Before screenwriter Niven Busch Jr. headed to Hollywood in 1931, he cut his teeth as writer for The New Yorker, contributing a series of profiles (later compiled in Twenty-one Americans) as well as an intermittent series from May 1927 to Feb. 1930 on New York’s Prohibition-era speakeasies.
February 18, 1928 cover by Theodore G. Haupt.
Always careful to shield the identity of speakeasy owners and patrons, Busch described the often less-than-glamorous digs of New York’s illegal watering holes. In a speakeasy called “The No Trump,” two Irish brothers took turns mixing drinks “on a kitchen table in a cubbyhole” while Busch sat in a darkened bar and listened in on a conversation coming from the adjoining “bridge room”…
This illustration by Reginald Marsh accompanied Niven Busch’s article.
LAST CALL…Images taken by photographer Margaret Bourke-White for Life magazine during the last days of Prohibition. (Time.com)WHO GOES THERE?…The familiar slot in the door came in handy for speakeasy owners wishing to screen clients before allowing entry into their illegal lairs. (Chicago Tribune)BETTER SWILL…The Marlborough House, an East Side speakeasy for socialites during Prohibition, 1933. Photo by Margaret Bourke-White for Fortune. (Time.com)
Busch also described his visit to the “Circus Speakeasy,” operated by a man who “travelled for 21 years with the Ringling Circus”…
A young Niven Busch Jr., circa 1930. (enetpress.com)Busch and the third of his five wives, the actress Teresa Wright, in the 1940s. (danielmartineckhart.com)
In his later years as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood, Busch would script movies ranging from The Man With Two Faces (1934) starring Edward G. Robinson, to The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), with Lana Turner.
All Aboard
One of the prominent voices of the unsigned “Talk of the Town,” E.B. White was also a regular contributor of short pieces in The New Yorker, such as the following which described a mistaken encounter on an overnight train:
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Another way to calm the jitters
If you couldn’t legally (or illegally) buy Johnny Walker Scotch whisky in 1928, you had to settle for their brand of “vacuumed-cleaned, extremely mild” cigarettes, which were apparently sold as late as the 1950s…
And to get a taste of what was showing at the local cinemas, I’ve included this page-and-third spread of movie and theatre ads from the back pages. Note the film Sunrise featured prominently at the top left-hand corner.
Starring George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, and Margaret Livingston, this 1927 silent romantic drama, directed by F.W. Murnau, used the new Fox Movietone sound-on-film system, making it one of the first feature films with a synchronized musical score and sound effects soundtrack. Sunrise (full title: The Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans) won the Academy Award in the category “Unique and Artistic Picture” at the 1st Academy Awards in 1929, and Gaynor won the first Academy Award for “Best Actress in a Leading Role.” Sunrise is considered one of the greatest films of the silent era and even today is widely considered a masterpiece.
AWARD-WINNING SMILES…George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor in 1927’s acclaimed The Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. (The Red List)
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And finally, more hijinks from the moneyed classes, courtesy of Peter Arno:
We cross the pond for the May 14, 1927 issue, for a look at all things French. As I’ve previously noted, New Yorker readers of the 1920s had a decidedly Francophile bent when it came to food, fashion and general joie de vivre.
May 14, 1927 cover by Rea Irvin.
In fact, readers were so enamored with France that the country merited its own New Yorker correspondent, Janet Flanner, who wrote under the nom de plume “Genêt.”
In the May 14 issue Flanner casually mused about the racing season at Longchamps, which attracted the likes of Anne Harriman Vanderbilt (identified here as Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt), who was well-known in France for her philanthropic work during World War I, including her founding of an ambulance service and a hospital at Neuilly. Vanderbilt received the class of the Legion of Honor in 1919 in recognition of her war work, and in 1931 she was made an officer of the legion.
BLUE BLOODS…Anne HarrimanVanderbilt (left) with Martha Waldron Cowdin Bacon, circa 1915-1920. Bacon served as chairman of the American Ambulance Committee. (Library of Congress)
In “Talk of the Town,” the editors suggested that readers go to Madison Square Garden and check out the world’s largest canvas painting, Panthéon de la Guerre, more for the spectacle than for any artistic merit:
Section of Panthéon de la Guerre showing allies of World War I, now in Memory Hall, Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri. (theworldwar.com) Click to enlarge
Panthéon de la Guerre was painted during World War I as a circular panorama—402 feet in circumference and 45 feet high—displayed in Paris in a specially built building next to the Hôtel des Invalides. It was visited by an estimated eight million people between 1918 and 1927.
The painting was acquired by American businessmen in 1927 and exported to New York, where it was displayed at Madison Square Garden. Some changes were made to the painting for the benefit of an American audience, including the addition of an African-American soldier. The work later toured the U.S.—from 1932 to 1940 it went to Washington DC, Chicago, Cleveland, and San Francisco. It was then acquired by restaurant entrepreneur William Haussner for $3,400.
In 1956 Haussner donated the work to Leroy MacMorris to be adapted for display at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City. MacMorris drastically reduced the size of the work and modified it to emphasize America’s contribution to WWI: Only seven percent of the original work was retained, and large French sections were left out. MacMorris likened it to “whittling down a novel to Reader’s Digest condensation.” And he didn’t stop there. He also modified some figures to represent post-WWI figures such as Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
A BIT OF THIS, A DASH OF THAT…Figure of Victory from the Temple to Glory cut to fit above a doorway at Memory Hall, Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri, with the staircase of heroes to either side. Compare to original below:(trenchartcollection.com)
To reduce and reconfigure the painting, MacMorris first photographed it in detail, then cut out the figures in the photos and used them like puzzle pieces to work out his new condensed version, which was dedicated on Nov. 11, 1959.
As for the unused portions, what MacMorris did not use he threw away, sending several of the larger excised passages back to Haussner for display in his Baltimore restaurant. MacMorris also gave pieces to the art students who helped him reconfigure the painting and to a number of prominent Kansas Citians.
Fragment from Panthéon de la Guerre depicting a British nursing sister. (theworldwar.org)
The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City recently held an exhibition on the painting and its recovered fragments.
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Lois Long had returned from Paris and advised readers on where to shop in the City of Light. Her fashion column, “On and Off the Avenue,” featured recommendations for many stores and bargains. It began with a brief note from “Parisite,” aka Elizabeth Hawes, who occasionally contributed to Long’s column with cables sent from Paris).
And now for the advertisements, all from the May 14 issue, featuring various French themes, such as this one for Krasny makeup that evokes the glamour of Paris and the intrigue of Russian women…
…or exotic perfumes for only the most exclusive set…
…or the chic look of Revillon Freres spring coats and wraps…
…or fake vermouth…this odd little illustration in the back pages for non-alcoholic vermouth, served by a dutiful French maid to what appears to be a giant. You have to feel sorry for the writers of such ads during Prohibition, trying so hard to make this sad libation appealing to thirsty New Yorkers…
…but there were those lucky few who could actually travel to France and drink the real stuff, you could get a really swell send-off with a “Bon Voyage Basket” from L. Bamberger & Co…
…and while you were in France (at least for the men), Peter Arno could show you how to give the glad eye to the mesdemoiselles…
Above: Actress Gloria Swanson amid the ruins of the Roxy, 1960. The famed theater opened with Swanson's silent film, "The Love of Sunya."(Time Inc.)
Jazz Age New York City was all about the big and grand, and nothing was bigger and grander than the new Roxy Theatre near Times Square.
March 19, 1927 cover by W. Boethling.
The nearly 6,000-seat theatre was such big news that the March 19, 1927 edition of The New Yorker heralded its arrival in three separate columns.
OPENING NIGHT at the Roxy Theatre. (elixinhollywood.blogspot.com)
The Roxy opened with the silent film The Love of Sunya, produced by and starring Gloria Swanson. The film, naturally, was panned by the magazine. Perhaps the critic’s distaste for the film also prompted a certain aloofness about the theatre itself:
NOT EXACTLY YOUR LOCAL CINEPLEX…The Roxy Theatre lobby featuring the “world’s largest oval rug” manufactured by Mohawk Carpets. The theatre was torn down in 1960 and replaced by an office building. A TGI Friday’s restaurant is now located in the space that once housed this grand lobby. (screensonhigh.wordpress.com)NOT ANOTHER BAD NEW YORKER REVIEW?…Gloria Swanson consults a crystal ball to learn her future with three different men in The Love of Sunya. (gswanson.weebly.com)
“The Talk of the Town” described the Roxy in similar dispassionate terms, tossing a wet blanket not on the film but rather on the rude, gawking masses who shelled out eleven bucks apiece (equivalent to $150 today) for a seat on opening night:
THEY WERE AWESTRUCK…The stage and orchestra pit of the Roxy Theatre (elixinhollywood.blogspot.com)
New Yorker architecture critic George S. Chappell (aka “T-Square”) was a bit more generous in his column, “The Sky Line.”
DUBBED ‘THE CATHEDRAL OF THE MOTION PICTURE’ by creator and namesake Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel, the Roxy was located at 153 West 50th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. It was torn down in 1960. (nycago.com)COMING FULL CIRCLE…Gloria Swanson was photographed by Eliot Elisofon in the ruins of the Roxy Theatre on October 14, 1960 for Life Magazine. (Time Inc.)
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The magazine took an unusual approach to its “Profile” section by featuring an autobiographical profile of poet Elinor Wylie in verse, a portion of which is shown below with an illustration by Peter Arno:
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Morality-themed books got the attention of New Yorker book reviewer Ernest Boyd (pen name “Alceste), who devoted considerable ink to Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord by Heywood Broun and Margaret Leech (both of Algonquin Round Table fame). Comstock was a United States Postal Inspector and politician known for the “Comstock Law,” which sought to censor materials he considered indecent and obscene. That included birth control information, which led to famous clashes between Comstock and family planning advocate Margaret Sanger.
An advertisement for the book appeared in the back pages of the magazine:
Boyd also reviewed Sinclair Lewis’sElmer Gantry, a controversial novel that exposed the hypocrisy of some 1920s evangelical preachers:
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This advertisement began to appear in the pages of the New Yorker for a new restaurant that claimed to replace the beloved Delmonico’s. Despite its status as a New York institution, Delmonico’s had fallen victim to the changing dining habits of Prohibition New York and had closed its doors in 1923:
The restaurant was operated by the Happiness Candy Stores chain, which according to the ad also operated restaurants in two other locations in the city. The restaurants must have been short-lived, as I could find no record of them apart from the ads.
Despite Prohibition, perhaps a few champagne corks were popped for the January 15, 1927, edition of the New Yorker. This is Issue # 100.
January 15, 1927–Issue # 100. The cover art by Constantin Alajalov.
Prohibition was on the minds of the editors of the issue, which featured a highly critical piece by Morris Markey (“A Reporter at Large”) on the hysteria surrounding the government’s attempt to poison supplies of bootleg alcohol. The editors of “The Talk of the Town” also made this observation:
Before we get more into Markey’s piece, a little background is in order. In an article for Time magazine (Jan. 14, 2015) Lily Rothman writes that for years prior to Prohibition industrial alcohol had been “denatured” by adding toxic or unappetizing chemicals to it. This was done so folks couldn’t escape beverage taxes by drinking commercial-use alcohol instead — but it was still possible to re-purify the liquid so that it could be consumed.
HOME CHEMISTRY KIT…A bootlegger at work in the 1920s. (oldmagazinearticles.com)
Rothman cites a Time article from Jan. 10, 1927, which reported that Prohibition forces in the government were introducing a new formula that year for denaturing industrial-grade alcohol that doubled the poisonous content: “4 parts methanol (wood alcohol), 2.25 parts pyridine bases, 0.5 parts benzene to 100 parts ethyl alcohol.” The article noted that “Three ordinary drinks of this may cause blindness.”
Warning label from the 1920s (vickyloebel.com)
Although some opposed the practice as legalized murder, Rothman cites Seymour M. Lowman, who as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (1927-33) was in charge of Prohibition enforcement. Lowman told citizens that those on the fringes of society who continued to drink were “dying off fast from poison ‘hooch’” and that if the result was a sober America, “a good job will have been done.”
DRINK AT YOUR OWN RISK…1920s label for bootleg moonshine. (googleuk)
Thousands died from consuming poisoned alcohol. Rothman writes that 33 people died in Manhattan alone in a three-day period in 1928, mostly from drinking wood alcohol.
Markey’s stance in his New Yorker article is somewhat unique, if not cold-hearted. Instead of taking the government to task for the practice, he assured his well-heeled readers that they had nothing to fear as long as they procured their alcohol from reputable bootleggers at top prices. Markey seemed to care not at all for the poor “slum-dwellers” who died from consuming the cheap stuff:
If anything, Markey’s sympathies seemed to lie with those who had to drink the safe, albeit diluted hootch. He explained how four bottles of bootleg Scotch could be fashioned from a single bottle of the real deal:
And if you had money, there was no need to fear death from drink…
…that is, unless you were careless:
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Helena Huntington Smith wrote a profile on the actor Adolphe Menjou, described by IMDB as Hollywood’s epitome of suave and debonair style: “Known for his knavish, continental charm and sartorial opulence, Menjou, complete with trademark waxy black mustache, evolved into one of Hollywood’s most distinguished of artists and fashion plates, a tailor-made scene-stealer.” Interestingly, Menjou was born in Pittsburgh, and not in France as many a fan assumed (his father, however, was a French émigré).
Glass lantern advertising slide for Adolphe Menjou’s 1927 silent film A Gentleman of Paris.
In other items, New Yorker architecture critic George S. Chappell (aka T-Square) once again set his sights on the city’s changing skyline. He began with the new General Motors building at Columbus Circle:
He was thrilled by the push-button automation of the building’s elevators:
The General Motors building, left, as it originally appeared on Columbus Circle. It was designed by Shreve & Lamb, who would soon go on to design the Empire State Building. At right, the building became known as the Newsweek Building. (Drawing by J. W. Golinkin in Towers of Manhattan, 1928, and photo by David W. Dunlap/The New York Times)
If Chappell thought the General Motors building had some issues in 1927, he should see it today, wrapped in tacky reflecting glass and renamed 3 Columbus Circle:
WHY? WHY ON EARTH? (nyc-architecture.com)
Elsewhere, Chappell was agog at Sloan & Robertson’s massive Graybar Building:
Sloan & Robertson’s Graybar Building at 420 Lexington. (history.graybar.com)
And to close, this ad on the back page for Chesterfield cigarettes, featuring the company’s famous Atlantic City sign. Note the point of pride: “There are 13,000 lamps” in the sign, but four times that many Chesterfields are smoked every minute…koff…koff…
Despite The New Yorker’s taste for the finer things–polo, opera, classical music–its editors couldn’t resist the pull of popular culture as both spectacle and fodder for mockery of the hoi polloi.
Oct. 9, 1926 cover by Julian de Miskey.
And so we have the Oct. 9, 1926 issue with a review of the much-anticipated Broadway play Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which was based on a surprise bestselling novel by Anita Loos (and illustrated by The New Yorker’s own Ralph Barton). Despite garnering lukewarm reviews from critics, the public loved the adventures of gold-digging flapper Lorelei Lee.
First edition of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos, illustrated by Ralph Barton (Wikipedia)Edward Steichen portrait of Anita Loos, 1926. The New Yorker would feature a lengthy, admiring “Profile” of Loos in its Nov. 6, 1926 issue. (Minneapolis Institute of Art)
According to Wikipedia, the book was one of several famous novels published in 1925 to chronicle the Jazz Age, including F. Scott Fitzgerald’sThe Great Gatsby (which ironically didn’t do so well) and Carl Van Vechten’sFirecrackers. Loos was inspired to write the book after watching a sexy blonde “turn intellectual H. L. Mencken into a lovestruck schoolboy.” Mencken, a close friend of Loos, actually enjoyed the work and saw to it that it was published.
Gold-digging flapper Lorelei Lee (June Walker, second from left), Henry Spofford (Frank Morgan, second from right), and the rest of the cast tussle in the stage production Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Times Square Theatre, 1926. Another “blonde,” Marilyn Monroe, would famously portray Lorelei Lee in the 1953 Howard Hawks film. (New York Public Library)
Ralph Barton contributed this drawing of June Walker for the magazine’s review:
And a bit of the review itself…
In other items, Lois Long paid a visit to Texas Guinan’s 300 Club on 54th Street, which apparently was still the place to go for a roaring good time:
JUST HAVING FUN…According to the blog Ephemeral New York, Texas Guinan’s 300 Club at 151 West 54th Street hosted the likes of John Barrymore, George Gershwin, and Clara Bow. The club was targeted by prohibition officials, who were constantly padlocking the door and arresting Texas. Guinan’s clever rejoinder to the officials: The 300 Club’s patrons brought liquor with them, and because the place was so small, the showgirls were forced to dance close to customers. (Ephemeral New York)
The magazine’s cartoons continued to mine the humor of rich old men out on the town with their young flapper mistresses. The one below was a center spread illustration by Wallace Morgan with the caption: “Poor little girl–to think you’ve never had anyone to protect you.”
Finally, a look back at one of my earlier blog posts (Cuban Idyll) that featured Americans in Havana. I recently traveled to Cuba and visited some of the old haunts, including the famed Sloppy Joe’s:
It was 1926 and another marvel of science—talking pictures—was unveiled to audiences at Broadway’s Warners’ Theatre. It was here that the Warner Brothers launched their ‘Vitaphone’ talkies including The Jazz Singer, which would premiere the following year.
Aug. 14, 1926 cover by Ilonka Karasz.
The Vitaphone soundtrack was not printed on the film itself, but rather recorded separately on phonograph record, the sound synchronized by physically coupling the record turntable to the film projection motor.
A Vitaphone projection setup at a 1926 demonstration. Engineer E. B. Craft is holding a soundtrack disc. The turntable, on a massive tripod base, is at lower center. (University of San Diego History Department)
Don Juan was the first feature-length film to use the Vitaphone system, which was not a continuous soundtrack but rather a sprinkling of sound shorts (the musical score, performed by the New York Philharmonic, and various sound effects) throughout the film. No spoken dialogue was recorded.
First-nighters pose outside Warners’ Theatre before the premiere of Don Juan, August 6, 1926 (US National Archives)
Produced at a cost of $789,963 (the largest budget of any Warner film up to that point), the film was critically acclaimed and a box-office success. However, and predictably, The New Yorker was not so impressed with Vitaphone…
…or the acting of John Barrymore…
I have to agree with the critic, identified only as O.C., after viewing this TCM clip of the film on YouTube. Lacking a voice, silent actors had to exaggerate emotions onscreen, but Barrymore here is every bit the ham. This screen grab from the clip says it all:
The object of his gaze, Adriana della Varnese (played here by a young Mary Astor), reacts rather dramatically to his advances…can’t say I blame her…(however, the 44-year-old Barrymore and the 20-year-old Astor were having an affair at the time…)
Adriana della Varnese (played here by a young Mary Astor), reacts rather dramatically to Don Juan’s advances.
A couple of interesting ads in the Aug. 14, 1926 issue, including this one featuring a couple of sneaky gents who’ve found a solution to life in dry America…
…and this not-too-subtle message from a swanky shop on Fifth Avenue:
The glories of summertime filled the pages of the July 17, 1926 issue. The cover featured a stylish young couple enjoying a romantic evening on a moonlit lake, while the inside pages were filled with all sorts of outdoor activities ranging from dining and dancing to open air concerts and golf, lots of it.
There was a lengthy profile by Herbert Reed on golfing great Bobby Jones, a mere boy of 24 who competed as an amateur but often beat top pros such as Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen (in a few years Jones would help design the Augusta National Golf Club and co-found the Masters Tournament).
Rending of Bobby Jones for the “Profile” by illustrator Miguel Covarrubias.
In “Sports of the Week,” Reed wrote about Jones’s second U.S. Open win, in Columbus, Ohio. Johan Bull offered this rendering of the runners-up:
Bobby Jones at the 1926 U.S. Open (golfspast.com)
And with the warm weather the tops were open on automobiles for both the rich:
And the not-so-rich:
And finally, Lois Long, fed up with reviewing restaurants, fires off a column about the sad state of drinking in America:
The Roaring Twenties were a strange confluence of the Puritan and libertine, perhaps best represented by Prohibition and the speakeasy night life it inspired. Many if not most of The New Yorker readers of the late 1920s were familiar with these establishments as well as with reliable bootleggers and rum runners. And for those of you following this blog we all know that “Tables for Two” columnist Lois Long was the voice of speakeasy and New York nightlife.
May 29, 1926 cover by Stanley W. Reynolds.
Prohibition did not make consumption of alcohol illegal. The 18th Amendment prohibited the commercial manufacture and distribution of alcoholic beverages, but it did not prohibit their use.
So if you had a connection to a smuggler bringing whisky from Scotland via Canada, for example, you could enjoy a Scotch at home without too much trouble, although the prices could be high. “The Talk of the Town” editors regularly reported black market wine and liquor prices (I include an adjoining Julian de Miskey cartoon):
Note the mention of pocket flasks, which were an important item in a purse or vest pocket when one went to a nightclub or restaurant, where White Rock or some other sparkling water was sold as a mixer for whatever you happened to bring with you. You see a lot of this type of advertisement in the Prohibition-era New Yorker:
I’ll bet those grinning golfers have something in their bags besides clubs.
And then there were ads like these, which I find quite sad:
“The Talk of the Town” also commented on the recent visit of British writer Aldous Huxley, who told his New York hosts that he admired American writers Willa Cather and Sherwood Anderson, and he also had praise for writer and critic H.L. Mencken, whom he likened to a farmer “of the better type:”
Aldous Huxley in the 1920s. (Biography.com)
Other odds and ends from this issue…a clever drawing by Al Frueh for the “Profile” feature on New York Governor Al Smith:
A photo of Al Smith for comparison:
New York Gov. Al Smith (IMDB)
And this bit from “Of All Things,” complete with bad pun/racial slur:
New Yorker readers in 1926 had little reason to believe that in a decade Benito Mussolini would try to make good on his statement and join Adolf Hitler in the next world war.
Here’s a couple more ads from the issue that are signs of those times. Note the listing of Florida locations for those New Yorkers who were flocking to that new winter vacation destination:
And this ad for an electric refrigerator…for those who could afford such newfangled things. The ice man was still plenty busy in 1926, but his days were numbered.
And finally, a nod to springtime, and this excerpt of an illustration by Helen Hokinson for the “Talk” section:
In her latest dispatch from Paris, correspondent Janet Flanner offered New Yorker readers a glimpse into the French mind, its fear of “Americanization” and its perception of America’s Puritanical attitudes behind Prohibition.
April 3, 1926 cover by Rea Irvin.
All the more reason the French were bemused by reports that American and English citizens led the lists of reported drug raids in the City of Light…
or that somehow Prohibition was a question of theological differences:
The April 3, 1926 issue also offered up some curious advertisements. Aiming square at the grasping Anglophilia of New Yorker readers, here’s a pitch for a used Rolls Royce:
And with the money left over from your savings on the used Rolls, you could buy this 47-foot cruiser from the American Car and Foundry Company:
Moving along to the April 10, 1926 issue (cover designed by H.O. Hofman)…
April 10, 1926 cover by H.O. Hofman.
…I discovered this clever “map” by John Held Jr. For fans of “Boardwalk Empire” or other 1920s gangster-themed fare, Held’s map confirms it was no secret that Atlantic City was a major port for rum runners:
Also on the theme of Prohibition, cartoonist James Daugherty (Jimmy the Ink) had some fun with New Yorker colleague Lois Long (aka Lipstick) by pairing her with New York’s top Prohibition prosecutor Emory Buckner in this unlikely scenerio:
Note the lock on the fire hydrant. Padlocking restaurants and clubs suspected of selling alcohol was a favorite tactic of Buckner and his agents. Long famously took him task in her Oct. 31, 1925 “Tables for Two” column. You can read about it here in my previous post, “How Dry I Am.”
Although they didn’t know it, thirsty New Yorkers still had more than six and half of years of Prohibition to endure, and business was brisk for the rum runners who plied the coastal waters.
The March 6, 1926 issue featured the article “Rum Runners Must Live,” in which writer Emile C. Schnurmacher described the heroic efforts of bootleggers and rum runners in keeping New York’s countless speakeasies (and many home liquor cabinets) well stocked. Some 30,000 speakeasies were opened in New York City alone during the Prohibition era.
Schnurmacher described the risky game of running “overboard stuff:”
He told of how one rum-running boat, the Sea Bird, made its way through Flushing Bay (to pick up bootleg Scotch) while evading the Coast Guard:
The boat later successfully delivered the “Scotch” near Yankee Stadium:
“The Talk of the Town” offered its regular update on bootleg prices. The local “synthetic” gin was reported to be of better quality than the imports, surprising given that synthetics poisoned a good number of folks back then:
The blog Speakeasy Science notes that during Prohibition, police department chemists, “analyzing the so-called gin in the Brooklyn bar and around the city, reported that much of it was industrial alcohol, re-distilled to try to remove the wood alcohol content. The re-distilling was not notably successful. The poisonous alcohol remained and there was more: the chemists had detected traces of kerosene and mercury, and disinfectants including Lysol and carbolic acid in the beverages.”
HE HAD THE GOOD STUFF…Not all bootleg was poison. Until he was busted in 1923 by government agents, one of the most famous purveyors to wealthy buyers was rum-runner William McCoy. (US Coast Guard)In order to destroy evidence, the crew of the rum-runner Linwood set fire to their vessel after being pursued by a patrol boat. (Photo circa 1923, U.S. Coast Guard)
In “Tables for Two,” Lois Long paid a visit to the Algonquin hotel and took some playful swipes at the denizens the famed Round Table:
IS THAT YOU DOUG? Silent screen star Douglas Fairbanks could relax unmolested in the quiet confines of the Algonquin. (Meredy.com)
At the movies, Theodore Shane took deadly aim at the silent film version of the opera La Bohème:
A “pop-eyed” John Gilbert and Lillian Gish in the 1926 silent film version of La Bohème. (IMDB)
And finally, Al Frueh’s sympathetic take on the wintertime toils of the rich:
A New Yorker State of Mind 