustration is by LeBrun, but also evokes the style of Carl “Eric” Erickson, known for his Camel ad illustrations of the same period…

…and now a couple of ads from the back pages: the ad at left promoted a “country style” supper club near Washington Square. I haven’t found a record (yet) for the County Fair, but it was one of the themed restaurants Don Dickerman operated around Greenwich Village before the Depression (Dickerman, an illustrator, also provided the art for the ad)…the ad on the right—for Odorono deodorant— appeared regularly in the back pages of The New Yorker, illustrated by the magazine’s own Julian De Miskey. The ads featured vignettes of unfortunate young women whose B.O. was so bad that it caused all potential suitors to flee…

…on to our cartoons, Al Frueh (artist of the first two cartoons in The New Yorker’s first issue)…contributed another of his familiar multi-panel “silent” cartoons…

…I like the modern feel of this cartoon by William Crawford Galbraith…

…and we close with a couple of cartoons under the moonlight, by Bruce Bairnsfather…

…and Peter Arno…at the Central Park Casino…

Next Time: Looking Ahead to 1979…

The Last Hurrah

Avery Hopwood’s 1919 Broadway hit, The Gold Diggers, was among cultural events of the late teens that signaled the dawn of new age; namely, the Jazz Age.

So it seems appropriate that the play, when adapted to the screen in 1929 as a Technicolor talkie, would also signal the end of that age. As the New Yorker’s film critic John Mosher observed in his review of The Gold Diggers of Broadway, the themes that seemed new and daring a decade earlier had been played out, the “general humors” of the picture having “become very familiar”…

The film featured Nancy Welford, Winnie Lightner and Ann Pennington as three chorus girls who try to entice a wealthy backer to invest money in their struggling Broadway show. The film was a big hit, and it made a star of Winnie Lightner (1899-1971), who played the boldest “Gold Digger” of the trio.

PROSPECTORS…Clockwise from top left, **Ina Claire** as the original “Gold Digger” with **Bruce McRae** in the 1919 Broadway play *The Gold Diggers*; lobby card for the 1929 film *Gold Diggers of Broadway*; image from the film’s “Tiptoe Thru the Tulips” song-and-dance number; **Winnie Lightner** works her charms on **Albert Gran** in a scene from the film. (Wikipedia/IMDB/TCM-YouTube)

IT’S FUN MAKING PICTURES…**Helen Foster, Ann Pennington, Nancy Welford** and **William Bakewell** in a publicity photo from 1929’s *Gold Diggers of Broadway.* (IMDB)

Lightner wasn’t the only actor to steal the show. The film also proved a winner for crooner Nick Lucas (1897-1982), who performed two hit songs written for the movie — “Painting the Clouds with Sunshine” and “Tiptoe through the Tulips.” Yes, that second song was the very same tune Tiny Tim rode to fame nearly 40 years later.

TIPTOE THROUGH HISTORY…At left, **Nick Lucas** sings what would be become his signature song “Tiptoe through the Tulips” to **Lilyan Tashman** in the *Gold Diggers of Broadway.* At right, forty years later, Lucas sang the song on *The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson* (apparently using the same guitar) on the occasion of singer **Tiny Tim’s** televised wedding to Victoria Mae Budinger (“Miss Vicky”). Tiny Tim (inset) also made “Tiptoe through the Tulips” his signature song, although his was a campier version, sung in a falsetto, vibrato voice accompanied by his trademark ukulele. (YouTube)

The Gold Diggers of Broadway was a “pre-code” film, that is, a film made during a brief period of the early sound era (roughly 1929 through mid-1934) when censorship codes were not enforced and many films openly depicted themes ranging from promiscuity and prostitution to amoral acts of violence.

A LEG UP ON THE CENSORS…Warner Brothers publicity photo of **Dorothy Mackaill**, who played a secretary-turned-prostitute in 1931’s Safe in Hell. (Wikipedia)

Those unenforced codes had their origins in the early 1920s. In response to outcries from preachers and politicians alike over the immortality of Hollywood (both on- and off-screen), the president of Paramount Pictures, Adolph Zukor — fearing that cries for censorship would cut into his profits — called a February 1921 meeting of his studio rivals at Delmonico’s restaurant on 5th Avenue. At the meeting Zukor (1873-1976) distributed a set of 14 rules that would guide every Paramount production (Zukor’s studio at that time was actually known as Famous Players-Lasky). The rules covered everything from “improper sex attraction” to “unnecessary depictions of bloodshed.”

It was also Zukor’s idea to appoint the former U.S. Postmaster General, Will Hays, as President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. It would be Hays’ job to enforce the code and generally “clean up” Hollywood. However, until mid-1934 both Hays and the code served mostly as publicity ploys to keep the preachers and politicians off the backs of studio execs.

Zukor was profiled by Niven Busch, Jr. in the Sept. 7 issue (with portrait by George Shellhase). In his opening paragraph, Busch commented on “Pop” Zukor’s efforts to stave off the censors:

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Delmonico’s Redux

The famed Delmonico’s restaurant that provided the setting for Adolph Zukor’s “14 rules” meeting in 1921 closed its doors in 1923, a victim of Prohibition (more people dined at home, where they could still drink). Writing in the Sept. 7 “Talk of the Town,” Bernard A. Bergman described plans for the long-awaited opening of a new Delmonico’s in a skyscraper bearing the same name…

RICH DESSERTS…Dinner in honor of French Navy Admiral **Paul Campion** at the old Delmonico’s in 1906. (Wikipedia/Library of Congress)

AND SALAD DAYS…Delmonico’s wait staff pose for a photograph in 1902. (Museum of the City of New York)

A former Delmonico’s chef, Nicholas Sabatini, hoped to bring back some of old waiters and cooks from the restaurant’s glory days, but it seemed most were far too long in the tooth. It is unclear if he ever got his dream off the ground, or if the grill room was able to crank out fare comparable to that of the old Delmonico’s. Probably not…

THE KITCHEN IS CLOSED…The 1928 Hotel Delmonico, as shown in a 1937 photograph. It was purchased by Donald Trump in 2002 and converted into luxury condominiums. It would not host a great restaurant, but the Beatles would stay there in 1964. (New York Public Library)

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Relax. You’re in Omaha

E.B. White’s “Notes and Comment” entry in the Sept. 7 “Talk of the Town” described travel on the Union Pacific’s Overland Limited, and the “mystic dividing line” that separated laid-back Westerners from buttoned-up Easterners:

MIND YOUR MANNERS, AT LEAST UNTIL YOU LEAVE CHICAGO…Tinted photo postcard depicting the dining car on a Union Pacific train that traveled the Chicago to Denver route in the 1920s. (myutahparks.com)

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Write What You Know

The Wisconsin-born Marion Clinch Calkins (1895 – 1968) often wrote humorous rhymes for The New Yorker under the pen name Majollica Wattles. While many writers reveled in the party atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties, Calkins worked as a vocational counselor and social worker at Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement. This experience doubtless led her to more serious writing after the 1929 market crash — her critically acclaimed book, Some Folks Won’t Work (1930), is considered a seminal document on the Great Depression.

But in September 1929, Calkins was still in a humorous vein, and published this satirical piece on the role of an ideal housewife in the Sept. 7 issue. Excerpts:

CALL ME CLINCH…**Marion Clinch Calkins** circa 1905 and 1945. She wrote under the name of Clinch Calkins because she wanted her authorship to be gender-neutral. (evansvillehistory.net/NEH)

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Information Please

The New Yorker’s art critic Murdock Pemberton did not suffer fools gladly, and whenever the local museums seemed less than up to snuff, he was there to provide some correctional advice…

NEED AN AUDIO GUIDE? STILL WORKING ON THAT…The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s H.O. Havemeyer Collection, 1930. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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From Our Advertisers

Despite the advances made by women in the 1920s, they still lived under a patriarchy, especially when it came to the patrician classes. And so the young bride of Gifford Pinchot II was identified only as a “Mrs.” in the headline for this Pond’s cold cream ad…

…Mrs. Gifford Pinchot II was actually Janine Voisin (1910-2010). She must have had more than a healthy complexion, as she lived 100 years…

**Janine Voisin Pinchot** in 1933. (history.blogberth.com)

Another woman known for her beauty in the 1920s was the model Marion Morehouse (who was married to poet E.E. Cummings from 1934 until his death in 1962). Considered by some to be the first “supermodel,” I include an image of Morehouse below (right) to demonstrate how artists exaggerated the female form in fashion ads of the day…

…the body wasn’t the only thing subject to exaggeration, or hyperbole, as this ad from Harper’s Bazar attested in defining the exclusivity of its readership…

…the New York Sun also appealed to social mores in an attempt to sell more newspapers…

…the Curtiss Robin Flying Service touted their latest achievement — the St. Louis Robin being refueled during its flight to a new world’s endurance record of 420 hours — greatly surpassing the record of 150 hours set by the Army’s “Question Mark” airplane at the beginning of 1929…

…our cartoonists from the Sept. 7 issue include Gluyas Williams, who had some fun at the expense of Alice Foote MacDougall, who was the “Starbucks” of her day, at least in New York…

…MacDougall turned her coffee business into a restaurant empire in the 1920s. She opened several restaurants in Manhattan, all decorated in a signature style meant to evoke European cafés…

EURO AMBIENCE…Interior of **Alice Foote MacDougall’s** *Firenze*, 6 West 46th Street, New York City, 1925. (New York Historical Society)

…other cartoons included this commentary on public advertising by Leonard Dove…

…Peter Arno’s unique take on the seafaring life…

…Helen Hokinson eavesdropped on some tween talk…

…and Alan Dunn gave us some perspective on the fast pace of city life…

Next Time: From Stage to Screen…

A Carnival in the Air

When Charles Lindbergh gunned his Wright Whirlwind engine on Roosevelt Field and took to the skies on his historic flight, he sparked such an interest in flying that just two years later that very same field was hosting huge weekend crowds that came to marvel at the airborne wonders of a new age.

August 31, 1929 cover by **Theodore Haupt.**

Writing for “The Talk of the Town,” James Thurber was on hand to take in the spectacle, noting how the announcer sold air-mindedness to the mob “in great clamorous phrases and resonant assurances.” Among those taking their first flight was a “Mr. Galleger, aged 101.” Thurber also observed:

AIRBORNE SPECTACLES…Clockwise, from top, a 1931 aerial view looking southeast at a group of Army twin-engine biplane bombers overflying Roosevelt Field; parachute records were broken when 14 men and 2 women leaped from a Sikorsky bombing plane at Roosevelt Field in November 1929 (in the photo they seem to be standing precariously close to the plane’s whirling blades); **Jack Cope** waved to onlookers in Chicago before he performed a 15,000 foot jump in 1929. (tripod.com/Worthpoint/*Chicago Tribune*)

Although there were thrills galore up in the sky, Thurber seemed equally impressed by the spectacle on the ground…

THE SUN GOD…Clockwise, from top, a 1928 photo of biplanes lined up by a row of hangars at Roosevelt Field; the spectacle of mid-air refueling was demonstrated above Roosevelt Field by Texaco Oil’s *Spokane Sun God*. (Tom Heitzman/barnstmr.blogspot.com/Wikipedia)

One of the big attractions was Texaco Oil’s Spokane Sun God, which traveled around the country to demonstrate the art of mid-air refueling. Note in the excerpt below (second paragraph) how the Sun God’s pilot communicated with his ground crew: He tossed some notes—tied to a heavy piece of lead(!)—out of the airplane’s window. It nearly landed in a crowd of onlookers…

AND HOW WAS *YOUR* DAY?…For some perspective, the first attempt at refueling in mid-air was made in 1921. In the photo above, **Wesley May** climbs from the lower biplane to the upper while carrying a 5-gallon can of fuel strapped to his back. After lifting himself onto the wing, he worked his way between the wings and into the cockpit. He then poured the fuel into the engine. (Seattle Museum of Flight)

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Falling Short

As I noted in a previous post (The Last Summer), the race to build the tallest building was erroneously reported by The New Yorker as a man against himself (namely, architect William Van Allen). In the Aug. 31 issue, the magazine’s “Talk of the Town” corrected the error, and added another curious note about another plan to build an “airplane lighthouse” taller than the Eiffel Tower…

As noted above, Col. Edward Howland Robinson Green (son of the notorious miser Hetty Green) wanted to build a thousand-foot tower on his estate in Massachusetts. Here is what he settled for instead:

WORK-LIFE BALANCE…**Edward Green**, radio enthusiast and son of the miserly **Hetty Green**, erected huge radio towers at his Massachusetts estate in the 1920s to operate an early broadcast station, WMAF. (Wikipedia)

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When Trains Fly

Cashing in on the enthusiasm over aviation, the City of New York promoted its elevated train system as an “Air Line.” According to “Talk”…

Click on the video below to take a ride on the “L”. Most of the 1929 footage begins at 4:47…

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Haw Haw

One more “Talk” item: a self-referential piece in which The New Yorker pondered its “mission” as a humor magazine…

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Audax Minor

For more than five decades, George Francis Trafford Ryall (1887-1979) wrote the horse racing column for the New Yorker under the pseudonym Audax Minor. He published his first column on July 10, 1926, and his last on Dec. 18, 1978. He was the writer of longest record at the magazine when he died at age 92 in 1979 (52 years, a record that has been shattered by the nearly 98-year-old Roger Angell, who has published in the New Yorker from 1944 to 2018).

According to Ryall’s obituary in the New York Times, he adopted the nom de plume Audax Minor in a nod to Arthur F. B. Portman, who wrote about racing in England under the name of Audax Major. Ryall’s writing was so entertaining that many of his readers had never even been to a racetrack. According to Brendan Gill in his book, Here at the New Yorker, “(Ryall’s) world is a romantic fiction and they (the readers) are grateful when they learn that, with his green tweeds, his binoculars hung smartly athwart his chest, and his jaunty stride, Ryall resembles a character out of some sunny Edwardian novel.” An excerpt of his column from the Aug. 31 issue, with illustrations by Johan Bull:

A DAY AT THE RACES…At left, a crowded second floor dining area in the clubhouse at Saratoga, 1929; a postcard image of the track, with expanded clubhouse at left, circa 1929. (Saratoga Springs Historical Museum/Boston Public Library)

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Shut Out

As I’ve noted before, the New Yorker covered nearly every imaginable sport except baseball. Here is a rare mention of the game in Howard Brubaker’s “Of All Things” column:

The Cubs would win the NL pennant, but they would fall to the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1929 World Series.

Rough and Ready

When Fiorello La Guardia challenged incumbent Jimmy Walker for New York City mayor in 1929, the city’s voters were presented with two colorful candidates who could not have been more different in their styles. Walker, a product of Tammany Hall, was a svelte dandy with a taste for the refined, whereas the reform-minded La Guardia was often coarse and unkempt. If they had anything in common, it was their dislike of Prohibition. La Guardia was featured in the Aug. 31 profile, written by Henry F. Pringle. Some excerpts:

JUST TRY TO STOP ME…Congressman Fiorello La Guardia pouring beer in his office during Prohibition, when he served New York’s 20th district in U.S. House of Representatives. (La Guardia Wagner Archives)

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Praise for the King

The New Yorker’s film critic John Mosher found most of Hollywood’s output to be pedestrian, but occasionally he saw a bright spot, including King Vidor’s latest production, Hallelujah:

**William E. Fountaine, Nina Mae McKinney** and Daniel Haynes in Hallelujah. The 17-year-old McKinney was the first African-American actress to hold a principal role in a mainstream film, and the first African-American actor to sign a long-term contract with a major studio—MGM. (IMDB)

As for another film, Paramount’s The Sophomore, Mosher probably felt a bit obligated to say something nice, since it was a derived from a story by humorist Corey Ford, an early contributor to The New Yorker and part of the Algonquin Round Table orbit:

BOY MEETS GIRL…Lobby card for *The Sophomore.* (IMDB)

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A Bright Interval

The New Yorker gave a brief but approving mention of Nancy Hoyt’s latest book, Bright Intervals, in its book review section…

Hoyt was a member of a socially prominent but deeply troubled family that included her recently deceased sister, the poet and writer Elinor Wylie (I wrote about the Hoyt family in my post Generation of Vipers). Characters in Hoyt’s novels often resembled the women in her family.

**Nancy Hoyt** in an undated photo by **Sherril Schell**. (Conde Nast/Amazon)

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From Our Advertisers

It was back to college time, and Macy’s had a thrifty new fall lineup ready for the “Junior Deb”…

…and on the less thrifty side, Best & Company offered these new looks for fall…

…note in the above ad that the first model is Virginia Maurice, the very same model we encountered in a recent post (The Last Summer) posing for Chesterfield cigarettes…

Model **Virginia Maurice** posed for this 1929 Chesterfield ad, illustrated by artist Charles Edward Chambers.

…the other model in the Best & Company ad, Babs Shanton, also wasn’t averse to taking money from the tobacco companies…

Undated newspaper ad for Lucky Strikes featuring **Babs Shanton,** a sometime performer with the Ziegfeld Follies and a singer with the Lucky Strike Dance Orchestra. (Stanford University)

…the makers of Studebakers tried to add sex appeal in this ad for their President Roadster. The artist was obviously challenged to work all of the necessary elements into the picture—car, swimming pool, diving board—not to mention the block of superfluous text where the steps to this impossibly long diving board should have been located…

…and sex not only sold cars…its also sold printing services…

…instead of sex, the promoters of Tudor City chose strangulation to get their pitch across, equating a man’s daily train commute to death at the gallows (“Danny Deevers” refers to a character in a Rudyard Kipling poem who is hanged for murder)…

…the gawkers at Roosevelt Field weren’t the only folks with their heads in the clouds…an ad for Flit insecticide by Dr. Seuss…

…this ad for Raleigh cigarettes, which appeared on the back cover of the Aug. 31 issue, assumed that folks were so familiar with their mascot that no further explanation was needed…

…here is a 1929 ad from House Beautiful that featured the same mascot with the Van Dyke beard…both ads were rendered by French illustrator Guy Arnoux…

…on to our cartoonists…Helen Hokinson contributed this two-page spread on the challenges of visiting an old friend (click to enlarge)…

…Peter Arno looked in on a cheapskate at a posh restaurant…

…Bruce Bairnsfather visited the talkies…

…Justin Herman examined the literary life of the street…

…Carl Kindl explored an awkward moment from the annals of technological advancements…

…and Isadore Klein illustrated the hazards of the tonsorial trade…

Next Time: The Last Hurrah…

Hooray for Hollywood

MGM piled so many stars and gimmicks into the premiere of The Hollywood Revue of 1929 that even The New Yorker’s jaded film critic John Mosher had to admit he was entertained.

Aug. 24, 1929 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

Although today’s audiences would find the film quaint and corny (not to mention its tinny sound and crude editing), it was a big hit in 1929. A plotless revue featuring nearly all of MGM’s stars (Greta Garbo said no — she had a clause in her contract exempting her from such silly things; Lon Chaney, on the other hand, was in failing health), the film followed a variety format similar to such vaudeville productions as the Ziegfeld Follies. The Arthur Freed/Herb Nacio Brown song “Singin’ In the Rain” was introduced in this film, and would inspire the Gene Kelley musical by the same name 23 years later. A rarity for the time, the Hollywood Revue included four skits in an early version of Technicolor, including an all-cast performance of “Singing’ In the Rain.” Mosher observed:

One of the film’s color skits featured John Gilbert and Norma Shearer in a Romeo and Juliet parody filled with Jazz Age slang. It would mark the beginning of the end of Gilbert’s career and, sadly, his life. He was one of the silent era’s most popular leading men, but it was purported that his voice was not suited to the talkies. What really ended Gilbert’s career, however, was studio head Louis B. Mayer, who clashed with the actor both personally and professionally…

FAREWELL ROMEO…A lobby card promoting *The Hollywood Revue of 1929* featured John Gilbert and **Norma Shearer** in one the film’s color sequences, a parody of Romeo and Juliet filled with Jazz Age slang. At right, a scene from the skit in which the director (played by Lionel Barrymore, far right) tells Shearer and Gilbert to put more pizzazz into the act. (IMDB/YouTube)

STAR-STUDDED…Left to right, early silent film comedian **Marie Dressler** hammed it up in a royal court skit; co-emcee **Jack Benny,** with his trademark violin, and **Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards,** and his trademark uke. (vickielester.com/doctormacro.com/thejumpingfrog.com)

DANCING IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH…Chorus girl **Carla Laemmle** in the film’s “Tableau of Jewels,” in which she emerged from a seashell to perform a seductive (and weird) dance number while other showgirls posed on a revolving crown — all set to a tune sung offstage by **James Burroughs.** The niece of Universal Pictures founder **Carl Laemmle**, Carla Laemmle was one of the longest surviving actors of the silent era. She died in 2014 at age 104. (songbook1.wordpress.com)

GALAXY OF STARS…Clockwise, from top left, lobby card for *The Hollywood Revue of 1929*; **Charles King, Joan Crawford, Conrad Nagel** (a co-emcee along with Jack Benny) and **Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards** show off their dancing skills; lobby card featuring actress **Marion Davies**; a popular act in vaudeville and on Broadway, the **Brox Sisters—Lorayne, Patricia and** **Bobbe** (along with Cliff Edwards) introduced the song “Singin’ in the Rain,” also sung by the entire cast near the finale of the movie. (IMDB/joancrawfordbest.com/mubi.com)

…MGM deployed a number of stunts to generate publicity at the film’s New York premiere at the Astor Theatre, including a “human billboard” that featured scantily clad chorus girls precariously perched on a huge letters high above the theatre’s entrance. In a rather less dangerous stunt—during the movie’s “Orange Blossom Time” skit—a faint scent of orange blossoms wafted into the theatre. “The Talk of the Town” observed…

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?…Showgirls arranged along narrow catwalks atop the glowing HOLLYWOOD REVUE sign would pose for hours above crowds of gawkers; top, an advertisement promoting “The Stunt of the Century”; bottom, chorus girls lined up on somewhat safer ground in a skit from the movie titled “Lon Chaney’s Gonna Get You If You Don’t Watch Out.” Chaney himself was near death and did not appear in the film. (oldphotoarchive.com/anndvorak.com)

Another angle shows just how precarious this stunt proved to be for these brave chorus girls, who held their poses for hours on end. (legendaryjoancrawford.com)

JUST SINGIN’…Among the MGM stars appearing in the film’s finale include, in the middle of the front row, **Buster Keaton, Marion Davies,** and Joan Crawford. (IMDB)

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Technological Adjustments

Had you attended the premiere of The Hollywood Revue, perhaps you would have appreciated James Thurber’s observation that actors in talking pictures sound as if they are speaking into cracker boxes. In this hilarious piece (titled “The Roaring Talkies”), he proposed a solution. An excerpt:

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A Happy Diversion

“The Talk of the Town” (via Theodore Pratt) looked in on the hobbyists who raced model boats at Central Park’s Conservatory Lake, a happy tradition that began in the late 19th century and continues to this day:

A DAY AT THE RACES….Model sailboats (left) prepare to face off in 1910 at Conservatory Lake (also called Conservatory Water); at right, model sailors at the same lake around 1920. (Library of Congress)

Pratt also described the old wooden boathouse, which was replaced in 1954 with a somewhat grander structure, Kerbs Boathouse, where model boats are still stored…

STILL SAILING…The copper-roofed Kerbs Boathouse replaced a wooden structure in 1954. Conservatory Lake served as the setting for a model boat race in E.B. White’s *Stuart Little.* (centralparknyc.org)

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On the Other Hand…

Leaving the cool and quiet of the park brought one quickly back into the dust and clamor of the metropolis. Pratt observed that the summer season lasted two weeks longer in the city than in the country, thanks to the city’s heat island effect— perhaps an unwelcome observation given the usually hot summer of 1929. Not only did the city’s heat extend the season, but it also kept the city enveloped in “an enormous cloud of dust”…

HAZY DAYS OF SUMMER…A dusty haze hangs over Lower Manhattan as the Third Avenue elevated train rumbles by in this circa 1950 photo. (Associated Press)

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Already Feeling Old?

I found this “Talk” item curious for exploring the sentimental attachment some folks had developed for old cars from the 1910s, given those cars were barely twenty years old and cars in general hadn’t been in common use much longer…

…as for another “Talk” item, I doubt modern New Yorker readers would find any humor in this observation:

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On to sillier things, Robert Benchley turned in a casual titled “Boost New York!” Benchley ridiculed a promotional brochure from the New York Merchants Association that touted various statistics in a manner reminiscent of the fictional George Babbitt. Benchley imagined how an Iowa couple might respond to such dazzling numbers:

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A Drinking Life

Occasionally I like to feature infrequent or one-time New Yorker contributors who are nearly lost to history. Frank Ward O’Malley (1875-1932), a reporter for the New York Sun from 1906-19, was known for his humorous stories. In 1928 he published a book titled The Swiss Family O’Malley. In this casual (titled “The Fatty Degeneration of Broadway”) from the Aug. 24 issue, O’Malley described an alcohol intervention of sorts and then his fall off the wagon. Here are the opening and closing paragraphs, along with his photo circa 1910s.

Frank Ward O’Malley (Library of Congress)

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From Our Advertisers

This week we have an advertisement for the Drake Apartment Hotel, claiming to be the “smartest” in New York. Note how they employed what seems to be the same pointy-nosed, haughty couple that we saw last week (below) who endorsed the Park Lane (I want to believe there is a subtle joke here)…

…just 25 years removed from the Wright Brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk, advertisers were treating flying as though it were routine…

A better photo of the Ireland Neptune Amphipian (aerofiles.com)

…and this young woman seemed to think flying was nothing more than “playing ring around the rosy with the clouds”…

…I like the reviews included in this bookseller’s ad, especially the first one for the book Ex-Wife by Anonymous (it was written by Ursula Parrott, a writer of romantic fiction)…

…our illustrations include Abe Birnbaum’s contribution to the casuals section (breaking up the copy of one of Josie Turner’s Elsie Dinsmore parodies)…

…Reginald Marsh illustrated the late summer beach scene at Coney Island…

…and for kicks this nice little filler by Constantin Alajalov…

…thanks to the skills of The New Yorker’s first layout artist, Popsy Whitaker, we have this whimsical pairing of Otto Soglow and Dorothy Parker…

…Mary Petty contributed a cartoon that looks contemporary…

…Peter Arno paid a visit to the doctor’s office…

…and commented on his life as a new father…the woman holding the baby was doubtless inspired by his wife, New Yorker columnist Lois Long…

…for reference, Peter Arno and Lois Long are pictured here with baby daughter Patricia Arno in 1928…Lois clearly had a better grasp on the situation than Arno had imagined…

Arno and Long with their baby daughter, Patricia, in 1928. (Vanity Fair)

…Alice Harvey eavesdropped on a conversation between teenagers…

…and like Arno, Leonard Dove had two cartoons in this issue…here an editor finds the former Prohibition enforcer no longer newsworthy…

…and over on the East Side, rumors of gentrification…

Next Time: A Carnival in the Air…

The Last Summer

Winding down the last summer of the 1920s — an unusually hot one — one detects subtle changes in The New Yorker’s mood; weary from the decade-long party known as the Roaring Twenties, a bit more mature, and more confident in its voice thanks to the regular writings of James Thurber, E.B. White and Lois Long and copious cartoons and illustrations by such notables as Peter Arno, Barbara Shermund and Helen Hokinson that gave the magazine a distinctively modern feel as it headed into the 1930s.

Aug. 10, 1929 cover by **Theodore Haupt**; Aug. 17 cover by Peter Arno.

The exuberance associated with the rapidly changing skyline was still there, however, as the Aug. 17 “Talk of the Town” speculated on the race for the world’s tallest building. The article not only anticipated an architect’s sleight of hand, but also a Zeppelin docking station that in the end would top the world’s tallest building:

As it turned out, William Van Alen did not have to compete against himself, the commission for One Wall Street instead going to Ralph Walker, who would design a beautiful art deco landmark that, at 50 stories, would not vie for the title of the world’s tallest building. Unbeknownst to The New Yorker, and perhaps Van Alen, the challenger would instead be 40 Wall Street, which would hold the crown as world’s tallest for about a month. Thanks to some sleight of hand (see caption below) the Chrysler building would quickly surpass 40 Wall Street and hold the title for just eleven months, bested in the end by the Empire State Building (which would sport a “Zeppelin superstructure”).

DECO DELIGHTS…40 Wall Street (left) vied with the Chrysler Building for the title of the world’s tallest building. The 927-foot 40 Wall Street would claim the title in late April 1930. One month later, the Chrysler building would sprout a needle-like spire (secretly constructed inside the building) bringing its total height to 1,046 feet. The builders of 40 Wall Street cried foul and claimed that their building contained the world’s highest usable floor, whereas the Chrysler’s spire was strictly ornamental and inaccessible. Less than a year later the point was made moot when the Empire State Building soared above them both. (Wikipedia/The Skyscraper Museum)

ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION…Clockwise, from top left, progression of designs for the Chrysler Building; the building’s architect, **William Van Alen**; drawing from *Popular Science Monthly* (Aug. 1930) revealed the inner workings of the spire’s clandestine construction; Zeppelin docking station for the Empire State Building as imagined in a composite (faked) photograph. At 1,250 feet, the wind-whipped mooring mast proved not only impractical, but downright dangerous. In September 1931 a dirigible briefly lashed itself to the mast in 40 mph winds, and two weeks later the Goodyear Blimp *Columbia* managed to deliver a stack of *Evening Journals* to a man stationed on the tower. Contrary to the faked photograph, no passengers ever transferred from the tower to a Zeppelin. (Skyscraper City/Wikipedia/*NY Times*)

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What, Me Worry?

The famously flamboyant New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker lived the easy life during his initial years as Hizzonner, riding a booming economy, partying with the rich and famous (while flaunting Prohibition laws), carousing with his mistress (Ziegfield dancer Betty Compton) and sleeping until noon. When reform-minded Fiorello La Guardia challenged Walker’s reelection bid in 1929, Walker left the dirty work to his Tammany Hall cronies and continued to charm the public, and The New Yorker. The Aug. 17 “Talk of the Town” observed:

IT’S EASY BEING ME…Mayor **Jimmy Walker** accompanied actress Colleen Moore to the October 1928 premiere of her latest film, *Lilac Time.* (konreioldnewyork.blogspot.com)

I HAVE MY EYE ON YOU…Reform-minded **Fiorello La Guardia** (right) detested **Jimmy Walker** and his Tammany cronies, but that wasn’t enough to get him elected in 1929. The Great Depression would soon turn the tables. (Wikipedia)

Howard Brubaker, in his Aug. 17 “Of All Things” column, suggested that La Guardia had a zero chance of getting elected. Just three years later, Walker would resign amid scandal and flee to Europe. La Guardia, on the other hand, would be elected to the first of his three terms as mayor in 1933, riding the wave of the New Deal.

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Peek-A-Boo

Politics might have been business as usual, but in the world of fashion the vampish hat styles associated with flappers were giving way to a new rolled-brim look that seemed to suggest an aviator’s helmet. In her Aug. 17 fashion column “On and Off the Avenue,” Lois Long reported:

FACING THE FUTURE…Vampish hats of 1928, pictured at top, gave way to the rolled-brim or flare look of 1929. (Images gleaned from magazine/catalog images posted on Pinterest)

Long seemed to welcome the idea that women should once again bare their foreheads…

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Twain Wreck

Jumping back to the Aug. 10 issue, “The Talk of the Town” reported on the possible remodeling or demolition of a house once occupied by Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. The house in question was a lavish old mansion built by Henry Brevoort, Jr. in 1834, at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 9th Street. Twain lived in the house from 1905 to 1908, and it was there that Twain’s biographer Albert Paine conducted interviews with the author and wrote the four-volume Mark Twain, a Biography; The Personal and Literary Life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. When millionaires abandoned their Fifth Avenue mansions in the 1920s and high-rise apartments took their place, there was pressure to either convert an old mansion like the Breevoort house at 21 Fifth Avenue to apartments or demolish it altogether.

LOOKING GOOD AFTER A CENTURY…At left, **Berenice Abbott** took this photograph of No. 21 Fifth Avenue in 1935. At right, in a close-up shot from the same period, the 1924 plaque from the Greenwich Village Historical Society is visible on the side of the house. (Museum of the City of New York/Greenwich Village Historical Society)

A NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT…A proposed 1929 remodeling (left) moved the front door of the old Brevoort mansion to the center and lowered it to street level. At right, today the 1955 Brevoort apartment house occupies the site. (daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com)

The Greenwich Village Historical Society did what it could to save the house, and in 1924 affixed a bronze plaque to a side wall noting that both Twain and Washington Irving were once occupants. When the house was slated for demolition in 1954, the Society appealed to New Yorkers to raise the $70,000 needed to move the building, but only a fraction of that amount was secured. No. 21 was demolished in 1954 along with the rest of the houses on that block.

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Charles Edward Chambers was an American illustrator probably best known for his Chesterfield ads, although he also illustrated stories for a number of popular magazines from the early 1900s until his death in 1941. The Aug. 10 “Talk of the Town” looked in on his work with model Virginia Maurice:

QUICK…THROW THAT MAN A CIGARETTE!…Examples of **Charles Edward Chambers’** Chesterfield ads from 1929 featuring model **Virginia Maurice.** Note that Maurice is wearing the latest “rolled brim” hat style in the upper image. (Pinterest)

HIS NONSMOKING SECTION…A 1919 *Harper’s* cover illustration by **Charles Edward Chambers.** (Wikipedia)

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Mama’s Boy

Lou Gehrig rivaled Babe Ruth as a top Murderer’s Row slugger for the 1929 Yankees, yet he couldn’t be more opposite in his lifestyle. A teetotaler and nonsmoker, Gehrig was completely devoted to mom (pictured below in 1927). Niven Busch Jr. submitted this profile of Gehrig for the Aug. 10 issue. Excerpts:

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After appearing as Al Jolson’s dying son in The Singing Fool (1928), the child actor Davey Lee returned to the screen for yet another Jolson weeper, 1929’s Say It With Songs. Once again portraying Jolson’s son—this time crippled and rendered dumb after being hit by a truck—he miraculously recovers at the end of the film. The New Yorker wasn’t having any of this sentimental treacle, especially served up for a second time…

LET’S PRAY FOR A BIG BOX OFFICE…**Davey Lee** and **Al Jolson** in *Say It With Songs.* (IMDB)

…and the magazine hoped for something a bit less somber from Jolson in the future, suggesting that he “give the tragic muse the air”…

In the same issue of The New Yorker, this advertisement touted Jolson’s recording of “Little Pal” from Say It With Songs (note the blackface image of Jolson—his unfortunate trademark back in the day)…

…happily, there were other movies that offered less schmaltzy diversions, including Norma Shearer’s comedy-drama The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, in which Shearer portrayed the jewel thief Fay Cheyney…

OH BASIL YOU ANIMAL…Theatre card for *The Last of Mrs. Cheyney.* (IMDB)

…often cast as a heavy in silent films, it was the “talkies” that made William Powell a star, his pleasant voice more suited to a hero or leading man than a villain. In The Greene Murder Case, Powell portrayed amateur detective Philo Vance, a role that he played in another 1929 release, The Canary Murder Case (originally filmed as a silent in 1928), both based on mystery novels by S.S. Van Dine. Powell would portray Philo Vance in three more films from 1930 to 1933 until he took on the role of another amateur detective, Nick Charles, in 1934’s The Thin Man (a role he would reprise five times from 1936 to 1947)…

WHODUNNIT? YOUDUNNIT!…**William Powell** as detective Philo Vance, **Florence Eldridge** as Sibella Greene, and Jean Arthur as Ada Greene in 1929’s The Greene Murder Case. (IMDB)

KEEPING IT QUIET…**William Powell** as Philo Vance and **Louise Brooks** as “the Canary,” a scheming nightclub singer, in *The Canary Murder Case.* Brooks was a huge star in the silent era and the iconic flapper. According to IMDB, the film was shot as a silent in 1928, but producers decided to rework it as a more profitable “talkie.” When Brooks refused to return from Germany (where she was filming *Pandora’s Box*) to dub the movie, Paramount spread the word that Brooks’ voice was not suited to sound film, although later productions made by Brooks proved this to be wrong. Actress **Margaret Livingston** ultimately supplied Brooks’ voice for Canary. (IMDB)

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From Our Advertisers

We look at some advertisements from the August 17 issue, including this one from Past Blue Ribbon. Note that nowhere in the ad is the word “beer” used, this being a “near-beer” with less than 1% alcohol content by volume. In addition to making cheese (a Velveeta-like product), Pabst hoped to keep its company alive by selling this “brew” during the unusually hot summer of 1929…

…and with that blazing sun advertisers also promoted a number of face creams and powders to those “enjoying the sunny outdoor life,” including this two-page spread from Richard Hudnut and Poudre Le Début…

…the outdoor life could also be enjoyed in a convertible Packard 640, a car that was a cut above a Lincoln or Cadillac, and was considered by some to be America’s answer to the Rolls Royce…

A 1929 Packard 640 Convertible. This particular model can be had today for about $130,000. (Hemmings Motor News)

…I found this ad in the back pages interesting for its crude design yet overt appeal to snobbishness with this haughty pair…

…and here is what the Park Lane looked like when it opened in 1924…

Circa 1924 advertisement from the Sargent lock and hardware company touting its fixtures in the new Park Lane hotel apartments. At right, circa 1924 image from *The American Architect* depicting the Park Lane’s dining room. The building is long gone, razed some time in the 1960s to make way for an office tower. (Pinterest)

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This week’s featured illustration is by Constantin Alajalov, who depicted a summer scene from the Southampton Beach Club…click to enlarge…

…our cartoonists from the Aug. 10 issue include Helen Hokinson, who looked at the challenges of Americans abroad…

…Isadore Klein observed the changing mores of movie houses (a couple of “damns” were apparently uttered in the talking pictures of 1929)…

…and Leonard Dove offered up a double entendre of sorts…

…cartoons for the Aug. 17 issue included a peek behind the scenes at a motivational speaker courtesy Peter Arno…

…Carl Kindl had some fun with the juxtaposition of a matron and a flapper hat…

…and for reference, the cloche hat called a “Scalawag” was featured in this ad by Knox in the March 30, 1929 New Yorker…drawing by Carl “Eric” Erickson…

…Garrett Price portrayed the antics of an ungrateful trust fund brat, who probably did not have that million dollars after the market crash…

…and this fellow, depicted by Mary Petty, who doubtless would be less nonchalant come Oct. 28, or what we know as “Black Monday”…

Next Time: Hooray for Hollywood…

Ride of the Century

Train travel in the U.S. was at the height of its glory in the late 1920s—you could hop on train in New York City and travel to virtually anywhere in the country, even to some of the remotest towns in America’s vast hinterlands.

July 27, 1929 cover by **Theodore G. Haupt.**

The New Yorker’s managing editor, Ralph Ingersoll (1900-1985) writing in “The Talk of Town,” climbed aboard the locomotives of outbound 20th Century and an inbound Empire State trains to survey the latest technology in rail travel. What one gleans from reading this account is how much this mode of travel has declined (in the U.S.) over the past 90 years:

ROMANCE OF THE RAILS…Clockwise, from top left: Hudson locomotives served the *Century* and *Empire State* express trains; silent film star **Gloria Swanson** waves farewell from the observation platform as the *20th Century Limited* pulls out of Grand Central during the 1920s; lounge car on the *20th Century* during the 1920s; the *20th Century* ready to depart Grand Central, circa 1930. (steamlocomotive.com/newyorksocialdiary.com/cruiselinehistory.com)

In terms of speed and safety, it seems little has changed since 1929, and perhaps things have actually gotten worse…

CELEBRATED LINE…*The 20th Century* was widely celebrated in popular culture through the 1950s. Five years after Ingersoll’s article, **Howard Hawks** directed the screwball comedy, *20th Century*. Clockwise, from top left, the film’s stars, **Carole Lombard** and John Barrymore in a scene from the film; the stars pose for a publicity shot; with director Hawks along with some of the cast and crew. (austinfilm.org/greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot.com)

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From 1928 until his death in 1950, the journalist Alva Johnston (1888-1950) wrote on a diverse range of topics for The New Yorker, including this “Reporter at Large” piece on the proliferation of barrooms in private residences, hidden from the prying eyes of Prohibition agents and sometimes furnished with the bits and pieces that once graced some of New York’s finest watering holes, including the famed Hoffman House:

POPULAR WATERING HOLE…Clockwise, from top left: The Hoffman House Hotel at Madison Square in 1885; the Hoffman House bar, which prominently displayed **William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s** painting *Nymphs and Satyr.* According to **Alva Johnston’s** article, the painting was the second-most popular decorative motif in New York’s finer drinking establishments; artist’s rendering of the barroom; and Bouguereau’s *Nymphs and Satyr.* (Museum of the City of New York/Wikipedia)

Johnston noted the clever tricks homeowners used to conceal their secret bars:

DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER…**Alva Johnston** described how one library’s walls “had literature on one side, gin and rye on the other.” (*Huffington Post*)

Johnston concluded his piece on an ironic note, pointing out that the finest cocktail sets could be obtained at Kresge department stores, which were owned by one of the biggest supporters of Prohibition, S.S. Kresge:

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The Sound of Peggy Wood

The Brooklyn-born Peggy Wood (1892-1978) made her stage debut in 1910 and was an established Broadway star before she made her first talking picture, Wonder of Women (a film believed to be lost). A member of the Algonquin Round Table, she was well acquainted with the New Yorker crowd. And the magazine in turn was very impressed with her acting talents, even if the picture she was in proved a bit of a downer:

RECOGNIZE HER NOW?…Clockwise, from top left: theatre card for the 1929 film, *Wonder of Women;* **Leila Hyams** and Lewis Stone in a tender moment from the film (Stone was romantically paired with much younger women in several films around that time); **Peggy Wood** in the 1920s; Wood as Mother Abbess in 1965’s *The Sound of Music;* Stone and Wood in a scene from *Wonder of Women,* with four-year-old child actor Wally Albright. With his waifish demeanor and curly hair, Albright was highly sought after in films needing a cute kid. He appeared in seven films in 1929 alone. In the 1930s he would appear in several *Our Gang/Little Rascal* shorts, and would pop up in bit roles through the 1940s and early 50s. Unlike so many other child stars, he seems to have led a normal adult life. He won the Men’s National Track and Ski Championship in 1957, and later started a successful trucking firm. (IMDB/Pinterest)

…the review continued, suggesting that Wood’s acting alone carried the picture…

…if you weren’t into weepers like Wonder of Women, you could have instead checked out The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu at the Rialto Theatre…

LIKE A SIDESHOW ACT…New York’s Rialto Theatre donned a masked front and door entry wrappers for the premiere of *The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu*; promotional poster; **Jean Arthur** and **Warner Oland** in the film. Oland was not the least bit Asian. A Swedish-American actor, his work in the hit film led to three more *Fu Manchu* movies. Oland would then go on to play another Asian character, Charlie Chan, in a string of popular movies in the 1930s until his death in 1938. (cinematreasures.org)

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Just Sad

Yet another note in “Talk of the Town” describing the plight of African Americans in segregated America, without a hint of empathy:

Potters Field on Hart Island, New York, circa 1890. (Wikipedia)

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From Our Advertisers

Last week B. Altman offered rugged coats for those brave souls riding in rumble seats. This week Altman rolled out some stylish wear for the enterprising pilot of 1929…

…and while you were up there, you could calm those nerves with a Chesterfield (a two-page ad that appeared regularly in The New Yorker)…

,,,back on the ground, the makers of Most toothpaste reminded readers to brush those tobacco stains off their teeth, apparently even while they’re smoking…

…here is another sampling of drawings by Garrett Price, rendered after a recent trip to Paris…

…our cartoons come from Leonard Dove (note the backward signature)…

…here we have A. Edwin Macon’s take on modern furniture…

…Helen Hokinson looked in on a visit to an eye doctor…

…Perry Barlow’s take on the wonders of radio…

…Rea Irvin depicted how timing is everything in an ice delivery…

…and Peter Arno peeked in on habits of the idle rich…

Next Time: The Art of Peace…

Georgia on My Mind

Although artist Georgia O’Keeffe has long been celebrated for her desert imagery and interpretations of natural forms, during the 1920s her heart was very much in New York City.

July 6, 1929 cover by **Theodore Haupt.**

And New York City was where it all began for O’Keeffe (1887-1986). In January 1916, the famed photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was shown a portfolio of charcoal drawings by O’Keeffe’s friend, Anita Pollitzer. Stieglitz was so impressed that he immediately made plans to exhibit the drawings—without O’Keeffe’s permission. The longtime art critic for The New Yorker, Robert Coates, told the story in the opening lines of his July 6 profile piece on the artist:

O’Keeffe moved from Texas to New York in 1918, and she and Stieglitz would marry in 1924, a marriage that would last until his death in 1946 (despite the fact he took a longtime lover, 22-year-old Dorothy Norman, in 1927).

TWO OF A KIND…**Alfred Stieglitz,** left, photographed by Paul Strand at Lake George, New York, in 1929. Exhausted and depressed, Stieglitz had retreated to the lake for the summer after learning that his exhibition space in the Anderson Galleries, which he called “The Room,” would be demolished along with the gallery building. ∞ Center, a photo Stieglitz had attached to a July 10, 1929 letter to O’Keeffe, who had begun spending summers painting in New Mexico. Below the photograph he wrote, “I have destroyed 300 prints to-day. And much more literature. I haven’t the heart to destroy this…” ∞ O’Keeffe in a 1929 photograph by Stieglitz, after her return from New Mexico. (aperture.org/Yale Beinecke Library/flashbak.com) ***click to enlarge***

Following O’Keeffe’s first exhibition at the 291 gallery, Stieglitz established a firm hold over the display and sale of her work:

During the 1920s O’Keeffe found much inspiration on the streets of Manhattan, and particularly in the proximity of the Shelton Hotel, where she lived from 1925 to 1936. The Shelton, which opened in Midtown in 1924 as the tallest hotel in the world, provided a perfect vantage point for O’Keeffe to observe city life:

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER…**Georgia O’Keeffe** was captivated by her adopted city, particularly views from and around New York’s Shelton Hotel, where she lived from 1925 to 1936. Top row, from left: *New York Street with Moon* (1925) ∞ *New York Street No. 1* (1926) ∞ *Shelton Hotel New York No. 1* (1926) ∞ *The Shelton with Sunspots* (1926) ∞ *East River From the Shelton* (1926) || Bottom row, from left: *New York Night* (1929) ∞ *Radiator Building – Night, New York* (1927) ∞ *East River From the 30th Story of the Shelton Hotel* (1928) ∞ *Ritz Tower, Night* (1928). (museothyssen.org/okeeffemuseum.org/curiator.com/virginia.edu/isak.typepad.com/ theartstack.com (2)/ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/artnet.com) **click to enlarge**

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During the early decades of the 20th century Martin Couney (1870-1950) was renowned for his baby incubator exhibits at various world’s fairs and for his long-standing display of incubating babies at New York’s Coney Island, wedged between the usual sideshow attractions of freaks and burlesques. Couney charged visitors 25 cents to view the infants (in order that their parents would not have to pay for their medical care). “The Talk of the Town” looked in on Couney…

I’M NOT A DOCTOR. I JUST PLAY ONE IN REAL LIFE…Clockwise, from top left, Incubator display building on Coney Island circa 1920s; **Martin Couney** with babies in undated photo; Couney’s early infant incubators in operation at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha, 1898; the infant **Beth Allen** in a Coney Island incubator, 1941. (NPR/New York Public Library Digital Collections/Beth Allen)

Although many physicians at the time reviled Couney as a showman and a quack (he was most likely not a trained medical doctor), he nevertheless saved the lives of thousands of infants who would have died if left to the care of hospitals that were slow to catch on to this lifesaving device (they weren’t widely adopted until after Couney’s death in 1950). The “Talk” article credited Couney for saving “about six thousand lives.” Many of those babies went on to live long and healthy lives:

SEEING IS BELIEVING…**Beth Allen** (pictured, at left, in 2016, and as an infant in the photo montage above) was born three months premature in Brooklyn in 1941. Her mother initially rejected putting Beth in one of Couney’s Coney Island incubators, but her father persuaded **Martin Couney** to talk to his wife, who acquiesced. **At right,** **Lucille Horn** (pictured with daughter Barbara in 2015) was given little hope by doctors when she was born premature in 1920. The hospital staff told her father that they didn’t have a place for her, and that she had no chance of survival. Nevertheless, her father grabbed a blanket to wrap her in, hailed a taxicab and took her to Couney’s infant exhibit at Coney Island. Barely 2 pounds in 1920, she lived to age 96. (AP/NPR StoryCorps)

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The Electric Company

The 1920’s saw an explosion of labor-saving electric appliances, ranging from electric fans and irons to vacuum cleaners and refrigerators. The decade also saw a massive proliferation of electric lights, and the huge power plants that would be needed to keep everything running. “Talk” looked in on the Edison Company’s East River power plant to see how it all worked:

STILL HUMMING…Edison’s East River power plant (now ConEd), entered service in 1926 and is still in operation today (with a number of updates and additions over the years). At right, a 1920s view of the Broadway lights (newtownpentacle.com/Museum of the City of New York)

The opening of the Edison plant on the East River was a big deal in 1926. According to the ConEd website, “the six-story boilers installed at Fourteenth Street and East River were so large that a luncheon for nearly 100 people was served inside one of them before the renovated station went into operation… during the opening day ceremony in 1926, Queen Marie of Rumania flipped the switch to start the 100,000 horsepower turbine generator.”

“Talk” also offered some interesting insights into the plant’s complex operations, including an unusual storm warning system:

YOU GET THE IDEA…A Philadelphia Electric Company control room in the 1920s. New York’s was undoubtedly much larger. (IEEE Computer Society)

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From Our Advertisers

Fleischmann Yeast was a regular advertiser in The New Yorker for a good reason: Raoul Fleischmann (of the New York yeast and baking giant) hated the baking business but loved hanging out with the Algonquin Round Table crowd, which included New Yorker founding editor Harold Ross. When the fledging magazine nearly went belly up in 1925, Fleischmann kicked in the money (and on a number of occasions thereafter) to keep it going. Hence the “free” advertising he received for his product, touted not as a baking aid, but rather as a cure for constipation and other intestinal turmoils. In this ad, a physician who “treated German Royalty” endorsed the generous consumption of yeast cakes…

…a footnote on the Fleischmann ad: Dr. Kurt Henius (1882-1947) was a doctor of medicine and a professor on the Friedrich-Wilhelms (now Humboldt) University medicine faculty at the Charité hospital in Berlin, Germany. Because he was Jewish, he was dismissed from the university in 1935, and in 1939 he fled from the Nazis to safety in Luxembourg, where he died in 1947.

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During prohibition we see plenty of ads in The New Yorker for ginger ale and sparkling water, but this one for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer caught my eye. This was, of course, “near-beer,” with an alcohol content of 0.5%…

According to Forbes magazine, the few breweries that managed to survive during Prohibition made everything from ceramics and ice cream to the barely alcoholic near beer. Pabst also turned to making cheese, which was aged in the brewery’s ice cellars. The brand, “Pabst-ett,” was sold to Kraft in 1933 at the end of Prohibition…

…and this colorful ad comes courtesy of Texaco. Did you ever see two young people more enamored with petroleum products?…

…before we get to the cartoons, here is a two-page illustration in the July 6 issue by Constantin Alajalov (click to enlarge)…

…this peek into the world of trolley car conductors appears to be by Perry Barlow…

…and finally, Peter Arno revealed the thankless work of one stuntman…

Next Time: Not Your Grandpa’s Tammany…

New York 1965

Past visions of the future are fascinating, especially those of the early and mid-20th century—despite the horrors of world war and economic depression, we were still able to envision endless possibilities for human progress.

June 29, 1929 cover by **Ray Euffa** (1904-1977), who contributed just one cover for *The New Yorker.* A resident of the East Village, she had a successful career as both a New York artist and teacher (*see end of post for another example of her work*).

In this spirit, the landmark 1929 Regional Plan of New York and its Environs was created. Rather than planning for individual towns and cities, it viewed them as a single, interdependent and interconnected built environment. Authored by a Regional Plan Association formed in 1922, the plan encompassed 31 counties in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. The goal of the plan was to transcend the region’s political divisions and view it more in terms of its economic, socio-cultural, transportation, and environmental needs. The New Yorker made note of the new plan, but decided to take a humorous approach by putting Robert Benchley on the assignment:

Had he actually read the plan, Benchley would have found an ambitious vision for the city in the year 1965, including the remaking of Battery Park that would have included a massive obelisk to greet seafaring visitors to the city (click all images below to enlarge)…

THINKING BIG…Images from the 1929 *Regional Plan of New York and its Environs* included, clockwise, from top left, a proposed art center for Manhattan, as envisioned by **Hugh Ferriss;** a proposal for a terminal and office building in Sunnyside Yards, Queens; a proposed monument for Battery Park, from a bird’s eye perspective; and as the monument would appear at street level. (Regional Planning Association–RPA)

HOW-TO GUIDE FOR THE FUTURE…Zoning principles, including setback guidelines for tall buildings (left) were included in the regional plan. At right, a suggestion for setbacks on an apartment group, as rendered by architect **George B. Ford.** (RPA)

Benchley noted that the plan “looks ahead to a New York of 1965,” and hoped that he would not live to see a city of 20 million people (New York City had a metro population of 20.3 million in 2017; and Benchley got his wish—he died in 1945. He was not, however, stuffed and put on display)…

A BIT MUCH?…Clockwise, from top left, a “monumental building” was proposed in the regional plan as a dominant feature of the civic center, dwarfing the historic city hall; the old city hall today, fortunately backed by a blue sky and not by a “death-star” building; a proposal for the Chrystie-Forsyth Parkway; a “future tower city,” as envisioned by **E. Maxwell Fry.** (RPA)

THE STUFF OF DREAMS…Clockwise, from top left: The regional plan proposed separation of pedestrians and motor vehicles by assigning them to different levels along the street; ten years later, at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, General Motors would build a full-scale model of this concept as part of their Futurama exhibit; the city of 1960, as envisioned by designer **Norman Bel Geddes** for the Futurama exhibit; Futurama visitors view the world of tomorrow—a vast scale model of the American countryside—from chairs moving along a conveyer. (RPA/*The Atlantic*/Wikipedia/General Motors)

Benchley concluded his article with less ambitious hopes for the future…

THE REALITY…A view of New York City’s East 42nd Street, looking to the west, in 1965. (Associated Press)

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Another vision of the future could be found in the growing air transport options available to those who could afford it. “The Talk of the Town” reported:

ROOM WITH A VIEW…Interior and exterior views of the Sikorsky S-38 flying boat. (Frankin Institute, Philadelphia/Calisto Publishers)

NO FRILLS…Seaplane ramp at Flushing Bay’s North Beach Airport in 1929. (Courtesy of Alan Reddig)

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With the 1929 stock market crash on the horizon, it is instructive to read these little “Talk” items and understand that, then as now, we have no clue when the big one is coming…

* * *

Over at the Polo Grounds

As I’ve previously noted, The New Yorker in the 1920s covered every conceivable sport, but paid little attention to Major League Baseball (except for the occasional amusing anecdote about a player, usually Babe Ruth). But even The New Yorker couldn’t ignore the city’s latest sensation, the Giants’ Mel Ott (1909-1958), who despite his slight stature (for a power hitter, that is), he became the first National League player to surpass 500 career home runs.

READY FOR SOME HEAT…**Mel Ott** in 1933. He batted left-handed but threw right-handed. (Baseball Hall of Fame)

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David McCord (1897-1997) contributed nearly 80 poems to The New Yorker between in 1926 and 1956, but earned his greatest renown in his long life as an author of children’s poetry. Here is his contribution to the June 29 issue:

PICKETY POET…**David McCord** and one of his poems for children. (nowaterriver.com)

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From Our Advertisers

We find more color in the pages of The New Yorker thanks to advertisers like C & C Ginger Ale, who for all the world tried to make their product appear as exciting and appealing as Champagne, or some other prohibited substance…

…or for quieter times, Atwater Kent encouraged folks to gather ’round the radio on a lazy afternoon and look positively bored to death…

…while Dodge Boats encouraged readers to join the more exhilarating world of life on the water…

Our final color ad comes from the makers of Jantzen swimwear—this striking example is by Frank Clark, who collaborated with his wife Florenz in creating a distinct look and style for Jantzen…

…indeed it was Florenz Clark who came up with Jantzen’s signature red diving girl. In 1919, while doing sketches at a swim club for divers practicing for the 1920 Olympics, she came up with the iconic red diving girl logo. This is the version of the logo from the late 1920s:

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Our illustrations and cartoons come courtesy of Reginald Marsh, who sketched scenes along the shores of Battery Park…

…Peter Arno plumbed the depths of a posh swimming club…

…R. Van Buren explored a clash of the castes…

…Isadore Klein sent up some class pretensions…

…and John Reehill looked in on a couple who seemed more suited to land-based diversions…

…and finally, we close with a 1946 work by our cover artist, Ray Euffa, titled, City Roofs:

Next Time: Georgia on My Mind…

Something Old, Something New

Above: The split image is from a New Yorker video: Eighty Years of New York City, Then and Now.

While the Empire State Building developers were preparing to reduce the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to rubble, another venerable relic of the Victorian age, the Murray Hill Hotel, was still clinging to the earth at its prime location next to the Grand Central Depot.

The hotel’s survival was due in part to its owner, Benjamin L. M. Bates (1864-1935), who seemed as much a part of the hotel as its heavy drapes and overstuffed chairs. Bates, who started out at the hotel as assistant night clerk, was profiled in the June 15, 1929 issue by Joseph Gollomb (with portrait by Reginald Marsh) Some excerpts:

The hotel was just 26 years old when Bates bought it in 1910. But by the Roaring Twenties Murray Hill Hotel seemed as ancient as grandmother’s Hepplewhite…

Clockwise, from top, left, The Murray Hill Hotel in September 1946, just months before it was demolished; the hotel’s ornate spiral fire escape, seen at the right in a 1935 photograph of 22 East 40th Street by Berenice Abbott; the hotel’s office and foyer. The hotel featured 600 rooms and two courtyards. (Museum of the City of New York (1 & 2)/Wikipedia)

…but to the very end it continued to be a popular gathering spot for New York notables, including Christopher Morley’s prestigious literary society, the Baker Street Irregulars…

FAMILIAR HAUNT…Three members of the exclusive literary group, the Baker Street Irregulars — **Fletcher Pratt, Christopher Morley** and **Rex Stout** —swap stories at the Murray Hill Hotel in 1944. (Wikipedia)

…with the hotel’s prime location near Grand Central Depot (and its replacement, Grand Central Station), the party couldn’t last forever, and the Murray Hill Hotel yielded to the wrecking ball in 1947…

THEN AND NOW, the Murray Hill Hotel, circa 1905. The adjacent 25-story Belmont Hotel, erected in 1904-06 and a skyscraper for its time, would be razed in 1931. Note the old Grand Central Depot in the background, which would be replaced in 1913 by Grand Central Station. At right, a Google Maps view of the same location today.

Some parting notes about the Murray Hill Hotel: In 1905, delegates from 58 colleges and universities gathered at the hotel to address brutality in college football and reform the sport. They formed the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, which would later become the NCAA.

The hotel was also the site of a massive explosion in 1902, when workers constructing a subway tunnel under Park Avenue accidentally set a dynamite shed ablaze. Every window along Park Avenue and 40th Street was blown out, and the blast opened a pit, 10 feet deep and 30 feet wide, in front of the building. Five people were killed by the blast—three of them at the Murray Hill Hotel.

AFTERMATH…The Murray Hill Hotel’s cafe following the 1902 explosion. (Wikimedia Commons)

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Irwin S. Chanin, fresh from erecting his Art Deco masterpiece, the Chanin Building, was now setting his sights on the Century Theatre, barely twenty years old but already obsolete due to its poor acoustics and inconvenient location. “The Talk of the Town” takes it from there…

BIGGER PLANS…The Century Theatre, located at 62nd Street and Central Park West, opened on November 6, 1909. Plagued by poor acoustics and an inconvenient location, it was demolished in 1931 and replaced by the Irwin S. Chanin’s Century Apartments building. (*The New-York-Architect*, November 1909/David Shankbone via Wikipedia)

As the Century Theatre marked its last days, an older and more successful theater in the Bowery went up in flames. The Thalia Theatre (also known as “Bowery Theatre” and other names) was a popular entertainment venue for 19th century New Yorkers and for the Bowery’s succession of immigrant groups. A series of buildings (it burned four times in 17 years) housed Irish, German and Yiddish theater and later Italian and Chinese vaudeville. The 1929 fire marked the end of the line. “Talk” noted its passing…

UP IN SMOKE…The Bowery’s Thalia Theatre (building with columns) went up in flames on June 5, 1929. The photo was taken in 1928, one year before the final fire. Note the elevated train tracks in front of the building. (Manhattan Unlocked)

While we are on the subject of the changing skyline, I will toss in this cartoon from the issue by Reginald Marsh…the caption read: “I tell you, Gus, this town ain’t what it used to be.”

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Down for the Count

There was a bit of a sensation in the June newspapers when a European count was arrested for running a bootlegging ring among socially prominent circles. A headline in a June 8, 1929 edition of the New York Times shouted: LIQUOR RING PATRONS FACING SUBPOENAS; Socially Prominent Customers Are Listed in Papers Found in de Polignac Raids. COUNT SAILS FOR PARIS. Goes, After Nearly Losing Bail Bond, Smilingly Calling the Affair ‘Misapprehension.’

What the Times so breathlessly recounted were the activities of Count Maxence de Polignac (1857–1936), who owned one of France’s most prominent Champagne houses, Pommery & Greno.

The Times reported that an undercover federal agent, William J. Calhoun, led a raid that netted the Count and 34 others in a liquor ring connected to many Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue residents. Calhoun’s agents interrupted the Count’s morning bath (at his suite in the Savoy-Plaza Hotal) to make the arrest. They seized more than “seven cases of champage and liquors” in the suite, which the count said were for his personal use. Denying all charges, de Polignac was nevertheless arrested. Thanks to a guarantee provided by his friends at the Equitable Surety Company, he made the $25,000 bail and quickly set sail for Paris. “Talk” reported…

IT WAS JUST A LITTLE SIDE BUSINESS…**Count Maxence de Polignac** owned the house of Pommery & Greno, one of the largest Champagnes firms in France. (Wikipedia/tcreims.com)

“Talk” concluded the dispatch with some notes on Calhoun’s character as a federal agent…

…and a final bit of trivia, Count Maxence de Polignac was the father of Prince Pierre of Monaco, Duke of Valentinois, who in turn was the father of Rainier III of Monaco, who famously married the actress Grace Kelly. Grace Kelly, by the way, was born in November 1929, just months after her grandfather-in-law’s run-in with Prohibition authorities.

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Underwhelmed

Once again “Talk” looked in on aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, and his dispassionate approach to matters of fame…

GOODWILL, OR WHATEVER…Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church in Springfield, Mass., features a series of 24 stained-glass windows representing historic personages with the theme, “The Light of Christ in the Life of Civilization.” **Charles Lindbergh’s** pane represents “Goodwill.” *(tm01001.blogspot.com)*

* * *

Mr. Monroe Outwits a Bat

James Thurber submitted a humorous piece on a husband and wife at a weekend cabin retreat. The husband encounters a bat, and feigns to dispatch it while his wife remains behind closed doors. A brief clip:

**E.B. White** and **James Thurber**, circa late 1920s.

Thurber’s office mate and friend, E.B. White, penned a piece on the opening of the Central Park Casino (“Casino, I Love You”) in which he pretended to be a hobo loitering outside the Casino’s recent grand re-opening. Some excerpts…

White’s character confuses Urbain Ledoux with Casino designer Joseph Urban. Ledoux was known to New Yorkers as “Mr. Zero,” a local humanitarian who managed breadlines for the poor. White’s character continues to name off the notables present at the event…

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From Our Advertisers

We begin with a Pond’s cold cream ad featuring Janet Newbold (1908-1982), who was known in some circles as “the most beautiful woman in New York”…

MIRROR, MIRROR…Left, an iconic photo of Janet Newbold by **Erwin Blumenfeld,** “Woman and Mirror,” was published in *Harper’s Bazaar* in November 1941. “Janet Newbold Wearing A Sari,” photo by **John Rawlings,** was published in *Vogue* in 1947. Thrice married, her last marriage (in 1948) was to **James S. Bush**, uncle of U.S. President **George H.W. Bush**. (*Harper’s Bazaar/Vogue*)

…some of the more colorful ads in the June 15 issue included this entry by Jantzen…

…and this ad for the REO Flying Cloud, a name that suggested speed and lightness, and changed the way cars would be named in the future (e.g. “Mustang” rather than “Model A”)…

…and if you think gimmicky razors are something new, think again…

…this ad announcing Walter Winchell’s employment with the New York Daily Mirror is significant in that in marks the beginning of the first syndicated gossip column. Winchell’s column, On-Broadway, was syndicated nationwide by King Features. A year later he would make his radio debut over New York’s WABC…

…for our June 15 cartoons, Isadore Klein confirms that stereotypes regarding American tourists haven’t changed much in 90 years…

…a quick footnote on Klein. In his long and colorful career, he would contribute cartoons to the New Yorker and many other publications. He also drew cartoons for silent movies, including Mutt and Jeff and Krazy Kat, and later worked for major animation studios including Screen Gems, Hal Seeger Productions, and Walt Disney. He was a writer and animator for such popular cartoons as Mighty Mouse, Casper, Little Lulu and Popeye.

**Isadore Klein** (1897–1986) holding the National Cartoonists Society “Silver T-Square.” He received the honor from his fellow members on April 22, 1974. (michaelspornanimation.com)

…Belgium-born artist Victor De Pauw depicted President Herbert Hoover picnicking, as viewed through his security detail…

…and a quick note on De Pauw…well known during his lifetime, he illustrated seven covers for The New Yorker and drew many social and political cartoons for magazines such as Vanity Fair, Fortune and Life. He also had a career as a serious painter, and some of his work can be found at the Museum of Modern Art…

**Victor de Pauw** (1902-1971) and one of his *New Yorker* covers from Nov. 20, 1943. (Smithsonian/Conde Nast)

…Helen Hokinson looked in on two of her society women in need of some uplift…

…and Leonard Dove looked in on another enjoying a soak…

Moving along to the June 22, 1929 issue, “The Talk of the Town” offered more news on the city’s changing skyline…

June 22, 1929 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

…and noted that the slender 1906 “Chimney Corner” building at Wall and Broadway had a date with the wrecking ball…

FAILED THE TEST OF TIME…At left, 18-story “Chimney Building” was demolished in 1929 along neighboring properties to make way for the Irving Trust Building (now 1 Wall Street), an Art Deco masterpiece by architect **Ralph Walker**. Note the scale of the two buildings relative to the church spire. (skyscraper.org/architectsandartisans.com)

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Apartheid on the Seas

“Talk” also featured this sad account of a theatrical company setting sale for England and discovering that racial discrimination did not end at the docks of New York Harbor. It is also sad that The New Yorker didn’t seem to have any problem with this injustice, and rather saw it as nothing more than fodder for an amusing anecdote…

NOT THE GOOD OLD DAYS…**Percy Verwayne, Frank H. Wilson** and Evelyn Ellis were part of the cast in the original Broadway production of *Porgy* in 1927. The play, by **Dorothy and DuBose Heyward**, was the basis for the libretto in the **George Gershwin’s** 1935 *Porgy and Bess. (Wikipedia)*

* * *

The profile for June 22 featured 100-year-old John R. Voorhis (1829-1932), Chairman of New York City’s Board of Elections. A fixture of the Tammany Hall Democratic political machine, in 1931 Tammany members created a special title for the old man—Great Grand Sachem. He died the next year at age 102.

**John Voorhies** in 1900, when he was a bouncy youth of 71.

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From Our Advertisers

Another colorful entry from the makers of Jantzen swimwear to celebrate the summer season…

…famed composer George Gershwin urged his fans to light up a Lucky Strike…

…and with help from Rea Irwin, Knox Hatters offered yet another example of the faux pas one might suffer without the proper headgear…

…for our June 22 cartoons, Helen Hokinson caught up with some American tourists…

…John Reynolds found a bit of irony in one carnival barker’s claim…

…and Peter Arno revealed a less than glamorous face behind a radio broadcast…

Next Time: New York, 1965…

A Bridge Too Far

Despite the rise of the professional classes in the 20th century (and their attendant rules for accreditation and licensing) there still existed individuals who practiced at the highest levels with little or no formal training.

June 8, 1929 cover by **Julien de Miskey.**

Gustav Lindenthal (1850-1935) was a case in point. An Austrian immigrant who designed New York’s Hell Gate Bridge among others had little formal education and no degree in civil engineering. Rather, he learned by working as an assistant on various construction projects and teaching himself mathematics, metallurgy, engineering, hydraulics and other principles of the building profession.

Lindenthal was praised for his innovations in bridge design as well as for his artistic eye, but one project eluded him throughout his career: the largest bridge in the world—a massive double-decker that would span the Hudson River from 57th Street in New York City to Hoboken in New Jersey. The June 8, 1929 “Talk of the Town” checked in on the nearly 80-year-old bridge builder:

A cornerstone for the Hudson bridge was laid in 1895, but a series of bad breaks, including the 1898 Depression and various political setbacks, served to continually delay the project. The New York Tribune anticipated the bridge in its April 28, 1907 edition…

…and three years later the Tribune seemed confident that work was finally underway…

…however by the 1920s the bridge was still a dream. In 1921 Scientific American offered the latest glimpse of Lindenthal’s proposed 57th Street Bridge — a span 6,000 feet in length, with a 200-foot-wide double deck accommodating 24 lanes of traffic and 12 railroad tracks. An artist’s rendering included a massive building, on an arched plinth, positioned over the bridge deck:

BIG PLANS…Clockwise, from top left: Artist’s rendering of **Gustav Lindenthal’s** proposed 57th Street bridge from the June 25, 1921 issue of *Scientific American*. That same issue featured a size comparison with the then-tallest building in the world—the Woolworth Building. Below, the 1895 cornerstone, recently recovered from a crumbling pier on the New Jersey side of the Hudson and relocated to the grounds of Steven’s Institute of Technology in Hoboken. (untappedcities.com)

The New Yorker suggested that Lindenthal’s legacy was already secure, and with his determination and vigorous constitution, he still might still win the day:

Despite his vigor, Lindenthal would not live to see his dream realized. However, he is remembered for building some of New York’s most iconic bridges, including the Hell Gate and Queensboro:

LEGACY…Clockwise, from top left, Hell Gate Bridge; **Gustav Lindenthal,** circa 1920; Queensboro Bridge. (Library of Congress/Britannica/Pinterest)

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Keeping Up With the Lindberghs

Despite his worldwide fame, Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) detested the limelight, particularly when it came to his personal life. Writing in the column “The Wayward Press,” humorist Robert Benchley mocked the newspapers for their invasions into the lives of the celebrated, including newlyweds Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh:

MIND YOUR OWN BEESWAX…**Charles** and **Anne Morrow Lindbergh** after their marriage in a private ceremony on May 27, 1929, at the home of her parents in Englewood, New Jersey. (Library of Congress)

Benchley wasn’t buying the newspaper industry’s insistence that the public demanded to know the facts about the flyboy’s nuptials:

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Let the Good Times Roll

With the newly remodeled Central Park Casino officially christened by Mayor Jimmy Walker and his cronies, The New Yorker’s Lois Long (in “Tables for Two”) decided to pay a visit to see what all the fuss was about:

Long also commented on the declining fortunes of another familiar face of New York nightlife, Texas Guinan, who had fled Manhatten’s smoky speakeasy scene for the bucolic climes of Nassau County…

GOODBYE CITY LIFE…**Texas Guinan** took her nightclub to the quiet village of Valley Stream, New York, located just south of Queens in Nassau County. Guinan didn’t abandon all the trappings of city life: she drove to Valley Stream in a lavender Rolls Royce, and continued to greet her patrons with her famous “Hello, Sucker!” (jhgraham.com/texasguinanblogspot.com)

Long concluded that regardless where one ended up on a summer evening, one should be aware that a shabbier crowd awaited their company:

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Cuba Libre

Now we look at another New Yorker contributor who today is not exactly a household name: Donald Barr Chidsey (1902-1981), an American writer, biographer, historian and novelist best known for his adventure fiction. In this short column he offered some insights into the Cuban drinking scene:

ADVENTURESOME LAD…**Donald Barr Chidsey** wrote more than 50 books, including many action-adventure titles such as *Captain Adam,* from 1953. Note the resemblance of the hero on the cover to the author. (etsy/Amazon)

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Waxing Poetic

From its very first issue, The New Yorker also published a wide variety of poets, including Nicholas Samstag (1904-1968),who contributed several poems to the magazine in 1928 and 1929. Samstag later went on to a successful career in advertising, and was a close associate of Edward Bernays, considered the father of public relations and propaganda.

A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, writer, poet and critic Mark Van Doren (1894-1972) published more than three dozen poems in the magazine from 1929 to 1972. Here is his first contribution, in the June 8, 1929 issue:

Van Doren’s last contribution to The New Yorker was published on Nov. 18, 1972, less than a month before his death. It was appropriately titled “Good Riddance”…

DID THE APPLE FALL FAR FROM THE TREE?…At left, a circa 1925 portrait of **Mark Van Doren.** He was the father of **Charles Van Doren,** who achieved brief renown as the 1957 winner of the rigged game show Twenty One. He is pictured at far right with fellow contestant Vivienne Nearing and game show host Jack Barry. (art.net/Wikipedia)

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From Our Advertisers

As summer approached some distinct themes emerged in ads aimed at female consumers. Here is a collection of ads from the June 8 issue that capitalized on the new tanning craze of the late 1920s…

…and another big craze of the 1920s, the permanent wave, seemed to be a necessity as summer approached…

…as for the gents, check out this new line of Jantzen swimwear modeled by what appear to be identical twins…

…and when you’re out of the water, a pair of “fashion welts” were all the rage for tip-toeing across the hot sands of Southampton…

…this ad from B. Altman depicted two women clad for “open motoring” (not sure how those long, lithe figures will fit into that tiny rumble seat)…

…for a less dusty mode of transportation, you could hop aboard The Broadway Limited for a quick 20-hour jaunt to Chicago…

…or better yet, have a relaxing smoke with one of your chums aboard a Sikorsky seaplane…

…our cigarette ad for this week comes from Philip Morris, makers of Marlboro, who once again exploited the nation’s youth with a bogus handwriting contest that doubled as a product endorsement…

…our June 8 comics are from Helen Hokinson, who offered a full page of illustrations from a “Fifth Avenue Wedding”…

…while Leonard Dove peeked in on a wastrel son and his disappointed father…

…and we have an awkward moment revealed by Carl Kindl…

…and an observation by C.W. Anderson on the minimalism of modernist design…

…and finally, Peter Arno’s take on the challenges of shooting sound motion pictures…

Caption: *“Lord, Mr. Rolbert, you’ll have to develop a more robust sneeze—the public will think you’re a sissy!”*

Next Time: Something Old, Something New…