Rea Irvin – Page 11 – A New Yorker State of Mind

We Smiled As We Danced

In his 2006 book, Flapper, Joshua Zeitz refers to The New Yorker’s Lois Long as the epitome of the 1920s flapper, an “absolutely a wild woman” who wrote about Jazz Age nightlife “with a wicked sort of sexual sense of humor.”

Feb. 8, 1930 cover by **Theodore Haupt** (the annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show was in town…)

This Vassar-educated daughter of a Congregational minister began her New Yorker career in the summer of 1925, at age 23. She took over Charles Baskerville’s rather dry column, “When Nights are Bold,” renamed it “Tables for Two,” and using the pen name “Lipstick” plunged into the nightlife scene with considerable brio.

TIMES CHANGE…At left, in a still image from a 1920s home movie, **Lois Long** relaxes on a beach; at right, Long with newborn daughter **Patricia Arno** in 1929. (PBS/Patricia Arno)

Two years later she would marry cartoonist Peter Arno, and in 1929 would give birth to a daughter, Patricia. During this time the almost weekly “Tables” column would appear infrequently as Long turned her attentions to her family and her fashion column, “On and Off the Avenue.” But as I’ve noted before, Long, along with many of her New Yorker colleagues, had grown weary of the Roaring Twenties many months before they were over. She would put an end (for awhile) to the “Tables” column in June 1930; the good times, as Long noted in her Feb. 8 column, had lost their “verve”…

BRITS AND TWITS…**Lois Long** recalled the nightlife entertainments of the past and present in one of her last “Tables for Two” columns. Photo at left (from left to right), **Beatrice Lillie, Nelson Keys,** and **Gertrude Lawrence** in Andre Charlot’s Revue of 1924. At right, the comedy trio **Eddie Jackson, Jimmy Durante** and **Lou Clayton.** (Museum of the City of New York/Herbert Mitchell Collection)

…Long found Don Dickerman’s latest themed restaurant, the Daffydil, to be a mildly amusing distraction…

HE WAS AN ARRRTIST…Greenwich Village personality and pirate aficionado Don Dickerman (left) failed to make a living as an artist, but found success with his various themed restaurants including the Pirate’s Cove, the Blue Horse, the Heigh-Ho (where **Rudy Vallee** started out), the County Fair and the Daffydil (which was financed by Vallee). At right, singing at the Daffydil were the California Collegians, a group that included actor **Fred MacMurray** (tallest in the photo). (Restaurant-ing through history)

…and she also looked to Harlem for some nighttime diversions, but the ex-flapper just wasn’t up for a rowdy scene…

FOR THE YOUNG AT HEART…Dancing the Lindy Hop at the Savoy in Harlem, circa 1930. (Pinterest)

…ten years later, in The New Yorker’s fifteenth anniversary issue (Feb. 17, 1940), the 38-year-old Long would look back to the Roaring Twenties in the column “That Was New York,” reprising her signature “Lipstick” as she recalled the days when “Harlem was a thrill” and “we smiled when we went dancing in 1925 even though there wasn’t a candid camera within miles. In those days people frequently laughed out loud in public.” She concluded the piece with this observation:

* * *

Rise of the Débutantes

New York’s débutantes and The New Yorker had something of a symbiotic relationship during the magazine’s early days, beginning with a piece written by 22-year-old Ellin Mackay for the Nov. 28, 1925 issue that served as a manifesto of sorts for a new kind of débutante. Mackay’s essay explained why modern women were abandoning the forced social matchmaking of débutante balls in favor of the more egalitarian (and fun) night club scene.

Mackay’s piece provided a huge boost to The New Yorker’s circulation, the magazine barely staying afloat at the time. Nevertheless, its writers couldn’t resist taking occasional shots at the seemingly frivolous existence of debs, including E.B. White, who called out a one Katrinka Suydam in his “Notes and Comment” column for Jan. 4, 1930:

Perhaps White came across Suydam’s name in the Sept. 7, 1929 New York Times:

What he probably didn’t expect was a reply from Suydam herself, an act that seemed to impress the magazine’s editors, who printed the proud débutante’s letter in full on page 32:

Suydam would go on to marry Frederick Roelker later that June. Note in this excerpted wedding write-up how the couples’ European and colonial pedigrees were carefully detailed in the first paragraphs, distinguishing their union from couplings enjoyed by the unwashed masses…

**Katrinka Suydam’s** wedding as reported in the June 12, 1930 issue of *The* *New York Times.*

* * *

Skirt Stakes

In 1930 hemlines plummeted along with the stock market. E.B. White, in “Notes,” welcomed the return of “mystery” to women’s fashions:

THEY DROPPED WITH THE MARKET…Women’s spring fashions with lowered hemlines on display in the April 1930 issue of *Good Housekeeping.* (fashion-era.com)

Frederick Lewis Allen, on the other hand, was having difficulty understanding the modern woman, circa 1930, based on what he was seeing in the display windows along Fifth Avenue. Excerpts:

NO NONSENSE WOMEN…Window displays on Fifth Avenue included (left) this “Travel Smartly in Tweed” window display for Franklin Simon (1929-30); and right, a window at Lord & Taylor, 1933. (Harry Ransom Center/Museum of the City of New York)

Allen noted that the “snooty” mannequins on display along Fifth Avenue represented a certain type who wouldn’t be caught dead riding a bus…

Whether or not he liked the Altman girls, the 39-year-old Allen felt like an “old fogey” in the presence of these “no nonsense” women:

* * *

Get A Room

Marion Sturges Jones pondered the life of another kind of modern woman, namely that of Virginia Woolf, who had recently published the extended essay A Room of One’s Own. Jones discovered that finding such a room was easier said than done…

IN HER ROOM…**Virginia Woolf** at Monk’s House in East Sussex, 1932; dust jacket of the first edition of *A Room of One’s Own.* (kaykeys.net/Beinecke Library, Yale)

* * *

The Way You Really Look

Franklin P. Adams penned a profile of the legendary songwriter and stage producer Jerome Kern, who created dozens of Broadway musicals and Hollywood films and wrote a substantial chunk of the American songbook (more than 700 songs) with such hits as “Ol’ Man River”, “A Fine Romance”, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, and “The Way You Look Tonight.” Peter Arno provided this less-than-flattering caricature of the man…

…and this is how Kern actually looked, circa 1930…

* * *

At the Talkies

Speaking of showbiz, New Yorker film critic John Mosher offered high praise for William Powell’s latest film, Street of Chance. Although Powell is often linked professionally to actress Myrna Loy thanks to their six Thin Man films (1934 – 1947), from 1930 to 1932 he also appeared with Kay Francis in six films, including Street of Chance. Both Powell and Francis would become major stars of the 1930s, and between 1930 and 1936 Francis would be the number one female star at Warner Brothers and the highest-paid American film actress. Francis was no stranger to wild living — she was a longtime friend of Lois Long’s (see above) and also shared an apartment with her at 381 Park Avenue before Long married Peter Arno. Mosher’s review:

TOUGH ODDS…**William Powell** and **Kay Francis** in *Street of Chance* (1930). Francis was a longtime friend of *New Yorker* columnist **Lois Long.** (IMDB)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We have an advertisement from the aforementioned County Fair, one of the themed restaurants operated by Greenwich village artist and personality Don Dickerman, who illustrated his own ads…

…I’m not sure who drew this Arno-esque illustration below for the Holmes Electric Protective Company, but I can tell you that the name Holmes was synonymous with home security in 1930…in 1857 Edwin Holmes bought a patent for an electric burglar alarm (invented in 1853 by Augustus Pope) and went on to successfully commercialize and popularize the electromagnetic burglar alarm. Holmes is also credited with creating the first large-scale alarm network in the United States…

…but I do know that Abe Birnbaum contributed this drawing (in “Talk of the Town”) of the beloved Colony restaurant owner Eugene Cavallero…

A PLACE TO SEE AND BE SEEN…From the 1920s to the 1960s New York’s smart set dined at the Colony. **Rian James**, in *Dining In New York* (1930) wrote “the Colony is the restaurant of the cosmopolite and the connoisseur; the rendezvous of the social register; the retreat of the Four Hundred.” Critic **George Jean Nathan** said the Colony was one of “civilization’s last strongholds in the department of cuisine.” Photo at left of the dining room around 1940; at right, owner **Eugene Cavallero** consults with a chef. (lostpastremembered.blogspot.com)

…on to our cartoons, we have a full page from Al Frueh…

…and another full-page from Rea Irvin…

…this terrific party scene courtesy Garrett Price…

…two by the marvelous Barbara Shermund (check out Michael Maslin’s latest post on Shermund)…

and we sign off with the inimitable Peter Arno…

Next Time: Prophet of Doom…

The Wild Kingdom

A host of nature programs from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom to Planet Earth owe their origins to a few intrepid filmmakers who 100 years ago gave Americans some of their first glimpses of life in exotic, remote regions of the world.

Among the first to do it were a couple from Kansas, Osa and Martin Johnson, who together explored unknown lands and brought back footage of the wildlife and peoples of the African continent, the South Pacific Islands and British North Borneo. Their first film, Among the Cannibal Isles of the South Seas (1918), was followed by several more, including Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, which was released in early 1930.

The New Yorker film critic John Mosher was as eager as any audience to take in the adventures of the Johnsons, or even of someone who was inspired by the Johnsons, in this case a “Miss O’Brien” who had just released a “diverting diary” called Up the Congo. Mosher wrote about it in the Jan. 25 issue:

CONTACT…Image of a family from an unidentified Pygmy tribe posing with a European explorer in a 1921 *Collier’s New Encyclopedia* entry; a group of Mbuti posing with explorer **Osa Johnson** in 1930. (Wikipedia)

I can find no record of the film Up the Congo, however the exploits of the Johnsons are well documented thanks to the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum in Chanute, Kansas, which has a treasure trove of photos and other information on the explorers.

The ad in the Feb. 1, 1930 New Yorker promoting Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson included an interesting “added attraction”…a film about Einstein’s theory of relativity that had caused a Jan. 8 “riot” at the American Museum of Natural History. That particular screening was intended for members of the Amateur Astronomers Association, but word got out and three times the invited number showed up at the museum, breaking down the lobby gates. Hard to imagine a mob today clamoring to view a science film…

Although the Johnsons made their movies under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History, much of the footage was staged or edited to maximize the thrills (Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom did this in the 1960s and 70s, as did producers of Disney’s nature films from the 50s and 60s. The practice continues to this day on cable television).

The Johnsons also didn’t hesitate to gun down animals in the course of their movie-making…

YEP, THAT’S JUXTAPOSITION…**Osa Johnson** poses with a *Photoplay* magazine, a dead rhino, and a tribesman, circa 1930. (columbia.edu)

According to a 2011 review from Wild Film History, “in stark contrast to the conservation-themed wildlife films of today, the Johnsons approached their subjects armed with both camera and rifle, with the production including provoked behaviour, staged confrontations and animals shot to death on film. Relying heavily on cutting in kills from professional marksmen, numerous hunting scenes culminate in a heart-stopping sequence where, with the use of clever editing, the adventurous Mrs Johnson appears to bring down a charging rhinoceros with one well-aimed shot.”

Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson is presented as if the Johnsons were showing their film to a few friends in their New York City apartment. The film is a “silent with sound,” that is, scenes in the field are silent, but the cocktail party “home movie” opening has sound, including “mood music” Osa provides by turning on the radio as the film begins. For all of their film experience, the acting between Osa and Martin is wooden, as is Martin’s narration. The critic John Mosher, however, enjoyed the ride, writing in his Feb. 1 column:

If you are curious, you can watch some of the film here, including the opening home movie scene with Osa and Martin in cocktail attire…

* * *

My Kinda Town

The New Yorker occasionally enjoyed taking potshots at the Second City, as well as some good-natured jabs at a few of its former residents who were also denizens of the Algonquin Round Table. Here is E.B. White in the Feb. 1 “Notes and Comment”…

WINDY WITS…Chicagoans Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht and **Ring Lardner** were well-known to *The* *New Yorker* crowd. (Wikipedia)

* * *

Not In This Century

This item from the Feb. 1 “Talk of the Town” is noteworthy for placing its admiration of technical achievement over any concerns for a child’s welfare. Today the couple would be arrested for this…

* * *

The Perils of Aging

Irish-American actress and writer Patricia Collinge (1892-1974) wrote a series of short stories for The New Yorker, including this piece for the Feb. 1 issue written when she was 37 years old. It is a sad story about an older actress (37) who hoped to land the part of a younger woman. Some excerpts…

…the actress in the story is led to believe the part was intended for a woman of 28, and is crushed to learn that the agent was looking for “a young twenty-two”…

OH TO BE YOUNG…At left, **Gladys Cooper, Alexandra Carlisle** and 20-year-old Patricia Collinge in the Drury Lane production of *Everywoman* (1912); at right, Collinge in 1941. Unlike the sad actress in her short story, Collinge’s career spanned more than 60 years. (Wikipedia)

* * *

Coming Around

In previous issues art critic Murdock Pemberton expressed skepticism about the new Museum of Modern of Art, founded by wealthy society women in November 1929. Pemberton held egalitarian views about art, and wondered if the old money set could create a venue for true modern artists. His review of “Painting in Paris,” MoMA’s third exhibition, seemed to allay his concerns…

PAINTING IN PARIS was the title of the Museum of Modern Art’s third exhibition featuring works by **Georges Braque, Georges Rouault, Pablo Picasso,** **Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Robert Delauney, Fernand Leger, Henri Matisse** and **Andre Derain** among others. Image above is from the original exhibition at MOMA’s first home in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue. (MOMA)

Images above in color, from left, **Pablo Picasso’s** *Green Still Life Avignon* (1914) and Seated Woman (1927); **Georges Braque’s** *Still life* (1927). (MOMA/WikiArt)

Pemberton expressed enthusiasm for the show’s new works that contained few traces of the familiar…

* * *

The King’s Speech

King George V was not known for his public speaking, but when he addressed the third meeting of the London Naval Conference it was a big deal, even to American listeners who for the first time heard his voice over broadcast radio, still a very new medium in 1930…

ON THE AIR…The voice of **King George V** (pictured here in 1923) was broadcast across the Atlantic for the opening of the London Naval Conference at St. James’s Palace in 1930. The third in a series of five meetings, the conference was formed with the purpose of placing limits on the naval capacity of the world’s largest naval powers. (Wikipedia/Churchill Archives Centre)

* * *

Good Clean Fun?

In his theater review column, Robert Benchley lamented the state of burlesque shows at the National Winter Garden, where “leviathans of an earlier day” were being displaced by “agile wisps” in third-rate Broadway productions…

ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS…from left, **Viola Clifton,** a fuller-figured 1890s burlesque dancer; center and right, **Margaret Bourke-White** photos from Minsky’s National Winter Garden, 1936. Theater critic **Robert Benchley** wrote that he missed the “leviathans” of an earlier age, who were replaced by girls who were nothing but “agile wisps.”(mashable.com/theguardian.com)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Just a couple of ads from the Feb. 1 issue, including this entry from the Shelton Looms offering advice on how one should appear among the Havana social set…

…and this ad from Harper’s Bazaar, also appealing to the smart set…

…our cartoons include this two-page illustration by Rea Irvin…

…Alan Dunn’s look into the challenges of running a power plant…

…at the opera with Perry Barlow…

…Gardner Rea and some bedroom hinjinks…

…man vs. mouse, by Peter Arno…

…and this by Leonard Dove, seemingly anticipating the work of Charles Addams…

Next Time: We Smiled As We Danced…

In Search of Yuletide Cheer

Construction workers line up for pay beside the first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York in 1931. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Sinful Diversions

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

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

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

* * *

Final Bows

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Stocks Down, Arno Up

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

…in the cartoons, a full page with the economy as a theme…

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

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

…and another by Leonard Dove…

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

…Helen Hokinson examined a physician’s bedside manner…

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Violin Prodigy 2.0

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

* * *

Namesake

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

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

* * *

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

…and the American artists showcased there…

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

* * *

From Our Advertisers

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

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

…and Helen Hokinson for Frigidaire…

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

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

Next Time: The Curtain Falls…

A Glimpse of the Future

Just nine days after the stock market crash, three women opened a new museum on Fifth Avenue that would play a major role in defining the type of city that would emerge from the other side of the Depression and World War II.

Nov. 23, 1929 cover by **Theodore Haupt.**

These visionary women would borrow works from modernists of the past century — the post-impressionists — to stage the first-ever exhibit of the Museum of Modern Art. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, along with her friends Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan, had rented six rooms on the 12th floor of the Heckscher Building, and on Nov. 7, 1929, they opened the doors to the museum’s first exhibition, simply titled Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh. The New Yorker’s art critic Murdock Pemberton was on hand for the opening:

THE FOUNDERS…**Mary Sullivan, Lillie Bliss** and **Abby Rockefeller,** known socially as “the daring ladies,” founded the Museum of Modern Art in 1929. (virginiafitzgerald.blogspot.com/MoMA)

OLD AND NEW…The 12th floor of the Heckscher Building (now called the Crown Building) at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street served as the first location of the Museum of Modern Art. The 1921 building was designed by Warren and Wetmore, the same architects who designed Grand Central Terminal. Note in the foreground the rooftop of the Vanderbilt mansion, demolished in 1926 to make way for the Bergdorf Goodman department store; at right, a page from the new museum’s brochure. (Museum of the City of New York/MoMA)

The gallery rooms in the Heckscher were modest — although Abby’s husband was John D. Rockefeller Jr., she had to find funding on her own (he was opposed to the museum, and to modern art). In his review, Pemberton noted the “inferiority complex” that had already set in at the new museum, which took a preemptive swipe at the Met in its pamphlet (pictured above):

AMBITIOUS…Although the museum was small and had no curatorial departments, MoMA produced a 157-page exhibition catalogue for its first show. (Image and text courtesy MoMA)

MODEST BEGINNINGS…MoMA’s first gallery spaces on the 12th floor of the Heckscher Building were indeed modest, as these photos of the first exhibition attest. (MoMA)

HOW THEY LOOKED IN COLOR…Works featured in MoMA’s first exhibition included *The Bedroom* (1889) by **Vincent Van Gogh,** and *Pines and Rocks* (c. 1897), by **Paul Cézanne.** (Art Institute of Chicago/MoMA)

Pemberton attempted to set MoMA straight regarding the Met’s reputation:

HOME AT LAST…After moving three times over the course of ten years, the Museum of Modern Art finally found a permanent home in Midtown in 1939. Although **Abby Rockefeller’s** husband, **John D. Rockefeller** Jr., was initially opposed to the museum, he eventually came around and donated the land for the 1939 museum (designed by **Philip L. Goodwin** and **Edward Durell Stone)** and became one of the museum’s biggest supporters. (MoMA)

Less than three years later, the museum would point to the world to come in 1932’s Modern Architecture: International Exhibition, curated by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock. The exhibition showcased an emerging architectural style that would dominate the New York skyline in the postwar years.

Top, model of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye from MoMA’s 1932 *Modern Architecture: International Exhibition*; below, model and photographs of works by Walter Gropius. Both architects would have major influences on the postwar New York skyline. (MoMA)

A footnote: The Museum of Modern Art hosts a remarkable website that features photographs of 4,875 exhibitions (plus images of catalogs and other materials) from 1929 to the present.

* * *

That’s Entertainment?

Theater critic Robert Benchley was looking for something to take his mind off the economic collapse, but he wasn’t finding it on Broadway. He found the drama Veneer to be depressing, and apparently so did a lot of other theatergoers; it closed the next month after just 31 performances at the Sam Harris Theatre:

NO LAUGHS HERE, EITHER…**Joanna Roos** and **Osgood Perkins** during a 1930 performance of the Chekhov play *Uncle Vanya* at the Cort Theatre. Roos was also in 1929’s *Veneer*, and she was singled out for praise by critic **Robert Benchley**, who otherwise found the play depressing. (New York Public Library)

Benchley also found little cheer in the play Cross Roads, which also closed the next month after just 28 performances at the Morosco Theatre:

FOR CRYING OUT LOUD…Actress **Sylvia Sidney** bawled out her lines in *Cross Roads. (Photoplay, 1932)*

Benchley finally found something to laugh about at the Alvin Theatre, which featured the musical comedy Heads Up! Tellingly, it ran much longer than its more somber competition: 144 performances…

CLOWNS…**Victor Moore,** left, and **Ray Bolger** delivered comic relief in *Heads Up!* Both actors provided much-needed levity on the Broadway stage during the Depression. (movie-mine.com/Pinterest)

* * *

Ideas for a Post-Crash Christmas

Creighton Peet (1899-1977) was best known as an author of books for young people with titles ranging from Mike the Cat (1934) to How Things Work (1941). A regular contributor to The New Yorker from 1925 to 1957, in the Nov. 23 issue Peet offered up some suggestions for a post-crash Christmas in a short piece titled “Helpful Hints for Marginaires.” An excerpt:

The recent market crash was also on the mind of Howard Brubaker. In his weekly column, “Of All Things,” he looked for divine guidance…

CAN YOU PUT IN A GOOD WORD? **James Cannon Jr.** was a bishop of the southern Methodist Church and a relentless advocate of Prohibition. (encyclopediavirginia.org)

…in the wake of recent elections, Brubaker also made this observation about voting rights in the South…

* * *

Solace of the Silver Screen

Americans would turn to the movies for a much-needed distraction from their economic woes, and critic John Mosher found a couple of mild diversions starring Greta Garbo and Clara Bow…

MUM’S THE WORD…**Greta Garbo** and **Lew Ayres** in *The Kiss.* The film was a rare silent in the new age of the talkies (although it did feature a Movietone orchestral score and sound effects). Audiences would have to wait until 1930’s *Anna Christie* to hear the voice of Garbo. (IMDB)

PLEASE PASS THE BITTERS, DEAR…**Greta Garbo** and **Anders Randolf** trapped in a loveless marriage in *The Kiss.* (IMDB)

For a few laughs, moviegoers could check out Clara Bow’s second talkie, The Saturday Night Kid. A sex symbol of the Roaring Twenties, Bow’s career began to wane with the advent of the talkies and the onset of the Depression. Her kind would be eclipsed by a new type of sex symbol — the platinum blonde — embodied by the likes of Jean Harlow, who also appeared in The Saturday Night Kid, her first credited role…

SIBLING RIVALRY…Sisters Mayme **(Clara Bow)** and Janie **(Jean Arthur)** vie for the affections of next door neighbor William **(James Hall)** in a scene from *The Saturday Night Kid.* (doctormacro.com)

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER…**Jean Arthur, Clara Bow, Jean Harlow** and **Leone Lane** in a publicity photo for *The Saturday Night Kid.* (IMDB)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We begin with a couple of ads featured on back-to-back pages of products that no longer exist — the first promotes the use of Ethyl gasoline to increase performance and eliminate engine knock. Ethyl (tetraethyl lead) — a big contributor to soil, air and water lead pollution — was removed from gasoline beginning in the 1970s…the Marmon Motor Car Company introduced a more affordable (under $1,000) car to New Yorker readers in 1929, but it was too late for the struggling company, which due to the Depression folded in 1933…

…this seems an unusual ad for the New Yorker, but then again perhaps the White Company hoped to reach well-heeled readers who were also owners of companies in need of such things, although it is doubtful a lot of truck-buying was taking place after the crash…

…the 1920s are considered a golden age for American road-building, but if you wanted to travel across country, the national highway system was limited to just a few, mostly two-lane routes…

…with their frayed nerves, folks were doubtless smoking like chimneys…the makers of Fatima cigarettes acknowledged the pain felt by the market crash, while nevertheless justifying the higher cost of their brand…

…the holiday season was fast-approaching, and Bergdorf Goodman was ready to set the mood…

…on the lower end of the scale, the California Fruit Growers offered up this dandy “juice extractor” as the gift to delight a loved one (with illustration by Don Herold)…

…I suppose given its quasi-medicinal (digestif) qualities, Cointreau was able to sell their product at 6% alcohol content to dry Americans (although the full- strength Cointreau, not legally available to Americans, was rated at 40%)…at right, another back page ad from Reuben’s restaurant, with more handwritten endorsements from stars including singer Helen Kane (Boop-Boop-a-Doop), cartoonist Rube Goldberg, and Paramount Studio co-founder Jesse Lasky…

…Helen Hokinson’s society women were featured in two separate ads in the Nov. 23 issue…

…and the folks at Frigidare got an extra plug thanks to Leonard Dove…

…Lois Long’s “On and Off the Avenue” column began to grow in length as the holiday season approached, peppered with spot drawings including these two by Julian De Miskey and Barbara Shermund…

…and Isadore Klein offered his own take on the holiday shopping scene…

…Rea Irvin reprised his folk-satirical approach to life at the Coolidge house…

…John Reynolds found more humor in the clash of cultures…

…Helen Hokinson contributed this very modern rendering of writer’s block…

…and Peter Arno looked in on the challenges of commuting…

…and a quick note regarding a recent issue of The New Yorker (Dec. 3, 2018)…the cover featured a reprint of a Matias Santoyo cover from April 2, 1927…very cool…

Next Time: Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Writer…

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.

* * *

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)…

* * *

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)

* * *

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)

* * *

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)

* * *

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…

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)

* * *

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:

* * *

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)

* * *

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)

* * *

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…

Not Your Grandpa’s Tammany Hall

For more than a century, a political organization known as the Tammany Society ruled New York City politics with an iron fist. Founded in 1786 (and named for Tamanend, a chief in the Lenni-Lenape nation), by the mid 19th century it rapidly expanded its political control by earning the loyalty of the city’s fast-growing immigrant population, particularly the Irish.

The Tammany Society proved an efficient machine for controlling state Democratic politics as well as New York City elections. Through its use of patronage to reward loyal precinct leaders, it also became a center for big-time graft. Most of us know a bit about Tammany thanks to school history books that focused on the deep corruption of William “Boss” Tweed, who was brought down by the press and by Harper’s Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast in the 1870s. Tammany Hall would survive the scandal, and in the 1920s would still pull the strings of politicians including Gov. Al Smith and New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker.

Tammany had several homes, but during its most notorious years it was located in a circa 1812 hall (then called a “wigwam”) and later in an 1868 building on 14th Street, between Third and Fourth avenues. The July 13, 1929 “The Talk of the Town” noted the recent demolition of that old hall and the opening of a new headquarters on 17th Street:

POLITICAL BAGGAGE…Top, a stereoscope card featuring the 1868 Tammany Hall; below, **Thomas Nast** cartoons depicting the corruption of Tammany Hall and the downfall of Boss Tweed. (Wikimedia Commons/Smithsonian)

“Talk” found the new building unimpressive; it seemed to signal that the old political machine was losing some of its luster:

EVOLUTION OF THE WIGWAM, as depicted on a poster circa 1920. (nypdhistory.com)

Top left: The old Tammany Hall, decorated for the 1868 Democratic National Convention. Bottom left, the old hall was located at 141 E 14th Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenues. It was demolished in 1927 to make way for expansion of the Consolidated Edison building (right). (NYPL Digital Gallery/mediahistoryny.files.wordpress.com/Wikipedia)

Indeed, “Talk” found the building to be a somewhat austere, hosed-down affair, far removed from its grander past:

I LIKE YOUR NEW HAT…The 1929 Tammany Hall (top left) is currently undergoing a major renovation. Although the interior is being dramatically altered, including the addition of a glass dome, the landmarked exterior will mostly be preserved. When completed, the building—a mix of office and retail—will be known as 44 Union Square. (bkskarch.com)

For further evidence that the more austere Tammany Hall was nevertheless alive and well in 1929, another “Talk” item noted the organization’s continued influence behind the scenes in local politics:

The 1930s marked the beginning of the end for Tammany Hall, when reform-minded Democrats such as President Franklin Roosevelt and New York’s Republican Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (supported by Roosevelt on a “Fusion” ticket) dismantled Tammany’s system of patronage. The Tammany Society abandoned its headquarters in 1943 when it found it no longer had the funds to maintain the hall. Bought by a local affiliate of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, it later housed the New York Film Academy and the Union Square Theatre until 2016, when it underwent extensive remodeling to make way for new office and retail space.

* * *

Your Two Cents Worth

“Talk” also commented on the introduction of a new two-cent stamp that featured an image of Thomas Edison’s Mazda lamp, marking the celebration of fifty years of electric light. The magazine cheekily suggested that in the world of technological progress, there was nothing new under the sun:

* * *

Americans in Paris

The New Yorker featured this humorous bit by a writer identified as “Guido” (I assume it is one of E.B. White’s many pseudonyms), who looked in on the chatter of various Parisian cafés and bars:

VOLSTEAD CAN’T GET US HERE…Enjoying the good life at a Parisian *brasserie,* circa 1920s. (National Geographic)

* * *

Hit and Miss

The New Yorker generally reveled in the good times Florenz Ziegfeld brought to the stage, but his latest effort, Show Girl, proved a bit of a disappointment (more evidence, in my view, that folks were tiring of the decade-long party known as the Roaring Twenties):

TAP-DANCING ON THE GRAVE OF THE ROARING TWENTIES…Although *The* *New Yorker* seemed less than enthused by **Flo Ziegfeld’s** latest effort, *Show Girl*, **Ruby Keeler** (top left) brought her tap shoes and her ‘A’ game to the performance. Clockwise, from top right, Keeler has some fun with the comedy trio Clayton, Jackson and Durante; program cover for *Show Girl*; the popular **Albertina Rasch** Girls with **Harriet Hoctor** in the “An American in Paris” scene of *Show Girl*, 1929. (Pinterest/jacksonupperco.com/eBay/songbook1.wordpress.com)

* * *

One of a Kind

New Yorker sportswriter Niven Busch, Jr. provided a nice write-up on golfer Bobby Jones, the most successful amateur ever to compete in the sport. An attorney by trade, the unassuming Jones had just won his third U.S. Open (he would win again in 1930). In all he would play in 31 majors, winning 13 of them and finishing in the top 10 an incredible 27 times. After retiring at age 28 in 1930 he helped design the Augusta National Golf Club and co-founded the Masters Tournament. An excerpt:

AND HE DID IT WEARING A NECKTIE…Although a lawyer by trade, the amateur golfer **Bobby Jones** was one of golf’s greatest champions. He pictured here after winning the 1929 U.S.Open in Mamaroneck, New York. (golf digest.com)

* * *

An Odd Bit

Looking around the July 13 issue, let’s see what nighttime diversions were being touted by The New Yorker in their “Going on About Town” section (note the warning on the last item):

* * *

From Our Advertisers

The makers of Pond’s cold cream continued to roll out endorsements from high society with this testimonial from Jane Kendall Mason (1909-1980), the newlywed wife of George Grant Mason, an executive with Pan American Airways in Cuba.

In 1925, the 17-year-old Jane made her formal debut in Washington society. After a visit with Grace Goodhue Coolidge, the first lady famously declared that Jane was “the most beautiful girl ever to enter the White House.”

After their marriage, the Masons became friends with Ernest and Pauline Hemingway, and introduced the Hemingways into Cuban society. Jane could hunt, fish, and hold her liquor, and, according to Ernest Hemingway, she was the most uninhibited person he’d ever met. So naturally they had a torrid, tempestuous, two-month affair that ended with Jane’s attempted suicide (she leapt from a balcony that was not high enough to do the job).

Hemingway supposedly used Jane as a model for the cruel-hearted Margot Macomber in The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber, in which the title character—trapped in a sad marriage to a wealthy but spineless American (George?)—accidentally shoots her husband in the head while on safari. She is also considered to be the model for the sex-obsessed Helene Bradley in Hemingway’s novel To Have and Have Not— a character also married to a rich but spineless husband.

**Carlos Gutierrez** (who served as a boat guide for Ernest Hemingway) and **Jane Mason** aboard **“Sloppy” Joe Russell’s** boat Anita in 1933. (Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, JFK Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

Mark Walston, writing for the July-August issue of Bethesda Magazine, notes that the mean-spirited Hemingway “sent Jane drafts of his work, taunting and tormenting her with his venomous and thinly veiled portraits.” According to Walston, Jane divorced Mason in 1940, and one month later married John Hamilton, former executive director of the Republican National Committee. After that brief marriage she wed George Abell, columnist for The Baltimore Sun and Washington Times-Herald. Her fourth and final husband was Arnold Gingrich, founder of Esquire and editor of Coronet magazines. Jane died in 1980. On her tombstone is her self-penned epitaph: “Talents too many, not enough of any.”

On to our next ad, which featured an interesting exchange between two men who discuss the fortunes of a guy named Cecil Barnes, retired at age 33 and owner of a new personal airplane…

…and we segue into our cartoons, featuring a mother and child (drawn by Carl Kindl) probably flying on one of those Sikorskys…

…Rollin Kirby looked in on a tailor’s shop (this is one of only two drawings published by Kirby in The New Yorker)…

…a note on Kirby, a three-time Pulitzer winner: outraged by the passage of Prohibition laws, Kirby created one of his most famous characters, “Mr. Dry,” which he introduced to readers of the New York World in January 1920…

**Rollin Kirby’s** miserly, foreboding “Mr. Dry” made his first appearance in the pages of the New York World on Jan. 17, 1920, shortly after Prohibition laws went into effect in the United States. Mr. Dry also made an appearance at the end of 1920, to throw some water on America’s Christmas cheer. (bottlesboozeandbackstories.blogspot.com)

You can read more about Rollin Kirby and Mr. Dry here.

…Roland Baum peeked in on a reluctant stargazer…

…and to close, this little filler drawing of a hot dog vendor by Constantin Alajalov…

Next Time: On the Flatfoot Beat…

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)

* * *

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.”

* * *

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.

* * *

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…

* * *

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)

* * *

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.

* * *

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…

The Unspeakables

For all its embrace of the modern city and its technological wonders, The New Yorker mostly despaired of the changes wrought by the introduction of sound to motion pictures.

Granted, early sound technology was primitive, with directors, actors and crew members adapting on the fly to the demands of a new medium that required absolute silence on film sets and cumbersome microphones that severely limited the movements of actors. Screenwriters, accustomed to writing brief intertitles in silent films, now had to write expository dialogue, and actors had to rely less on exaggerated facial expressions and body movements and more on the spoken word. And it helped if you didn’t have a speech impediment or heavy accent.

Writing for “The Reporter at Large” column (titled “The Unspeakables”), Hollywood correspondent Jean-Jacques lamented that the talkies were “here to stay”…

BARNLIKE STAGES were erected on both coasts to produce early silent films. Clockwise, from top left, Fox’s World Paragon Studios in Ft. Lee, NJ, circa 1917; interior of the studio; several films in production, side-by-side, at Edison’s Bronx studio, circa 1915; Fox studios in Los Angeles, 1920s. (moviemice.com/Wikipedia)

Jean-Jacques recalled the professions that would now be lost to the talkies, including the “mood musicians” who played their instruments on silent film sets in order to evoke emotions from the actors…

IN THE MOOD…During the silent era “mood musicians” were hired to play their instruments on film sets in order to evoke emotions from the actors. (Pinterest)

THE SILENCE OF SOUNDS…In the early days of the talkies the entire set had to be silent, and special care had to be taken to ensure loud cameras were housed in soundproof boxes such as those pictured above. Instead of the introduction of sound expanding the capabilities of filmmaking, it was often limited by the bulky gear used to capture that sound. Therefore, many films consisted of “stage” musical numbers that were static shots. (Caption and image at left courtesy Colorado College. Image at right from cinecollage.net)

The writer also noted the challenges that faced “the old scenario writer…hemmed in by a multitude of new rivals…

WE HAVE WAYS OF MAKING YOU TALK…**Dorothy Arzner** (left) poses with “It Girl” **Clara Bow** in a publicity shot for *The Wild Party,* Bow’s first talking picture. Bow is famously quoted as saying (in 1930) “I hate talkies. They’re stiff and limiting. You lose a lot of your cuteness, because there’s no chance for action.” Arzner tried to remedy that problem: she is credited with inventing the boom mike, which allowed for greater movement by the actor. (Paramount Pictures/Wikimedia Commons)

Jean-Jacques recounted the frustrations experienced by one old-time actor dealing with the limitations of bulky sound equipment…

This actor was not alone. A number of major silent film stars including Charlie Chaplin, Louise Brooks, and Clara Bow did not embrace the novelty of sound pictures. Motion Picture Classic magazine (September 1930) quoted Bow as saying, “I hate talkies … they’re stiff and limiting. You lose a lot of your cuteness, because there’s no chance for action, and action is the most important thing to me.” According to the article, a visibly nervous Bow had to do a number of retakes in The Wild Party because her eyes kept wandering up to the microphone overhead.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN…A number of major silent film stars including (from left) **Louise Brooks, Charlie Chaplin** and **Clara Bow** did not embrace the novelty of sound pictures. (Wikipedia)

Jean-Jacques signed off his New Yorker piece with the hope that someday pictures and sound would be combined into a worthy new art form…

Perhaps he had to look no further than Manhattan’s Rialto Theatre to find that first glimmer of hope, for it was there that the Marx Brothers were tearing up the screen in their first talking picture, The Cocoanuts, reviewed in the magazine’s “The Current Cinema” column…

If The New Yorker was looking for snappy dialogue in motion pictures, there was plenty of it in The Cocoanuts, including this snippet between Groucho Marx, playing Mr. Hammer—an unscrupulous manager of a bankrupt Florida hotel—and wealthy hotel guest Mrs. Potter, played by Margaret Dumont…

Hammer: Do you know that property values have increased since 1929 one thousand per cent? Do you know that this is the biggest development since Sophie Tucker? Do you know that Florida is the show spot of America and Cocoanut Manor the black spot of Florida?

Mrs. Potter: You told me that yesterday.

Hammer: I know but I left out a comma.

Or this gem…

Hammer, to Mrs. Potter: Just think – tonight, tonight when the moon is sneaking around the clouds I’ll be sneaking around you. I’ll meet you tonight under the moon. Oh, I can see it now – you and the moon. Wear a neck-tie so I’ll know you.

SHOW ‘EM HOW IT’S DONE…**Zeppo, Groucho, Chico** and **Harpo Marx** in their first sound movie, *The Cocoanuts*, 1929. (vitaphonedreamer.wordpress.com)

BAMBOOZLER… Mrs Potter (**Margaret Dumont)**, inspects Mr Hammer’s (**Groucho Marx**) Florida property “deals” in *The Cocoanuts.* (British Film Institute)

* * *

For Sentimental Reasons

Additional evidence that The New Yorker was not always ready to embrace change came from its many articles, particularly in “The Talk of the Town,” that seemed to favor the preservation of buildings that defined the character of certain neighborhoods, including the early 19th century row houses that lined Washington Square North…

THEN AND NOW…**At left,** photo dated 1921 of Washington Square, north side of square looking east from 5th Avenue. Corner house in foreground is No. 12. The far end at right shows Nos. 3, 2, 1. **At right**, roughly the same block today. (Museum of the City of New York/1homedesigns.com)

**At left,** photo dated 1936 (by **Berenice Abbott**) of Washington Square North, nos. 21-25, between Fifth Avenue and MacDougal Street. At right, nos. 19-26 today. (Museum of the City of New York/Wikimedia Commons)

* * *

The Wittier Kaufman

Editor and playwright Beatrice Kaufman worked and played within the orbit of the famed wits of the Algonquin Round Table, but was not a regular member like her husband, playwright and director George S. Kaufman. But Beatrice Kaufman didn’t the need the Algonquin to display her wit. Indeed, according to Michael Galchinsky (writing for the Jewish Women’s Archive), she was regarded as one of the wittiest women in New York in the 1930s and 40s. Here is an example of her work in the June 1 issue of The New Yorker:

THE WITTIEST OF THEM ALL…Editor, writer and playwright **Beatrice Kaufman** (left, in undated photo). At right, comedian **Julius Tannen** (left) frolics with Beatrice and her husband, Broadway playwright/producer George S. Kaufman in Atlantic City in the 1920s. (thepurplediaries.com/spartacus-educational.com)

* * *

Rags to Riches

The life of Fred F. French was something out of dime novel; born in dire poverty, he became a self-made real estate tycoon and a shrewd builder of some of Manhattan’s biggest land developments. French was the subject of a profile written by Robert M. Coates, an art critic who would be a longtime contributor to The New Yorker. An excerpt, with illustration by Al Frueh:

MONUMENTS TO FRED…**Fred French’s** New York City buildings included, clockwise from left, the 38-story Fred F. French Building (1927) at 45th Street and 551 Fifth Avenue (designated a National Landmark); Knickerbocker Village (1934) on the Lower East Side; and the East Side’s Tudor City apartment complex (1927-1932). (Pinterest/thelodownny.com/Wikipedia)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Let’s start with a couple of lovely color ads, which appeared with greater frequency in the magazine…here we have a snatch of the good life, courtesy General Electric…

…and perhaps a less homespun image of the good life, from the makers of Dodge boats…

…and here we have another example of the modern world rushing in, this time in the form of instant coffee crystals…

…and another taste of the modern from Harper’s Bazar magazine, featuring an illustration by French artist and illustrator Charles Martin…

…and just for kicks, another example of Martin’s work from an earlier time…

Image from *Sports et Divertissements* by Charles Martin, 1914. (Wikipedia)

…and here is a back page ad for costume bag maker Whiting & Davis, with an endorsement by Joan Crawford, who was already a pretty big star by 1929. My guess is that Whiting & Davis paid more for the endorsement than they did for the ad…I included a photo of Crawford (at left) from 1929 just to show that she did have a lighter side…

…this ad from the makers of Flit insecticide begs the question: was our beloved Dr. Seuss (aka Theodore Geisel) once a racist? Well…

…although Geisel was a liberal Democrat and a supporter of the New Deal, during World War II he also supported the internment of Japanese Americans, as is evident from this unfortunate 1942 cartoon…

Dr. Seuss 1942 cartoon with the caption ‘Waiting for the Signal from Home’ (slideshare.net)

…later in life Geisel became a staunch environmentalist and anti-war protestor. In 1961 he wrote The Sneetches, which promoted racial equality. Perhaps Geisel lived to regret those earlier drawings…

…and on to our illustrators and cartoonists, beginning with this sketch by Garrett Price, apparently inspired from a recent trip to France (it was featured along with several other small sketches in the “Profile” section)…

…Barbara Shermund had some fun with a double entendre…

…and popped up again with this look at the stock market…

…C.W. Anderson found humor in the strange shapes of modernist furniture…

…Otto Soglow commented on the glitzy hype of Broadway…

…and cartoonist/humorist Don Herold made his comics debut in The New Yorker with this entry…

…and finally, a bonus image I came across while researching the advent of sound motion pictures. The photo, from the silent era, shows two cameramen shooting a parade, possibly for a newsreel. Note how their only support consists of two wooden planks wedged into an open window…

Next Time: A Bridge Too Far…

Let Them Eat Cake

The re-opening of New York’s Central Park Casino in 1929 was in many ways the city’s last big party before the economy came crashing down, along with the exhuberance and frivolity of the Jazz Age.

May 25, 1929 cover by **Theodore Haupt.**

The Casino itself wasn’t new–it opened in 1864 as the Ladies’ Refreshment Salon (sometimes spelled “saloon”), a two-room stone cottage designed by Calvert Vaux. As Susannah Broyles writes in her excellent blog post for the Museum of the City of New York, the Victorian cottage was a place where “unaccompanied ladies could relax during their excursions around the park and enjoy refreshments at decent prices, free of any threat to their propriety.”

Central Park’s Ladies’ Refreshment Saloon opened in 1864. (daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com)

Broyles writes that by the 1880s the salon had morphed into a far pricier destination, a restaurant called The Casino, open to both sexes. With the rare attraction of outdoor seating, “it was the place to see and be seen.”

By the 1920s the restaurant had grown a bit shabby. Then along came the city’s flamboyant mayor, Jimmy Walker (1881-1946), who saw the potential of the property as a place where he could hob-nob with wealthy and fashionable New Yorkers and openly flaunt Prohibition laws. There were others, however, who found the idea of an exclusive playground for the rich in a public park distasteful. The New Yorker observed as much in the “Notes and Comment” opening of “The Talk of the Town”…

…the “Schuyler L. Parsons” referred to above was a tireless host, prominent decorator, and a society A-lister. He is pictured here (circa 1930) with two of his closest friends, actor Charlie Chaplin and the actress, singer and dancer Gertrude Lawrence…

The Central Park Casino reopened its doors on June 4, 1929 at an invitation-only event. The following day it would open to the public, but as New York’s newest and most expensive restaurant it would remain closed to all but the wealthiest. As The New Yorker observed, the city was, after all, a “plutarchy,” and the populace passing by the Casino would at least be allowed “to glimpse the decadent class in the act of eating a six-dollar dinner” (nearly $90 today).

This formal announcement of the opening appeared in the May 6, 1929 issue of The New Yorker, including the time of the event—I suppose for the benefit of the 600 who actually had an invitation, or perhaps to tantalize those without such credentials…

The Casino was a playground for the rich by design, conceived in the image of the flamboyant Mayor Walker—himself a product of the Tammany Hall political machine—and executed by hotelier Sidney Solomon, who obtained the building’s lease via some Tammany-style subterfuge. Solomon hired architect and theatrical set designer Joseph Urban to transform the Casino into a glittering showpiece of Jazz Age nightlife.

Clockwise, from top left, the Central Park Casino; architect **Joseph Urban**; his Casino ballroom design with black-mirrored ceiling; the Casino lobby. (acontinuouslean.com/Columbia University/centralpark.com/drivingfordeco.com)

The New Yorker continued its observations on the Casino in another “The Talk of the Town” piece titled “Historical Note,” attributing the inspiration for the Casino not to Walker or Solomon, but to socialite Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr…

AN EYE FOR THE FINER THINGS…The wealthy socialite **A.J. Biddle** (pictured here with his first wife, **Mary Lillian Duke**, in 1924) trained his eye on the Central Park Casino while on the rooftop of the St. Regis Hotel pondering another **Joseph Urban** project. (voxsartoria.com)

PARTY BOY…New York Mayor Jimmy Walker and his nighttime playground, the Central Park Casino, show here on September 10, 1935. (Britannica/ New York City Department of Parks & Recreation)

Well, as you’ve probably guessed, the party didn’t last forever. After the October 1929 stock market crash, the sight of rich folks stuffing their faces and drinking fine wines in a public park looked even more unseemly. Soon the Casino found itself in the crosshairs of Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, who detested Mayor Walker.

As for Walker himself, a growing financial scandal prompted him to resign from office on Sept. 1, 1932. He promptly fled to Europe with his mistress, Ziegfeld girl Betty Compton, and stayed overseas until the threat of criminal prosecution had passed. For Moses, it wasn’t satisfaction enough to see Walker driven from office. In 1936, despite protests from preservationists, Moses had Urban’s lovely restaurant demolished. It was replaced by a children’s playground the following year.

THE PARTY’S OVER…Crews dismantling the Central Park Casino in 1936. In 1937, the Rumsey Playground was built on the site of the Casino, and in the 1980’s the site was razed again and converted into Rumsey Playfield, where the city’s SummerStage events are now held. (Museum of the City of New York/centralpark.com)

* * *

A Drinking Life

As the Jazz Age was winding down, one of its greatest chroniclers began a brief relationship with The New Yorker. In the March 12, 2017 issue of the magazine, Erin Overbey and Joshua Rothman wrote “There’s a doomed, romantic quality to the relationship between F. Scott Fitzgerald and The New Yorker; they were perfect for each other but never quite got together.” In total, Fitzgerald published just two poems and three humorous shorts for the magazine, beginning with this piece in the May 25, 1929 issue:

Fitzgerald’s last contribution to the New Yorker would appear in the Aug. 21, 1937 issue (“A Book of One’s Own”). Following the author’s death in 1940 the magazine would feature various articles on his life and work, and in 2017—77 years after Fitzgerald’s death—the New Yorker would publish a long lost short story, “The IOU.” A fitting title for an author who sadly did not get his due while he was alive.

IOU…F. Scott Fitzgerald with daughter “**Scottie**” and wife Zelda, circa 1927. (The Telegraph)

* * *

One of the Gang

Among the Jazz Age artists and writers who orbited around the Algonquin Round Table (and the Central Park Casino) and chummed with the writers of the New Yorker was musician and composer George Gershwin (1898-1937) who was profiled in the May 25 issue by his friend and longtime New Yorker writer Samuel N. Behrman. The opening paragraph (with caricature by Al Frueh):

IN THE SAME ORBIT…**Samuel Nathaniel Behrman** (left), was an American playwright, screenwriter, biographer, and longtime writer for *The New Yorker*. From the late 1920s through the 1940s, he was considered one of Broadway’s leading authors of “high comedy,”His son is the composer **David Behrman.** At right, **George Gershwin** at the piano, 1929. (prabook.com/IMDB)

In the profile, Behrman observed that although Gershwin expressed a desire for privacy, he was quite capable of dashing off major works in practically any setting:

TOOTING HIS OWN HORN…Composer **George Gershwin** and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra percussionist **James Rosenberg** holding four taxi horns used in the orchestra’s performance of *An American in Paris,* on Feb. 28, 1929. (Photo courtesy of Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts)

* * *

Scratching the Surface

Emily Hahn (1905-1997) was a prolific journalist and author who contributed at least 200 poems, articles and works of fiction to The New Yorker over an astonishing 68-year span—from 1928 to 1996. As the title suggests, I am merely scratching surface, and will devote a post to her in the near future. Here is her contribution to the May 25, 1929 issue:

PROLIFIC…A 1937 portrait of **Emily Hahn** taken in Shanghai, China, by Sir Victor Sassoon. The author of 54 books, Hahn is credited with playing a significant role in opening up Asia and Africa to the West through her many novels. (DeGolyer Library, SMU)

Another frequent contributor to The New Yorker was screenwriter John Ogden Whedon (1905-1991), who offered up mostly shorts from 1928 to 1938. He is best known as a television writer for such shows as The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Leave It to Beaver. Whedon and his wife, Louise Carroll Angell, were parents and grandparents to a number of screenwriters, including grandson Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and writer/director of The Avengers (2012) and its sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). An excerpt of grandpa’s writing from the May 25 issue:

* * *

From Our Advertisers

In a recent post (Waldorf’s Salad Days) I noted an ad from Lily of France that proclaimed the straight flapper figure was out, and it was now the “season of curves.” This ad from B. Altman begs to differ…

…one way to keep that straight figure was to pull on a girdle, which I’m sure felt great while one played tennis…

…our latest Lucky Strike endorser is…Mrs. Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte. Never heard of her? Well, “Mrs. Jerome” was actually a one Blanche Pierce (1872-1950) of Rochester, NY. Her second husband, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (the great-grandnephew of Emperor Napoleon) was something of a wastrel, having inherited a fortune and never worked at a job or profession. Blanche herself was known as a social climber…

THEY EXISTED…**Jerome Napoleon Charles Bonaparte** (pictured here circa 1915) was the great-grandnephew of Emperor Napoleon and a man of extreme leisure. His wife, **Blanche Pierce Bonaparte** (right, in a photo circa 1925), was known as a dog lover, a passion that indirectly led to her second husband’s demise. Jerome died while walking his wife’s dog in Central Park—he apparently stumbled over the dog’s leash and broke his neck. (Library of Congress)

…speaking of European nobility, here is another sad endorsement from a French noble touting the wonders of Clicquot Club ginger ale to Prohibition-strapped Americans…

…and then we have this weird “Annie Laurie” analogy used by Chrysler to sell its line of automobiles…

…the manufacturers of Studebaker, on the other hand, opted for a more direct approach, equating its automobiles with the speed and modernity of airplane flight…note how in both ads the cars are pictured with the windshields folded down to emphasize sleekness…

…on to the cartoons: we begin with this two-page entry by Rea Irvin, which makes very little sense…I get the part where the rich old man (stalked by his fearsome wife) finds a mistress (and a new wife) through the process of “checking his horse,” but the whole mermaid thing is lost on me…please click to enlarge—I’d love to have this one explained…

…Carl Rose had some fun with newfangled sound effects in the dawning age of the talkies…

…Peter Arno sketched up the cynicism of one New York dowager…

…Perry Barlow captured two women who might have been driving home from an auction at the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel…

…and finally, a lovely illustration by Helen Hokinson of children at play…

Next Time: The Unspeakables…