Postcard story from New York – “A GRANDE DINNER FOR TWO in 1914- 100 YEARS AGO TODAY”
Postcard story from New York – “A GRANDE DINNER FOR TWO in 1914- 100 YEARS AGO TODAY”
New York, July 30, 1914
To: Mrs. Wm. A. Johnson
250 N. Water
Franklin, Ind.
“Wed. evening,
Dearest Momma,
Have just gotten back from having dinner here. A Mr. Barkus from South Carolina to me and little Miss Blair to dinner. He sent us both roses – mine were two dozen cream tea roses. He left on the train for S.C. and sent us home in a taxi,
With lots of love,
Maude
A grande evening was had by all 100 years ago to the day. It seems Mr. Barkus from South Carolina was quite a gentlemen sending the two ladies home in taxis and roses the next day!
In Times Square things were still ’rosey’, but World War I had just been declared and two days later Germany had declared war on Russia.
Churchill’s was ’the’ place to be at the time. Lobsters! Champagne! Showgirls!
For the decade before Prohibition, Churchill’s Restaurant and Cabaret was one of the largest and swankiest of the “lobster palaces” along the Great White Way.
The eponymous establishment was the creation of ex-NYPD Captain Jim Churchill. Located on Broadway at 49th Street, the eatery could accommodate 1,200 patrons and employed a staff of 300. Guests could dine on the special for a mere buck-twenty five, listen to live music, dance and rub shoulders with denizens of the theater district like actress Anna Held and philanthropist and nightlife fixture Diamond Jim Brady.
Attempting to refute the notion of the scandalous, sinful “Broadway Life” popular in the fictions of the day, Churchill said “Broadway is simply the Coney Island of night-time New York, where some of the people play a bit, eat a bit, drink a bit, talk, sing and laugh a bit—and get a bit dizzy. But the dizziness imparted by Broadway is no more fatal than the dizziness that comes from riding on a gaudily-painted merry-go-round…”
Shortly after the passage of the Volstead Act in 1921, which established prohibition, Churchill shuttered his business, leasing the ground floor to the Toy Yoeng Syndicate of America, which converted it into a Chinese restaurant – today known as the popular Ruby Foos.
Postcard story from New York – “MEMORIAL DAY 1931, THIS IN MEMORY OF OUR FOLKS WHO HAVE GONE AHEAD”
Postcard story from New York – “MEMORIAL DAY 1931 ~ THIS IN MEMORY OF OUR FOLKS WHO HAVE GONE AHEAD”
Endwell, New York, June 1, 1:00pm, 1931
Woolworth and Municipal Bldgs. from Brooklyn Bridge, New York.
To: Mrs. H. A. Knapp
Waverly
Pa.
“Memorial Day 1931 This in Memory of our Folks who have gone ahead. How sweet to think of them! The day’s Celebration here has been a trail of planes from the Endicott landing place. Sure “Love can never lose it’s own.” H.K.__”
The card is addressed to Mrs. Henry Alonzo Knapp, actual name Anna Dutilleul (b.1870, d.1954.)
Her husband Henry A. Knapp (b.1851, d. 1931 the year this card was written) started as a filing clerk in Pennsylvania and rose to become a prominent lawyer who, in 1899, established the borough of Vandling in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, Vandling has a population of 751.
The ‘Endicott landing-place’ refers to a landing strip that was to become the Tri-Cities Endicott Airport, established in 1936.
The poetic quote: “Love can never lose it’s own” is from a poem entitled “Snowbound/Firelight” by influential American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier.
“…Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!”
To read the full fitting Memorial day poem “Snowbound” click: http://www.bartleby.com/248/222.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow-Bound
Postcard story of New York: “STOMPING AT THE SAVOY IN HARLEM”
Postcard story from New York: “STOMPING AT THE SAVOY IN HARLEM”
New York, October 15, 2:00pm, 1954
The Savoy the showplace of Harlem, has acquired an international reputation for its unique styles of dancing. Such dances as the Lindy-Hop, Big Apple, and the latest of all sensations the Mutiny Swing, had their origin at The Savoy.
To: Mrs. M. A. Ryan
U.S. Army Air Corps
8505 W. Warren Ave
Detroit, Michigan
Personnel
“Hi Marg: We arrived in NY Monday at 9:30p.m. are having a swell time here. Say hello to the girls for me
Connie + Bob”
Sadly Connie & Bob’s adventures at the famed Savoy were never received by Mrs. M. A Ryan at the U.S. Army Air Corps since the postcard is stamped “FOUND IN PACKAGE BOX COLLECTION”.
It is guaranteed that Connie & Bob had a ‘swell time’ since The Savoy nightclub was dubbed the swingingest hot spot in Harlem and all of New York City. The first non segregated club allowing blacks and whites to swing together. The famed Cotton Club was for white patrons only with famed black musicians on stage. At The Savoy – real hep cats dug some cool jive on the be-bop side! They were jammed packed every night from March 12, 1926 to July 10, 1958. Often thousands had to be turned away. The Savoy is deeply rooted in our dance, music and culture. Music united all at the Savoy !
Read about it’s wonderful history here and see the link to the YouTube videos below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoy_Ballroom
See a brief video history:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqsc0dhoED0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmnsWcxdhEQ
With swing’s rise to popularity and Harlem becoming a connected Black community, The Savoy opened at a perfect time, giving the rising talented and passionate Black dancers an equally beautiful venue. The Savoy’s ballroom, which was 10,000 square feet in size, was on the second floor and a block long. It could hold up to 4,000 people. The interior was painted pink and the walls were mirrored. Colored lights danced on the sprung layered wood floor. In 1926, the Savoy contained a spacious lobby framing a huge, cut-glass chandelier and marble staircase.
The Savoy was extremely popular right from the start. A headline from the New York Age March 20, 1926 reads “Savoy Turns 2,000 Away On Opening Night – Crowds Pack Ball Room All Week”. The ballroom didn’t go dark a single night of the week.
The Savoy even participated in the 1939 New York World’s Fair, presenting “The Evolution of Negro Dance”.
The Savoy was unique in having the constant presence of a skilled elite of the best Lindy Hoppers, known as “Savoy Lindy Hoppers”. Occasionally, groups of dancers such Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers turned professional and performed in Broadway and Hollywood productions. Whitey turned out to be quite a successful agent, and in 1937, the Marx Brothers’ movie A Day at the Races featured the group. Herbert White was a bouncer at the Savoy who was made floor manager in the early 30s. He was sometimes known as Mac, but with his ambition to scout dancers at the ballroom to form his own group, he became widely known as Whitey for the white streak of hair down the center of his head. He looked for dancers who were “. . . young, stylized, and, most of all, they had to have a beat, they had to swing”. The Savoy held a yearly dancing festival called the Harvest Moon Ball featuring lindy dancers. The first Ball was held in 1935, and the contestants introduced the Lindy Hop to Europe the next year.
Unlike many ballrooms such as the Cotton Club, the Savoy always had a no-discrimination policy. Generally, the clientele was 85% black and 15% white, although sometimes there was an even 50/50 split. Lindy hop legend Frankie Manning noted that patrons were only judged on their dancing skills and not on the color of their skin: “One night somebody came over and said, ‘Hey man, Clark Gable just walked in the house.’ Somebody else said, ‘Oh, yeah, can he dance?’ All they wanted to know when you came into the Savoy was, do you dance?”. Virtuosic dancers, however, excluded others from the northeast corner of the dance floor, now referred to as the “Cat’s Corner,” although the term was not used at the time. This part of the floor where the professional Lindy dancers ruled was on the 141st street side of the room and was then referred to just as “the corner”. Only Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers could dance and work routines there. Competition was huge in “the corner” and every serious hopper awaited the nightly “showtime”. Other dancers would create a horseshoe around the band and “ . . . only the greatest Lindy-hoppers would stay on the floor, to try to eliminate each other”. On 140th street was the opposite, mellow corner which was popular with dancing couples. The skilled Tango dancer known as The Sheik frequented this corner.
Many dances such as Lindy Hop (which was named after Charles Lindbergh and originated in 1927) were developed and became famous there. It was known downtown as the “Home of Happy Feet” but uptown, in Harlem, as “the Track” because the floor was long and thin. The Savoy earned the nickname “Home of Happy Feet” from Lana Turner who remarked of the dancers, “What happy feet these people have”. The Lindy Hop is also known as The Jitterbug and was born out of “. . . mounting exhilaration and the ‘hot’ interaction of music and dance”. Other dances that were conceived at the Savoy are The Flying Charleston, Jive, Snakehips, Rhumboogie, and variations of the Shimmy, Mambo, and many more.
It is estimated that the ballroom generated $250,000 in annual profit in its peak years from the late 20s to the 40s. Each year, the ballroom was visited by near 700,000 people. The normal entrance fee was 30 to 85 cents per person, depending on what time a person came. 30 cents was the base price, but after 6pm the fee was 60cents, and then 85cents after 8pm. The Savoy had made enough money by its peak of business in 1936 that $50,000 was spent on remodeling it.[
The ballroom had a double bandstand that held one large and one medium sized band running against its east wall. Music was continuous as the alternative band was always in position and ready to pick up the beat when the previous one had completed its set. The bouncers, who had previously worked as boxers, basketball players, and the like, wore tuxedos and made $100/night. The floor was watched inconspicuously by a security force of four men at a time who were headed by Jack La Rue, and no man was allowed in who wasn’t dressed in a jacket with a tie. Besides the security staff, the Savoy was populated by “Harlem’s most beautiful women”: the Savoy Hostesses. They would be fired for consorting with patrons outside the ballroom, but inside the hostesses would teach people to dance and were dance partners for anyone who purchased a 25 cent dance ticket. Roseland Ballroom hostesses often visited the savoy on their night off; this inspired Buchanon to create Monday-Ladies-Free Nights. Other special events began during the week, including the giveaway of a new car every Saturday. The floor had to be replaced every 3 years due to its constant use.
“Stompin’ at the Savoy“, a 1934 Big Band classic song and jazz standard recorded by Chick Webb, was named after the ballroom. The song was featured in an episode of I Love Lucy in which she performs the Jitterbug.
Chick Webb was the leader of the best known Savoy house band during the mid-1930s. A teenage Ella Fitzgerald, fresh from a talent show win at the Apollo Theater in 1934, became its vocalist. Floating World Pictures recently made a documentary called “The Savoy King” about Webb, Ella, and the ballroom. It was shown at the 50th New York Film Festival.
The Savoy was the site of many famous “Battles of the Bands” or “Cutting Contests“, which started when the Benny Goodman Orchestra challenged Chick Webb in 1937. Webb and his band were declared the winners of that contest. In 1938, Webb was once again challenged by Count Basie Band. While Webb was officially declared the winner again, there was a lack of consensus on who actually won that night. Earle Warren, the alto saxophonist for Basie reports that they had worked on a song called “Swingin’ the Blues” for the purpose of competing and says, “When we unloaded our cannons, that was the end”. Webb’s “unbeatable” band had been bested.
The Savoy participated in the 1939 New York World’s Fair, presenting “The Evolution of Negro Dance”.
Despite efforts by Borough President Hulan Jack and others to save it, the Savoy and the nearby Cotton Club were demolished for the construction of a housing complex, Bethune Towers/Delano Village. The Ballroom was shut down as a result of “charges of vice filed by the police department and Army”. The mayor was the target of protest by angered members of The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The ballroom was auctioned off for $25,000 to a “middle-income housing project”. Count Basie was quoted in the paper saying “With the passing of the Savoy Ballroom, a part of show business is gone. I feel about the same way I did when someone told me the news that Bill (Bojangles) Robinson was dead”. On 26 May 2002, Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, surviving members of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, unveiled a commemorative plaque for the Savoy Ballroom on Lenox Avenue between 140th and 141st Streets. The tradition of swing has lived on today and many surviving dancers from the Savoy still dance when they can. As Norma Miller says in her memoir, “Although Harlem created it, the Lindy belongs to everyone”.
Postcard story from New York – “THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE – ‘THE JUMPING OFF PLACE‘ ” post card sent with a George Washington connection!
Postcard story from New York – “THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE – ‘THE JUMPING OFF PLACE‘ ” post card sent with a George Washington connection!
New York, June 02, 12:30pm, 1906
To: Miss May McCorkle
Davis & Wiley Bank.
Salisbury, North Carolina
“The jumping off place”
A macabre sense of humor or did the sender really jump? No records have been kept of early day suicide jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge, so we will have to guess: joke or jump?
The addressee is rather an astonishing distinguished surprise! Miss Elizabeth May McCorkle of North Carolina, was wife to ruling church elder Mr. Orin Datus Davis.
Mr. Davis has served the church in various ways, including the guardianship of its invested funds. He has been its representative many times in Presbyteries and Synods, and was a Commissioner to meetings of the General Assembly in Lexington, Virginia, and Bristol, Tennessee. He also was founder of the Davis and Wiley Bank of North Carolina which dates back to the mid 1800’s.
In his married life Mr. Davis was fortunate as in other matters. Seeking guidance from the “Giver of all Good“, he selected Miss Elizabeth May McCorkle as his helpmate and companion in life aka wife. She is the eldest daughter of the late James M. McCorkle, Esq., a leading lawyer of the Salisbury Bar, and a lineal descendant of Colonel Richard Brandon of Revolutionary fame. Colonel Brandon’s daughter, Elizabeth, it will be remembered, was the “little woman” who provided a hasty breakfast for General George Washington on the occasion of his visit to Salisbury in 1781 ! So Elizabeth May McCorkle is the daughter of the “little woman” who served George Washington breakfast. Amazing the things you discover when researching old postcards!!
Postcard story from New York: “WHEN I WAS A BOATSMAN”
Postcard story from New York – “WHEN I WAS A BOATSMAN”
Brookhaven, New York, January 20, 12pm, 1907
To: Hr. C. Schmer
Thisted, Denmark
“When I was a boatsman”
Yours Bernard
1907
The romance and intrigue of this card is wonderful! Who was this handsome Bernard with his piercing and determined eyes? Danish? A whaler? A shipmen? A boat dealer or repairman? A fisherman? It was obviously something he came to America to do since it was his heritage’s trade.
Thisted, Denmark to this day remains a tiny architecturally untouched town with no more than 13,067 inhabitants. Founded in the year 1500, Thisted is on an inlet on the North Sea and has Denmark’s leading fisheries port in Hanstholm. Notice: all you had to address the card to was “Schmer, Thisted, Denmark” – – and it got there?!?!?!…it was a smaller world in 1907.
Brookhaven is located on Long Island, New York. It was settled between 1640 and 1655, ousting the Indians. Cattle ranching was it’s first industry and then by 1900 whaling was their big income. So was Bernard ’the old man and the sea’ hunting whales? So it seems Bernard sailed to Long Island, New York to seek his fortune across the Atlantic in Brookhaven and seemingly (hopefully) happily retired there since his card fondly reads “When I was…”
Postcard story of the Week – MYSTERY STAIRWAY STALKER HAUNTS WRITER
Postcard story of the Week – MYSTERY STAIRWAY STALKER HAUNTS WRITER
Description: Looking up Broadway from the Times Building, New York.
September 01, 6:30pm, 1937
To: Mr. G. O. Moon
State Office Building, G20,
Columbus, Ohio
Yesterday upon the stair I saw a man who wasn’t there.
I saw him again there today. I wish he’d go away.
WHD
–Is the writer being stalked in the dimly lit stairwells of the 1930’s and reaching out for help or . . . Is it actually a little known poem turned into a Glenn Miller swing song. We will never know, but hopefully it was the latter.
– The words come from “Antigonish”, an 1899 poem by American educator and poet Hughes Mearns. It is also known as “The Little Man Who Wasn’t There“, and was a hit song under that title.
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today,
I wish, I wish he’d go away…
When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door…
Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there,
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away…
– But it wasn’t until July 12, 1939 that a recording of the song by the Glenn Miller Orchestra with vocals by Tex Beneke became an 11-week hit on Your Hit Parade reaching #7.
– So, is ‘WHD’ part of the Glenn Miller band trying out lyrics in as early as 1937? Or is ‘WHD’ just a very learned poetry aficionado?
– Mr. G.O. Moon’s State Office Building in Columbus, Ohio was demolished in 1970 for the sake of better views of a taller office tower.
– ‘WHD’ ironically went on to be the call letters of America’s first ‘top 40’ radio station in Kansas City, Missouri. An innovative and well-financed entrepreneur, Todd Storz, came from Omaha to purchase ‘WHD’ and came up with the pioneering concept of playing only ‘top 40’ music hits, therefore changing American radio forever to this day.
– The song itself was used in many movies (especially spooky ones) and has been recorded by many other artists (even heavy metal bands) up to this day as well.
– The postcard itself is a 1930 view of Broadway. Your clues: two signs advertising two hit movies of the year 1930. “A Woman Surrenders” starring Basil Rathbone and Conrad Nagel. And the hugely successful Howard Hughes film “Hell’s Angels” starring blonde bombshell Jean Harlow. It was one of the first ‘talkie’ films.
So, postcard hunting turns out to be a pretty fun mystery, insightful and learning experience!
Hear the Glenn Miller song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0woVmAdWbw0
Postcard story of the Week – A DARK AND GLOOMY DAY IN 1906
Postcard story of the Week – A DARK AND GLOOMY DAY IN 1906
Description: 9054. A subway station in New York.
November 20, 8pm, 1906
To: Miss Mary Ostrander*
Home Farm
Wallkill, N.Y.
This is a dark and gloomy day,
Lisa
*Today there is a Ostrander Elementary School – 137 Viola Avenue – Wallkill, NY 12589.
The subway station is from the Wall Street area. Note: the .5 cent subway fare was on the honor system – you came down the stairs, bought a ticket and then handed it to the clerk.
Having checked weather patterns for November 1906 Manhattan, it was an unusually rainy month. So, is Lisa’s “gloom” referring to the weather or is the dank and dark subway station representative of some sort of sad news?
Postcard story of the Week – POSTCARD FROM A CAD AND A SCOUNDREL 1939
Postcard stories from New York: HOTEL NEW YORKER 1943
Hotel New Yorker 1943
Today launches a new series called “Postcard Stories from New York”. Each week I will feature a vintage postcard sent to a loved one from the Big Apple New York City. Let’s see what thread they will weave over time. Here is the premier card:
and shower, servidor and circulating ice water. Four popular priced restaurants.
Dancing nightly in the Terrace Restaurant. Rates from $3.85 a day.
NEW YORK CITY - IN THE WIT OF AN EYE 