Tag Archives: Restaurants

Old New York In Photos #45 – Broadway After Snowstorm 1905

New York City 1905 After A Big Snowstorm – The Sights Along Broadway Between 29th and 30th Streets Described

So far New York City has not had a major snowstorm this season like upstate New York received earlier this month. But I dream of New York City days gone by like this one shown above.

In this high resolution photograph (click to greatly enlarge) taken in 1905, the effects of a recent snowstorm can be seen as the snow has been shoveled high onto the edge of the street and sidewalk.

We are looking up Broadway from the northwest corner of 29th Street towards 30th Street. On the extreme left at 1209 Broadway is one of the many United Cigar Stores outlets, a chain store which dominated New York’s tobacco retail industry at the turn of the century. Next door at 1211 Broadway is Marcus & Marcus supplying men’s furnishings.

Across the street at 1204 Broadway an advertisement in the window at ground level announces that the entire stock in their window was purchased by The Maurice Company, a clothing company run by Maurice Rogaliner. The “Broadway Dentists” also had offices in the same building along with Sol Young, Photographer.

Next door to the Maurice Company is Shanley’s Restaurant, owned by brothers Tom and Michael Shanley.

Shanley’s was one of the most famous eateries of the late 19th and early 20th century in Manhattan. With three restaurants, this one at 1210-1212 Broadway was their second location which opened in 1896. As the restaurant guide Where And How To Dine In New York (Lewis, Scribner & Co; 1903) describes it:

Everybody in New York knows Shanley’s and almost everybody has dined at one or another of the three establishments conducted under this name. The management acknowledges but one purpose in the conduct of its restaurants — to make its guests absolutely comfortable and to persuade them that Shanley^s holds the recipe for good cheer. It has taken twelve years to develop the atmosphere which one finds in Shanley’s and during this time the extent of its business operations has been greatly enlarged. The service at Shanley’s is entirely a la carte. The cuisine is proverbial for its excellence. Chops, steaks, lobsters, game, shell fish and kidneys are among the special attractions of the house.

Next to Shanley’s the building with the initials HB and the crown on its sign is the Hof Brau Haus Restaurant. Continue reading →

Classic Hollywood #30 – Alec Guinness Predicted James Dean’s Death

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The Strange Tale Of How Obi-Wan Kenobe (Sir Alec Guinness) Eerily And Accurately Told James Dean He Was Going To Die In His New Car

James Dean Ursula Andress 1955 8 29 ph Earl Leaf

James Dean and Ursula Andress attend a benefit, one month before Dean’s death in a auto crash

James Dean is seen here talking to one of his “girlfriends,” the 19-year-old Swiss actress Ursula Andress. This photograph was taken at a benefit for the “Thalian’s Ball” on August 29, 1955 at Ciro’s in Hollywood and shows them in a non-combative mood. The sexually ambiguous Dean may have been set up on dates with Andress by the studio publicity department. Regardless, press accounts at the time refer to Andress and Dean as dating one another.

Even though Andress spoke very little English, their relationship was considered very stormy. At one time it was reported by a tabloid that Dean was said to be taking German language lessons so that they could “argue in another language.” Andress would go on to fame as Honey Ryder, the first “Bond Girl” in 1962’s Dr. No.

Dean, an avid auto racer, agreed to purchase a new sports car on September 21 1955, a silver Porsche 550 Spyder that he nicknamed “Little Bastard” which was then painted on the car.

Two days later on September 23, Dean was eating at the trendy Villa Capri Restaurant on McCadden Street in Hollywood and spotted actor Alec Guinness trying to get a table without any success. Guinness was exhausted having just arrived from London on a 16 hour flight for his first trip to Hollywood. As Guinness and his companion, screenwriter Thelma Moss exited the restaurant, Dean ran after them to intercede. Continue reading →

Old New York In Postcards #8 – Dreamland Coney Island Part 2

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Coney Island’s Dreamland Amusement Park 1904-1911 – Part 2

Coney Island- Dreamland midway on a crowded day

Continuing from part one of our postcard journey through Dreamland Amusement Park at Coney Island, we examine the other features of the park.

At the turn of the century, dancing was possibly the most popular amusement at Coney Island, even more so than bathing at the beach. The Dreamland ballroom reflected this popularity by being the largest ballroom ever built in the United States. Continue reading →

Groucho Marx And His Third Wife Eden Hartford

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A Marriage Not Made To Last

On July 17, 1954 Groucho Marx married Eden Hartford at Sun Valley, Idaho. It was his third marriage, it was her second. He was 63, she was 24.

This was the beginning.

This was the end.

The look on both of their faces in this photo from around 1962 says it all about the state of their marriage after eight years.

Groucho and Eden are dining at the famous Brown Derby restaurant and apparently not enjoying each other’s company. Groucho and Eden displayed similar expressions during the 1960’s anytime they were photographed together.

Even though the love affair was apparently over, the official end wouldn’t come until 1969 after 15 years of marriage when Groucho and Eden were divorced.

Six years after Groucho died, Eden passed away from cancer at the age of 53 on December 15, 1983.

Old New York In Photos #29 – Times Square In Vintage Color Photographs

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Advertisements & Scenes of Times Square In Vintage Color Photographs 1954

It’s been almost 60 years since these photographs were taken by an anonymous amateur photographer who was interested in the signage, ads and the streets surrounding a vibrant, now vanished Times Square.

The city began sterilizing all the flavor from the crossroads of the world in the late 1980’s. It was a few years later that most New Yorker’s began noticing the mall-ification of Times Square. True, Times Square had denigrated into a rather sleazy place from the mid-1960’s until the “revitalization” took place. But what has it become?

For anyone who lived through Times Square’s final heyday in the 1950’s, today the place must seem extremely distasteful with its countless tourist barkers, ill-planned pedestrian plazas and glass monolith buildings sheathed in gaudy LED light ads. It’s overcrowded with people moving slowly, chain stores, costumed kitsch characters and modern day hucksters hawking their products to tourists for a “real New York experience.” Give me the days of three card monte games and prostitutes over eight people wandering around in Mickey Mouse costumes any day.

As Nik Cohn said in 1997, ‘Times Square has always changed every 20 years. But this time it’s changed to a corporate, generic American city that doesn’t particularly express the uniqueness of New York.”

But let’s go back in time to 1954 when it was a better time for Times Square. Legitimate theatre was still great, movies offered up Cinemascope entertainment and real Broadway characters (not criminals and freaks) roamed the streets.

Enjoy these Kodachrome views of what you would have seen looking around Times Square on a sunny, warm July day in 1954.

Minimal commentary has been added for identification purposes. Click any photo to enlarge.

Times Square looking south from 46th Street. Shown are: Times Tower Building, Bishop’s Crook Light, Hotel Astor with The Astor Roof Garden, Victoria Theater showing About Mrs. Leslie starring Shirley Booth and Robert Ryan, on the extreme left a portion of the statue for the giant block long Bond Clothes advertisement.

Looking west from Broadway and Seventh Avenue along 45th Street. Shown are: the Astor Theater with a large billboard for Indiscretion of an American Wife starring Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift, and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musicals Me and Juliet and The King and I, and the 26 story Hotel Piccadilly at 227 West 45th Street. Continue reading →

Beauties Of The Past – Annabelle Whitford

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Annabelle Whitford Moore Buchan And The Original “Gibson Girl”

The epitome of feminine beauty at the turn of the century was captured in artist Charles Dana Gibson’s skillful drawings of women, that came to be known as “Gibson Girls.”

Annabelle Whitford was 15 years old when she achieved notoriety dancing at the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Annabelle appeared in movies performing her dances under the name Annabelle Moore from 1896 -1902. She went onto a successful stage career hitting the top as a star in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1908 playing one of the “Nell Brinkley Girls.” Brinkley (September 5, 1886 – October 21, 1944) was a female newspaper artist whose creations were very similar to the Gibson Girls. In 1910 Annabelle married Dr. Edward James Buchan and retired from performing.

In her obituary in the New York Times it was said Annabelle “was the symbol of beauty in her day. She was billed as ‘the original Gibson Girl’ because of her striking resemblance to the Charles Dana Gibson portrait.” The illustrations below are from Gibson’s 1902 book The Social Ladder.

Continue reading →

Old Time Ads From The 1910 World Almanac – Part 2

Old New York In Photos #25 – Street Scene 42nd St. & Broadway 1915

42nd Street and Broadway New York Times Building 1915

We have previously featured an overview of the Times Tower Building and Times Square. Now we present a street level view looking west from Broadway. The date is October 3, 1915 and there are a handful of people milling about on the street. Continue reading →

Part 4 Vintage New York City Books With Great Art Deco Dust Jackets

Part 3 Even More Vintage New York City Books With Great Art Deco Dust Jackets

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The Art of The Book #3 – New York City Deco Dust Jackets From The 20′s & 30′s

We continue with our look at vintage books about New York City with great dust jackets. (click here to read part 1 and here to read part 2)

Starting with a look at an all-time classic of deco design, New York Nights. (click on any photo to enlarge)

New York Nights by Stephen Graham, New York: George H. Doran, 1927, dj illustrator, Kurt Wiese

A native of Scotland, author Stephen Graham (1884-1975) goes on a tour of jazz age nightclubs, speakeasies and cabarets. Graham provides the grittier side of life in an up to the minute description of prohibition New York neighborhoods, establishments and people.

Kurt Wiese (1887-1974) illustrated over 300 books and later became an award-winning children’s book author. Besides the knockout jacket cover, Wiese drew all the illustrations contained in the book. This was the first American book he worked on. Continue reading →

Stuff Nobody Cares About

A not so random collection of observations about things you should care about