El Morocco
(Click Magazine, 1940)
What a Time It Was!: Leonard Lyons and the Golden Age of New York Nightlife KEY WORDS: 1930s NY High […]
Old New York History
Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia
(Coronet Magazine, 1956)
An exceptional article about Fiorello LaGuardia (1882 – 1947), who is remembered to have been one of the great mayors of New York City (1934 – 1945). Written by a fellow who knew him well, you get a sense of his energy, humor and strong sense of civic duty:
At exactly midnight on January 1, 1934, Fiorello H. LaGuardia took the oath of office as Mayor of New York City. At exactly one minute after midnight, he ordered the arrest of the most notorious gangster in town: Lucky Luciano. This jet-propelled momentum never let up during the next 12 years.
The article is composed of a series of anecdotes that clearly illustrate his humanity, making you feel somewhat at a loss for never having known him yourself.
Even today, LaGuardia’s memory is so revered that New Yorkers conveniently forget that he was a Republican.
Click here to read about the NYC air-raid wardens of W. W. II…
Puerto Ricans Arrive
(Pic Magazine, 1955)
In the early Fifties many of the people from the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico decided to pack their bags and move to New York City. Overnight, it seemed, a portion of Harlem came to be known as Spanish Harlem – where hastily assembled mambo dance halls could be found among restaurants serving the exotic cuisine of the Caribbean. There were also complications that emerged with the new comers that are addressed in this 1955 article:
Today, however, there is a forceful change taking place, an influence so great that New York City officials have forecast a startling racial shift within a few years and are already making plans for meeting this switch…
New York City: 1917
(Vanity Fair, 1917)
A VANITY FAIR article covering the social and patriotic transformation of New York City just eight months after The U.S. entered the First World War:
Already the greatest manufacturing center in the world, our coming into the War made New York the money center, the distributing center, the very hub of the universe as far as resources were concerned. London and Paris sank to the level of mere distributing points….
An additional event took place in 1917: Congress granted full U.S. citizenship rights to the citizens of Puerto Rico – but they didn’t move to New York until the Fifties. Click here to read about their integration.
New York City Bars at Four in the Morning…
(Stage Magazine, 1937)
Tickled by the New York laws that prohibited bars from serving spirits between the hours of 4:00 to 8:00 a.m., this correspondent for Stage Magazine, Stanley Walker, sallied forth into the pre-dawn darkness of a 1937 Manhattan wondering what kind of gin mills violate such dictates. He described well what those hours mean for most of humanity and then begins his catalog of establishments, both high and low, that cater to night crawlers.
For something a shade rougher, more informal, smokier: Nick’s Tavern, at 140 Seventh Avenue South [the building went the way of Penn Station long ago], dark and smoky, with good food and carrying on in the artistic traditions of the old speakeasies.
Click here to read about the arrest and conviction of New York’s high society bootleggers.
Greenwich Village Bohemians
(Vanity Fair, 1916)
Robert Benchley
Click here if you would like to read a 1934 profile of Robert Benchley.
A New Colony Club
(Vanity Fair, 1913)
This is small notice celebrated the efforts of the New York architectural firm of Delano and Aldrich
Click here to read about the 1913 Armory Show.
A New Colony Club
(Vanity Fair, 1913)
This is small notice celebrated the efforts of the New York architectural firm of Delano and Aldrich
Click here to read about the 1913 Armory Show.
A Word on New York Waiters
(Stage Magazine, 1939)
Waiters are to New York City what lobbyists are to Washington and celebrated illustrator, author and all-around foodie Ludwig Bemelmans (1898 – 1962) had some thoughts on this very diverse group:
New York is full of waiters, Chinese, American, Congo, French, Italian and German waiters, Jewish and Christian waiters, Vegetarian and Greek waiters, many good waiters, many bad waiters.
Click here to read an article by Benny Goodman concerning the arrival of Swing on Park Ave.
Frank Lloyd Wright Hated the U.N. Building
(Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1947)
When architects and builders howled in protest when the firm of Wallace Harrison (1895 – 1981)was commissioned in 1947 to design the United Nations Center in New York City, the editors of SCRIPT MAGAZINE dashed off asking Frank Lloyd Wright to pick up his quill and ink-up his arguments against the project – and here it is.
Jewish Population Growth in New York
(The Independent, 1921)
Attached is a spirited article that gives an account of the Jewish population surge in 1920s New York. Even as early as 1921, nearly half of the Jews in all of North America lived in that city and every fourth New Yorker was a Jew.
Click here to read about the Jewish population growth in the Unites States during the 1920s.
The Stork Club
(Click Magazine, 1940)
What a Time It Was!: Leonard Lyons and the Golden Age of New York Nightlife KEY WORDS: Stork Club magazine
Sing Sing Prison: Home of the Bad New Yorkers
(Click Magazine, 1938)
Sing Sing Prison was where the vulgar New Yorkers of the criminal variety spent much of their time:
Murderers and felons, rogues and embezzlers, an average of 2750 of them inhabit Sing Sing Prison at Ossining, N.Y. on the bank of the Hudson River. Theirs is a world apart. A world of gray stone walls and steel bars. When the gates clang shut behind them they enter upon a life scientifically regulated by Warden Lewis E. Lawes (1883 – 1947)…CLICK MAGAZINE takes you inside the grim walls and shows you what happens to the convicted criminal from the day he is committed to Sing Sing Prison until the day he leaves as a free man.
This is a photo-essay that is made up of twenty-five black and white pictures.
Read about the religious make up of Sing Sing Prison in the Thirties.
Greewich Village
(Vanity Fair, 1918)
A whimsical article about the topography of New York’s Greenwich Village and the migratory habits of all it’s assorted bohemians, vagrants, spinsters and vegetarians during the Prohibition era.
Click here to read some high praise for Greenwich Village from a French film star.
High Society Ladies’ Rooms
(Stage Magazine, 1937)
The New York café society of the Thirties was well documented by such swells as Cole Porter and Peter Arno – not so well-known, however, were the goings-on in the ladies’ bathrooms at such swank watering holes as El Morocco, Twenty-One, Kit Kat, Crystal Garden and the famed Stork Club. That is why these columns are so vital to the march of history – written by a noble scribe who braved the icy waters of Lake Taboo to report on the conversations and the general appearance of each of these dressing rooms.
The Rainbow Room, Waldorf, and Crystal Garden are modern and show a decorators hand, but the only really plush dressing room we know is at Twenty-One.
Strangely enough, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the ladies’ room of El Morocco, Roseland, or a tea room; the same things are said in all of them. First hair, then men, then clothes; those are the three favorite topics of conversation in the order of their importance.
A Census of Skyscrapers
(Literary Digest, 1929)
Egged on by the 1929 completion of the Chrysler building, the curious souls who ran the New York offices of THE LITERARY DIGEST were moved to learn more about skyscrapers, both in New York as well as other parts of the U.S. and We were surprised to learn that as of 1929
50 percent of the buildings in New York from 10 to 20 stories and 60 percent of those over 20 stories are located between 14th and 59th streets.
This article also presents statistical data concerning the number of tall buildings that could be found throughout the 1920s United States.
New York’s Contributions to English
(Holiday, 1949)
New York City’s contributions to the American language go considerably further than the pronunciation of ‘avenyeh’ for avenue or ‘erl’ for lubricant. Peter Stuyvesant’s village has made rich entries into our spoken and written tongue. A handful, culled from Dr. Mitford M. Matthew’s A Dictionary of Americanisms
follows.
Click here to read more articles about American English.