The Lost Hotel Rector - 1500 Broadway

 

The American Architect, January 18, 1911 (copyright expired)

The elegant Rector's restaurant on Broadway between 43rd and 44th Street had been a favorite of well-heeled theater goers for a decade in 1909 when Charles Rector made plans to demolish his building to make way for a hotel.  Designed by D. H. Burnham & Co., it would rise 16 stories.  Its Beaux Arts design would feature a three-story stone base, a middle section clad in red brick, and a stone balustrade that girded the "ornamental crown supporting a curved Mansard roof," as described by The New York Architect.

D. H. Burnham & Co. released a rendering of the proposed structure in 1910.  Record & Guide, February 19, 1910 (copyright expired)

Construction progressed with blinding speed.  The New York Architect commented in its February 1911 issue, "The rapidity of its construction has been the wonder and marvel of the passer-by."  The Rector's restaurant closed on January 31, 1910 and on December 27, 1910 the hotel and new restaurant were opened.  In February 1911, Architects' & Builders' Magazine noted, "This hotel is essentially a transient hotel and has 250 guest rooms and baths."  Rector had reserved ample space for his famous restaurant.  The article said, "The main floor which extends across the whole Broadway front, is given up to the main restaurant."

The impressive restaurant space was two floors in height.  It had "a ceiling in gold leaf, with walls finished in a soft French gray, with red draperies."  Each of the crystal chandeliers, according to Architects' & Builders' Magazine, "weigh approximately one ton each."  

Two views of the main restaurant.  Architects' & Builders' Magazine, February 1911 (copyright expired)

R. Wallace & Sons Manufacturing Company had provided the restaurant's 16,000 pieces of silverware and 550 pieces of gold plate for the banquet rooms.  G. D. A. Limoges supplied the 30,000 pieces of china.

Sharing the first floor with the restaurant were four banquet rooms and the lobby.  "The upper floors are devoted to the guest rooms, which may be connected, if so desired," said Architects' & Builders' Magazine.

The lobby.  Architects' & Builders' Magazine, February 1911 (copyright expired)

Construction cost $3 million.  In the level below the restaurant were a large café and bar.  On December 25, 1910, The New York Times reported, "The main entrance is on Forty-fourth Street, with the women's parlor on the left and the men's writing room on the right of the entrance.  The restaurant entrance is on the Broadway side of the building."  The article added, "One novel feature will be the checking of coats and hats in the vestibule leading to the restaurant and then lowering them out of sight by specially constructed elevators into coat rooms situated on the floor below."

The restaurant, entered on Broadway (right), engulfed half of the main floor.  The New York Architect, February 1911 (copyright expired)

An advertisement on December 27 called the Hotel Rector, "one of the most complete and beautiful hotel structures ever erected."  A double room with bath ranged from $5 to $8 per night--an affordable $265 for the more expensive by 2024 conversion.

In September 1912, Charlotte Poillon and Veniuska La Geaux sued the Hotel Rector for $50,000 (about $1.5 million today).  According to Poillon, "she went into the restaurant and ordered food for herself and her companion, Miss La Greaux, but before the food was served an agent of the hotel refused to permit her to be served."  The Sun reported the two identical complaints claimed that the women entered "in a quiet and orderly manner," and the incident had "held them up to scorn and contempt."

The problem was that Charlotte was dressed as a man.  The hotel's attorney argued, "This plaintiff was in the habit of dressing and did dress upon the day in question in masculine attire, and thereby constantly attracted the attention and notice of the guests in the restaurant, some of whom resented her presence."  Charlotte Poillon's suit was issued from behind bars.  Because cross-dressing was a jailable offense at the time, she had "been arrested and convicted and served a term of imprisonment," according to The Evening World on September 4.

A hand-colored postcard from around 1911 advertised the hotel.  

A year before Rector's new restaurant opened, The Girl From Rector's opened on Broadway.  A sex farce, it involved couples entangled in a series of adulterous affairs and was considered by some critics as indecent.  The play seriously affected the restaurant's reputation and in May 1913, Charles Rector declared bankruptcy.

The newly formed Hotel Claridge Company, Inc. purchased the property.  An announcement in the New-York Tribune on September 17, 1913 declared:

Announcement--What was formerly the Hotel Rector at Forty-fourth Street and Broadway is now the Hotel Claridge.

The remodeled hotel opened on November 1, 1913.  The New York Times reported, "when the big restaurant was thrown open to the public for the first time in its new form...visitors found what seemed to be a brand new hotel."  The grand staircase to the restaurant on the Broadway side had been closed off.  The article said the restaurant had been "completely redecorated" and was now "reached only from the lobby of the hotel."

Before the motion picture industry moved to California, New York was the center of the silent film business.  On October 19, 1919, the New-York Tribune reported, "D. W. Griffith is using the Hotel Claridge to rehearse in while awaiting the installation of the heating apparatus in his new studio."

The largest of the banquet rooms.  The New York Architect, February 1911 (copyright expired)

While the director was dealing with heating problems, the operators of the Hotel Claridge were faced with a far more serious worry: Prohibition.  On July 1, 1919, The Sun quoted manager William H. Turner, who said, "We will not sell a drop of liquor after midnight.  We expect to do a fair business in soft drinks, but are going to stay within the law."

Two weeks later, The Sun reported, "The bar in the handsome Hotel Claridge, formerly Rectors, is to be converted into a candy shop and soda dispensing room at an estimated cost of $5,000."  The ploy, however, failed when other Times Square hotels violated the Prohibition rules and surreptitiously sold liquor.  On June 25, 1922, The New York Times reported, "Prohibition has put the Hotel Claridge...out of business, according to its owner, Lucius M. Boomer."  Boomer told the newspaper he "had tried to live up to every letter of the prohibition laws with the result that he found his patronage lured away to restaurants and other places in the neighborhood where liquor was sold."

Cleveland Ohio real estate operator Morris M. Glaser signed a $5 million, 21-year lease on the property.  He announced that the ground floor would be converted to retail space and the upper floors to "bachelor apartments."  

Construction began almost immediately.  Beams were removed in the converting of the ground floor to vast retail spaces.  It resulted in disaster on August 21, 1922.  At 2:00 that afternoon, the second floor collapsed.  The Evening World reported, "A dozen or more workmen were buried in the debris that piled up on the first floor level."  Three of the men were seriously injured and hospitalized, while their foreman, Mike Marmolsen, was killed.

In reporting on the accident, the newspaper reiterated, "The Claridge...was forced out of the hotel business because the restaurant, one of the most elaborately decorated in the city, could not compete with neighboring eating places that were selling liquor."

The term "bachelor apartments" meant that the suites had no kitchens.  The residents of the remodeled Claridge were not always on the right side of the law.  Shortly after renovations were completed, officials raided a reported gambling parlor in a ninth floor suite.  Just before 5:00 on the afternoon of December 28, 1922, three detectives broke in, "after kicking and pounding the door," reported The New York Times.  "The detectives emerged with thirteen well dressed prisoners, most of them carrying canes and wearing fur-liked coats."  Three of those arrested were charged with "keeping and maintaining the hotel suite for gambling purposes" and the others were charged with "generally disorderly conduct."

Two nightclub hostesses, Eva Goldstein and Ida Shaw, shared a suite on the third floor in 1929.  When Eva came home at 5:30 on the morning of August 13, Ida was asleep.  Shortly afterward, Eva Goldstein fell two floors to the roof of a one-story extension.  When she came to at the hospital, "she said she could not remember how she had fallen," reported The New York Times.  She fully recovered.

On a single day, February 5, 1933, three important deals took place involving the Claridge property.  Herbert Muller took over the lease of the hotel portion and announced he planned "extensive changes in the furnishings and equipment of the hotel," according to The New York Times.  Samuel Briat took over the ground floor for a branch of his men's furnishings stores, and Radio Station WEVD leased space on the top floor for a broadcasting studio.

In 1941, a massive Camel cigarettes billboard was plastered across the second floor of the Broadway facade.  It became a sort of landmark in its own right because of the man in a fedora it displayed who constantly blew "smoke rings" of water vapor.  The ad would remain until 1966.

The "smoke" blowing billboard was photographed by Willem van de Poll in June 1948.

The second floor was leased to an unexpected tenant in September 1949.  The Museum of Science and Industry had been located at Rockefeller Center since 1936.  Renamed the New York Hall of Science, it would take up about 11,000 square feet," according to The Times, and opened on October 20.

Fifteen years later, on May 21, 1964, The New York Times reported that Douglas Leigh, Inc. had purchased the Claridge Hotel, "a Times Square landmark for 50 years and once the home of Rector's Restaurant."  Douglas Leigh announced he would "rent the lower floors for stores, a restaurant or exhibit space, and the upper stories for showrooms, offices and meeting rooms."

Despite Leigh's ambitious plans, just six years later the Hotel Claridge was demolished to make way for 1500 Broadway, designed by Leo Kornblath, which was completed in 1972.

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The Lost New York and Criterion Theaters - Broadway and 44th Street

 

from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1895 New York City's theater district was centered along West 23rd Street.  But that year theater manager and impresario Oscar Hammerstein took a daring step.  On January 12 the Record & Guide reported he had purchased ten plots along Broadway between 44th and 45th Street, saying he "will erect a music hall and a theatre, possibly two of them, at a cost that will nearly equal the price agreed upon for the property.  This sale is peculiar inasmuch as the seller stipulates that work shall begin at once upon the proposed buildings."

The site sat within Longacre Square, known mostly for carriage building.  The idea that well-heeled New Yorkers would travel north to the area for entertainment was implausible at worst and surprising at best.  Nevertheless, Hammerstein declared that his creation would be a destination.  He said, "My theater will make a place for itself, because I will give the public what they have never had before."  

On February 16, 1895 the Record & Guide announced he had hired the architectural firm of J. B. McElpatrick & Sons to design his Olympic Theatre.  The firm placed the total cost of the project, including land, at $62.8 million today.

John Bailey McElfratrick was known for his theater designs both in the United States and Canada.  His focus on improving the audience's experience resulted in improved sight lines, fewer aisles and multiple exits.  His Olympic Theatre would be monumental.

from the Catalog of the 11th Annual Exhibition of the Architectural League of New York, 1895 (copyright expired)

More than 1,000 men were employed in the construction, which was completed at lightning speed within ten months after ground was broken.  The New York Times reported, "The Olympia is a beautiful, massive gray stone building, extending 203 feet on Longacre Square, 154 feet on Forty-fifth Street, and 101 feet on Forty-fourth Street.  Its material is Indiana limestone, richly carved and ornamented, and it presents one of the most imposing facades on Broadway."

The Olympic was, in fact, three venues--the Olympic Music Hall, the Olympia Concert Hall, and the Olympic Theatre.  One fifty-cent ticket admitted a patron to all three.

Hammerstein had created a one-stop entertainment complex.  There was a lavish roof garden capable of seating 1,000.  On warm evenings, productions could be staged there on a fully-outfitted stage.  Below street level were cafes, billiard rooms, Turkish baths and bowling alleys.  Four large dynamos under the sidewalk provided electricity to the structure, including its elevators.

In his 1896 The Planning and Construction of American Theatres, William H. Birkmire said, "The architecture follows the lines of the French Renaissance period."  He continued, "The main entrance to the three auditoriums...is through two massive carved doorways on the street-level in the centre of the Broadway front, leading to the marble foyer.  In the centre of the foyer there are two immense passenger-elevators, which run to the upper floors and the roof-garden.  To the right and left are marble staircases leading to the balconies and box-tiers of the music hall and theatre."

Birkmire made note of the decorations throughout the "immense amusement temple," saying, "The sculptural groups, figures, and designs which decorate the boxes and prosceniums in the various auditoriums make the interior appear very attractive."  In the Music Hall, a massive chandelier hung from a plaster rosette of dancing cupids.  "A heroic female figure upholds the forty-eight boxes, which are all different in design," he said.  

Each of the venues offered a slightly different fare--legitimate theater, music hall variety shows, and "operettic" productions.   The Music Hall, "devoted to vaudeville," as explained by The Sun, was the largest.  The 70-foot wide auditorium had six tiers of boxes, 124 in total.

The Theatre was only slightly smaller, its auditorium being 60-feet in width.  The Sun said, "The finish of the walls, ceiling, and boxes shows a blend of the severity of Greek styles with the more delicate treatment that characterizes the Louis XVI style.

Opening night, on November 25, 1895, was chaotic.  The New Y0rk Times reported, "Oscar Hammerstein had to call on the police last night to help him keep people out of his Olympia.  He had seating room for 6,000; he sold 10,000 tickets."  As the "well-dressed mob," as worded by the newspaper, grew to hundreds and then thousands outside the still-locked doors, tensions grew.  The patrons "finally, with the strength of a dozen catapults, banged at the door of the new castle of pleasure and sent them flying open.  Then the tactics were changed.  They had been those of mediaeval warfare; they became those of the modern gridiron, with nobody to retire the injured from the field."

Policemen were unable to close the doors.  Patrons inside "were packed in denser mass than was ever the crowd at an international wedding," said The New York Times.  Hammerstein shouted "Close the doors!" to which the newspaper said, "He might as well have said, 'Stop the tide!'"

Women's gowns were torn and men's top hats were crushed.  The newspaper said, "Boxes were filled by main force; to reach a seat, one had to be an athlete; to stand...implied torture such as is seldom witnessed at any performance or exhibition for which the public pays."  Eventually order was restored and the performances went on until late into the night.

The mayhem of opening night was followed by horrific tragedy the following morning.  At 9:30 a 10-inch steam pipe running from the boilers to the dynamos burst.  The explosion was heard blocks away and "a big crowd quickly gathered," according to the New-York Tribune.  Tragically, 12 men were seriously scalded.  One died almost instantly and another, 31-year-old Andrew Huggins died at Bellevue Hospital.

Despite the rocky start, as Hammerstein predicted, the Olympia and its three venues became a destination spot.   The 1896 season opened for the Theatre on September 24 with a new comic opera, Santa Maria, written and composed by Hammerstein.  The New York Times reported, "The house was jammed and the audience was particularly good looking and well dressed.  The applause throughout the night was vociferous."

Nevertheless, the explosion resulted in Hammerstein's financial ruin.  He told reporters in January 1897, "In the last year damage suits amounting to over $150,000 have been brought against me, most of them arising from the explosion of a steampipe a day after the opening...For reasons best known to myself, I transferred my Olympic to my wife."

Finally, on November 5 the New-York Tribune reported, "Nobody who knew Oscar Hammerstein and his affairs was surprised to hear yesterday that he had made an assignment for the benefit of his creditors.  Theatrical people have often of late expressed curiosity as to how long Hammerstein could hold out."

The New York Life Insurance Co. foreclosed on the Olympia complex eight months later.  On September 10, 1898 the Record & Guide reported that New York Life had sold the property "to an English theatrical syndicate...for about $1,000,000."  It was a humiliating fraction of the amount Hammerstein had laid out.

Changes would soon come.   The structure was closed and refigured as two theaters, the New York and the Criterion.  On April 25, 1899 The New York Times reported on the opening performance in "that the big place of public entertainment which used to be called Olympia, and is now named the New York Theatre" after "a long and disastrous delay."  The newspaper hoped the changes would be enough "to make the house pay."

But the bad luck of the seemingly cursed complex continued.  On the afternoon of December 7, 1899 auditions were being held for the upcoming "new extravaganza, 'Broadway to Tokio,'" as described by The New York Times.  The show was scheduled to open in January.  Among those auditioning was the Verdi Trio, composed of tenor G. Reis, basso August Wagner, and soprano, Madame Del Costo.   The New York Times reported, "After the trio had rendered several selections, Reis asked the privilege of singing a solo."  He chose to sing "Di Quella Pira" from Verdi's Il Trovatore.  He gave a "clear and clever" rendition "until he attempted to reach the high C," said the article.  

He suddenly grasped for a chair and had to be carried to the manager's office.  In the strain to hit the high note, he had burst a blood vessel in his brain.  The article said, "An attack of paralysis followed."

The foresight of Oscar Hammerstein's bold move to Longacre Square was evident by the end of 1900.  The Record & Guide commented on December 22, "Oscar Hammerstein's Olympia, now the New York and Criterion Theatres, like many of the schemes of that enterprising man, were a little in advance of the times.  Now, however, the pace has been quickened, and one project after another has been announced."  The area that would be renamed Times Square was quickly becoming the new theater district.

On the warm evening of July 25, 1900 a large audience was assembled in the Roof Garden when near a near disaster ensued.   At around 10:00, as Le Belle Rita was "gliding about the stage, a wheel attached to each foot," a fire broke out in the Summer House in a corner of the auditorium.  Le Belle Rita noticed it first and wheeled herself to the wings screaming.  The audience rose, but luckily, panic was averted by the cool-headed employees.  

The New York Times reported, "Ballet girls flying down fire escapes, some in tights, some in street dress, and some in a compromise between the two, and a compromise that was not entirely satisfactory, mingled with the more soberly clad of the New York Theatre roof garden audience last night."

After the fire was extinguished, the audience and the performers returned to the roof.  "There were black eyes and bruised elbows aplenty," said the article, "but, beyond the ready fainting of a few women, nobody was hurt, and the show went on."

In 1902 the two theaters were sold separately.  Famous impresario Charles Froham purchased the Criterion with partners Rich and Harris, while Kaw & Erlanger purchased the New York Theatre, which included rights to the Roof Garden.

Kaw & Erlanger did a massive renovation of the roof, resulting in the Cherry Blossom Grove.  It prompted The New York Times to say on June 17, 1902, "archaeology has so far progressed that we are able to reconstruct the nightly life in the hanging gardens of Babylon."  Nevertheless, the critic found the show uninspiring.  "There was no feature of commanding novelty, no feature of unusual excellence," he wrote.  On the positive side, the gardens were "a worthy pretext for those who wish to drink, smoke, and be merry in an atmosphere relatively cool."

The Roof Garden.  from the collection of the Shubert Archives.

Florenz Ziegfeld took over the Roof Garden in 1907.  It was here he first presented his Zeigfeld Follies.

Oscar Hammerstein got a taste of revenge, of a sort, on November 7, 1910 when he premiered Victor Herbert's comic opera Naughty Marietta at the New York Theatre.   The New-York Tribune said it "won an instant and distinct triumph" and said Hammerstein's "triumph was won in the very home of perhaps his worst reverse, the theatre that was cruelly torn from him nearly at the instant of its completion."

"Mr. Hammerstein built the Olympia Theatre when Long Acre Square was the habitation of bats and wolves," it reminded readers.  "It is said that until last night he had never re-entered his old theatre.  Long Acre Square is now the centre of New York's theatre world, and it welcomed back its father right royally."

In 1915 the New York Theatre was absorbed into the Loew's motion picture theater chain and the Criterion was leased to the Vitagraph Company.  Among that theater's first screenings was The Battle Cry of Peace.  On November 28, 1915 The Sun noted it "is still drawing large audiences."

The Daily News reported on June 8, 1935, "The New York Theatre, and the roof above it, will be dark on Monday for the first time in twenty years.  On that day the legend-laden structure on Broadway will pass into the hands of wreckers."  At 11:00 that morning, just before the demolition began a number of old Broadway performers gathered on the stage for a last good-bye.

The New-York Tribune reported, "Victor Moore will sing a chorus from "Forty-five Minutes from Broadway, in which, as Kid Burns, he made a hit in the early 1900's."  Also there were producer George B. Lederer, actor Gus Edwards, song writer and producer George M. Cohan, and Oscar Hammerstein's son Arthur.  The article noted that the Criterion "is also soon to come down."

Interestingly, seven decades later, in July 2016, demolition crews were working on renovations of the Toys 'R' Us building into the flagship store for Gap and Old Navy.  They uncovered the foundations of the theater and orchestra pit of the Olympia Theatre.

Disfigured -- The 1912 Horn & Hardart Building 1557-1561 Broadway

 

Hidden behind signage is what was once Manhattan's first automat.  via loopnet.com

As the turn of the last century approached, Longacre Square--long the center of New York City's carriage making industry--was quickly being transformed into its theater district.  But as late as 1906 the vehicular tradition lived on in the four-story building at No. 1557 Broadway which housed the McGiehan Manufacturing Co., makers of speedometers and odometers, and James F. Gombert which made carriage lamps.  Two years earlier the district had officially been renamed Times Square.  

In the meantime, Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart were changing the face of luncheonettes.  The men opened their first restaurant in Philadelphia on December 22 1888.  When “waiterless restaurants” began appeared overseas around the turn of the century, Frank Hardart traveled to Europe to see them in action.  Customers chose food items from glass-doored compartments, inserted a coin and removed the food.  The process required fewer personnel and, therefore, reduced prices.  Diners enjoyed quick service and inexpensive meals.

On February 25, 1911 the Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide reported "The work of demolishing the old buildings at Nos. 1557, 1559, 1561 and 1563 Broadway, between 46th and 47th sts., adjoining the Globe Theatre, was begun yesterday...and a 5-sty and basement fireproof restaurant and hotel will at once be erected on the site."

The proposed building would house a bachelor's hotel above a posh restaurant, The Cafe Napoleon.  The article noted that "the decorations, silverware, china and glassware will be of the Napoleonic period."  But the grand plans for the 70-foot wide plot somehow derailed.

By September the Philadelphia architectural firm of Stuckert & Sloane had filed plans instead for a three-story restaurant.  Property owner C. William Funk had leased the site to Horn & Hardart for its first New York City automat.  The projected cost was $80,000--or about $2.2 million today.

Completed in 1912, the neo-Classical style building was faced in gleaming terra cotta, its facade dominated by double-height openings.  Two arched entrances (one to a separate store space which provided additional income) flanked the main entrance within a 30-foot wide expanse of stained glass.  Designed by art glass artisan Nicola D'Ascenzo, it included a panel that read "Automat" in Art Nouveau style letters.  The openings of the third floor were also of stained glass.  Atop the cornice were four finial-like electric lamps.

original source unknown

Stuckert & Sloane carried the Art Nouveau motif of the glass signage into the dining room.  The marble bases of the columns morphed into colorful tiled tree trunks which spread flowers, fruits and vines along the beams and radiated out along the ceiling.  Crouching within the joints of the ceiling beams above each column were sculpted wood sprites or gnomes.  The decorative elements, including stained glass, reportedly cost the equivalent of more than a quarter of a million in today's dollars.

A post card reveals the mosaic floors, elaborate ceiling decorations, and the mahogany cabinetry and beveled glass mirrors that enframed the dispensing machines.  

The foreign concept of the automat prompted Architecture & Building to school its readers.  "For ordinary viands the proper coin is deposited in the slot and a turn of the knob throws open a door and within the compartment which is exposed the food is found."

But opening night had no "ordinary viands."  It was planned as a charity event by theater producer and director John Murray Anderson and actress Jenny Wren.  Instead of Horn & Hardart's home-made foods, the invited guests dropped their nickels into the slots to withdraw plates of caviar or smoked salmon supplied by society caterer Sherry's.  Dressed in evening clothes, the guests were entertained by music provided by Meyer Davis's orchestra.

The next day the automat opened for regular business, offering its more pedestrian fare.  Horn & Hardart would become well-known for dishes like Salisbury steak and gravy, macaroni and cheese, and its famed Boston pork and beans baked in their own earthenware crocks.  The firm's pastries were made on site--lemon meringue, cherry and apple pies, angel food or coconut layer cakes, and such.

The Evening World, July 1, 1912 (copyright expired)

In February 1914 architect John E. Kleist was commissioned to design a "steel sky sign," as described by the Record & Guide.  The large illuminated neon sign, which cost the equivalent of nearly $27,000 today, would be a familiar sight on Times Square for decades.

In 1916 the Horn & Hardart firm purchased the property it had been leasing for four years.  It would prove to be a very propitious decision.

Despite changing attitudes between management and workers, Horn & Hardart remained adamantly anti-union into the 1930's.  Frank Hardard, Jr. vocally expressed his disdain of organized labor, calling strikers "unscrupulous agitators" and characterizing unions as communistic.

Picket lines often deteriorated to battle lines during the Great Depression with tensions heightened.  On December 16, 1937 The New York Sun entitled an article "13 Pickets Jailed for Rioting" and reported on the melee in front of the Times Square Horn & Hardart.  "For three-quarters of an hour more than 100 pickets marched up and down in front of the restaurant, shouting and singing and trying to fight off a detail of thirty-six policemen sent to disperse them.  The demonstration ended in a free-for-all fight when the police began loading the pickets into patrol wagons."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

In February 1945, during World War II, the federal government instituted a nationwide curfew on nightclubs.  John "Ole" Olsen and Harold "Chic" Johnson were popular comedians whose act "Olsen and Johnson" had been drawing crowds since the days of vaudeville.  When the curfew was enacted they were playing nearby on Broadway.  

On February 28 The New York Sun reported "Deprived of the usual amusement places, Olsen and Johnson and more than 100 men and women in the cast of 'Laffing Room Only!' walked from the Winter Garden to the Automat at 1557 Broadway after their show last night...A large crowd was attracted both inside and outside of the big Automat by the presence of the performers, many of whom were in evening dress.  At the Automat it was reported today that a fine time was had by all, with Olsen and Johnson and members of their cast ad libbing over their coffee."

At the time of Olsen & Johnson's foray to the automat, the ground floor stained glass had been replaced with plate glass.  Life magazine, 1946.

The modernization of Stuckert and Sloane's classic facade began before mid-century when part of the stained glass was removed.  What remained was replaced with plate glass by architect John J. McNamara in 1957.

Changing times and the arrival of fast food chains in the 1960's prompted Horn & Hardart to react.  In 1968 the Times Square automat was granted a liquor license--a concept that would have shocked its patrons in 1912.

In 1973 the firm's president, Federick H. Guterman, addressed the problem of fast food chains with The New York Times journalist Glenn Collins.  "Mr. Guterman says the value of Horn & Hardart's real estate holdings is helping to buy time for a radical attempt to change the Horn & Hardart image, long associated in many people's minds with cavernous cafeterias filled by elderly people nursing cups of coffee."

Comparing the vast automat spaces to "big barns," Guterman suggested "We might have burger and brew, pizza and brew or a spaghetti operation.  We don't know yet."

Within four years the firm did know.  The Times Square location was converted to a Burger King franchise, still operated by Horn & Hardart.  On March 20, 1978 Matthew L. Wald, writing in The New York Times commented that "'Whopper' hamburgers have replaced such Horn & Hardart staples as baked beans."

Five years later journalist Robert F. Byrnes reminisced about No. 1557 Broadway in a New York Times article entitled "Thanksgiving Dinner at the Automat."  He remembered it as "A classy place.  All that Carrara marble and miles of patterned white tile, and the shiny chrome and the spotless plate-glass Automat-machine windows.  Pillars.  Elegant lamps on the ceiling.  You'd have to look hard to find a scrap of paper on the floor."  

But it was no longer hard to find a scrap of paper on the floor of No. 1557 Broadway.

photo via MapQuest.com

Today any remnants of the once beautiful terra cotta facade are disfigured, covered by billboards.  Inside, however, traces of Stucker & Sloane's 1912 detailing survive if you look closely enough.

The Lost "Purity" Statue - Times Square

The statue sat in the skinny island between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, between 44th and 45th Streets.  photo from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

With no fanfare a tower of wooden beams surrounding a massive sculpture appeared in Times Square in the fall of 1909.  The New York Times cleared up the mystery on October 5 when it reported "For the last ten days thousands of persons traveling up and down Times Square have been wondering what might be the meaning of the strange high scaffolding at the upper end of the square between Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Street, and the heroic-sized, snow-white figure growing up within it.  Two days ago the figure began to put on the face of a woman, whereupon the interest of Broadway concerning it grew more intense than ever."

For more than a week tourists and businessmen had questioned the workers, nearby shopkeepers, and policemen.  But no one had answers.   The Times, however, had ferreted out the explanation.  "There will shine out in the heart of the city's twenty-four-hour centre a snow-white lady of some fifty feet and eighty tons--plaster, it is true, but full of moral and meaning--to stand as the emblem of the city's purity and beauty, defending herself against the mud-throwers and slanderers that so often assail her."

So stated, the purpose of the allegory of "Purity" sounded noble.  It would be a few days before less honorable forces behind it would come to light.

The arcane Association for New York had applied for and received a permit to erect "The Defeat of Slander" or "The Defence of New York."  The permit gave the group permission to erect and maintain "a statue at its own expense until Dec. 1, 1909."  The cost was later placed at $5,000, or about $140,000 today.

William Harmon Black, formerly Commissioner of Accounts for the Tammany Administration, was the president of the association.  He told The Times reporter that the goal of the newly-organized group was "to challenge indiscriminate abuse and criticism of New York City, to set forth her advantages as a place of residence for the citizen, as a point of production and distribution for the manufacturer, and as a mart for the merchant."  That, too, sounded innocent and, in fact, commendable.

The group had commissioned Italian-born sculptor Leo Lentelli to design the monument.  Black described it saying "The figure will be fifty feet high, built of fifty barrels, or eight tons of plaster, at a cost of several thousand dollars...It will represent a tall and snow-white woman of majestic figure and mien, somewhat angry and even disgusted at the slander and unjust fault-finding she has been subject to."

The figure of Purity would hold a shield on her left arm bearing the inscription "Our City."  Dark blotches on the shield represented the mud slung by New York's detractors.  At night it would be lit by searchlights installed on the nearby Acme Building, and behind her diadem were hidden soft blue electric lights.  Black insisted that there was nothing political about the figure.  "It would simply stand as an artistic, silent exhortation to civic pride and confidence."

Three days later The Thrice-A-Week World reported on the unveiling.  Its reporter, too, interviewed Black and now the first hints emerged that Tammany Hall was behind the project.  Again Black insisted that "The statue is a protect against mud slingers," but was more specific in the mud being slung.  The "reckless statements" which offended the Association of New York had to do with the cost of city bonds, the city's take from Custom House and Post Office receipts, and such.  "The trouble is, New Yorkers have not realized how good a city they have been living in," he complained.

A workman rests at the base, with the rubble of the scaffolding yet to be removed prior to the official unveiling. Harper's Weekly Advertiser, October 23, 1909 (copyright expired)

The unveiling was well-timed.  In its October 1909 issue The Literary Digest pointed out "The colossal statue...variously known as 'Purity' and the 'Defeat of Slander' was erected in Longacre Square, New York City, at the beginning of the present municipal campaign.  It is regarded as Tammany's protest against criticism of city government."

On the southern side of the base was inscribed "Defeat of Slander" and "Erected by the Association for New York."  On the northern face was "Dedicated to New York--The Greatest and Best of Cities--Our Home."  The eastern side read "That man who defames an individual injures but one.  That man who defames New York injures four and a half million people."  

Newspapers were quick to join in exposing the political ploy.  On October 15 The East Hampton Star, calling the figure "this plaster amazon," suggested its purpose was "political and that the Tiger [i.e. Tammany Hall] is seeking in this way to discourage criticism of its own misdeeds.  Well, Tammany is not New York.  It is only a disease.  To confuse the two is like confusing a case of smallpox with its victim...To connect the name of Tammany with purity is a joke."

The Sun waxed sarcastic.  When Black (who, incidentally, was the only person permitted to give official comment) called the statue "a concrete object lesson," the newspaper noted "The fact that the lesson was to be administered during the month preceding election day didn't have the slightest possible significance or any relation whatever with any party."

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

The Tacoma Times thought the artifice was laughable.  Its October 16 article entitled "You Mustn't Slander New York Any More," began "We folks out here in the west must stop talking about New York.  If we don't, the 'Big White Lady' will get us."  The reporter felt that if the published purpose of the statue was true it had a formidable job ahead.  "'Broadway and 42d st. is the mouth of hell,' said a visiting clergyman, several weeks ago.  So the 'Big White Lady,' with her raised arm, stands in an important situation."

Harper's Weekly took a conciliatory stance, but clearly pointed out "the citizens of the metropolis are in doubt as to the exact significance of the statue."

The Sun was not so diplomatic.  "The men who have erected the statue labelled the 'Defeat of Slander,' need to be reminded that the real defamers of New York are not the muckrakers who are the truth speakers, but the muckmakers who defile and pollute our city...It is not the slanderers and the defamers who have made the name of Tammany Hall a byword and a hissing throughout the civilized world, but the leadership and the following alike in Tammany Hall for nearly a century."  The article summed up the issue saying "These men dream of robbing and betraying our city and are wrathful because we will not desist crying 'Stop thief!'"

The statue's purpose as a Tammany Hall propaganda device had been exposed nationwide and continued to draw anger, parody and criticism.  On October 19 The Evening Post wrote "If Praxiteles and Phidias could visit New York now they would get some fresh ideas on statue-cutting.  For Sculpture is being made the handmaiden of Politics."

The reporter managed to interview Leo Lentelli--a feat few had managed to accomplish.  He rather apologized for the quality of his work saying "Of course, if I had more time to do it I could have made a better-finished job of it, but as it stands I think it expresses pretty well the note that it was intended to strike."  Pressed on what that note was, he admitted with a smile, "Oh yes, it is, I suppose, really only a political matter, and it does well enough for that."

"Purity," as it turned out, failed in her mission.  Tammany candidates lost the election.  Just six weeks after its unveiling, workmen began smashing the statue.  On November 20, 1909 The New York Times entitled its article "Miss Purity Displaced / Back to the Dust Pile for Her, Election Being Over."  The story continued, "The first workman was presently joined by a second, who climbed on the shoulders of Miss Virtue and began to hammer away at her left arm, which held the shield with which she fended off the mud supposed to have been thrown against the city in the ante-election period."  

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

The article described the process in detail, reporting, for instance, "When the huge head had fallen in pieces to the street below it made a very small pile of white bits."  The newspaper summed up the failed political ploy in its closing paragraph.

Miss Purity has not stayed her full time at the head of Times Square.  She had permission to remain there until early in December, but after the election she seemed to think that her work had been done.  Tammany's defeat--for she was a Tammany daughter--must have made her sorrowful, and maybe she didn't care whether she lived her full span out or not.

Anyhow, she goes back to the dust pile to-day.

Public School 67 - No. 120 West 46th Street

Prior to 1890 the Grand Central Stables occupied the large lot at Nos. 114 through 120 West 46th Street.  The nearby Longacre Square was the center of the carriage-making industry; but the northern expansion of the city coupled with an exploding immigrant population was changing the neighborhood as commercial and apartment buildings were constructed.  The new inhabitants of the district required a public school.

On November 28, 1890 Arthur McMullin, a clerk in the Comptroller's office, informed the Board of Education that the site of the stables had been rented until May 1, 1891, "at a rental of ninety dollars per month, payable in advance."  The city had agreed to pay nearly $2,500 a month in 2016 terms.  Only a month later, however, the Committee on Sites and New Schools noted that the land had been purchased instead.

On July 1, 1891 30-year old Charles B. J. Snyder took the position as Superintendent of School Buildings of the Board of Education.  Most likely the architect's first project was the design of Public School 67.  Snyder's ensuring 30 years of designing public schools would be remembered for his focus on ventilation and light and improved safety; as well as his ability to create architecturally handsome structures.


For Public School 67 he turned to the popular Romanesque Revival style.  Construction was begun in 1893 and completed a year later.  A base of rough-cut brownstone supported three stories of sandy-colored Roman brick.  An attic floor rose to full height with a row of five openings in the central pavilion; while ornate copper-clad dormers perched on either side.

Snyder incorporated the customary elements of the Romanesque Revival style--swirling medieval style carvings, heavy arches and fanciful beasts.  But his inclusion of two exquisite Pre-Raphaelite style portrait medallions on either side of the great entrance arch was a marked departure.

Many of the tenement children could not afford the luxury of days spent in school.  Daytime jobs in shops and factories were necessary to keep their families afloat.  In response, on July 1, 1896 the Board of Education announced that the New-York Evening High School would begin operations in Public School 67.   Most of the free classes were aimed at instructing students in the manual arts, thereby assuring them a vocation.

The courses included instruction in architectural, mechanical and free-hand drawing.  The New York Times noted in 1898 "The classes give opportunities to students of architecture, machinists, stonecutters, masons, carpenters, cabinetmakers, decorators and those working at the trades in general to learn the principals of drawing relating to their respective vocation."

Other portrait medallions appear with swirling spandrel panel decorations.

On the morning of December 9, 1902 fire broke out in the building.  The Times reported "about 300 children were marched out of the school, and the fire was subdued."  Shortly afterward a teacher was shocked to find that her watch and chain, valued at $60, were missing.

The following afternoon two more fires, on the second and third floors, erupted  Both were started in piles of paper shoved under teachers' desks on the second and third floors.  The New-York Tribune noted "The firemen have no hesitancy in asserting that both fires were set."  This time $700 worth of Latin and Greek grammar books had disappeared.

The mysterious crimes were solved three days later when 74-year old second-hand book dealer Andrew M. Copeland was arrested, along with four accomplices.  Copeland had bribed assistant janitors and a schoolboy to pack the books up.  During the confusion of the fires, the boxes were removed from the school and carted away.

A fearsome winged creature serves as a decorative bracket.  Bullnosed brick softens the outlines of the openings and arches.

By the time of Copeland's nefarious arson plots, the night school was adding business to its curriculum.  On January 20, 1903 The Times reported "Two classes in typewriting were opened recently in the New York Evening High School for Men...and were filled to the limit on the very first night.  Several applicants have been placed on the waiting list for this subject."

Clerical office help at the time was still a mostly male occupation.  Potential employers were looking for well-rounded secretaries.  For that reason the school announced "Hereafter, typewriting will be offered only to those who have acquired some skill in phonography."  "Phonography" would later become known as stenography, or shorthand.

The variety of classes available was indicated by The Times advising "There are still some vacancies in phonography, chemistry, applied electricity, mechanical and architectural drawing, mathematics, and languages."

The practicality of the trade-oriented night school in the tenement neighborhood resulted in Public School 67 joining with the High School of Commerce in 1906 with similar daytime classes.  At the time it had an enrollment of 1,700 pupils.

Three years later the school underwent another innovation when it introduced classes for the disabled.  The Board of Education announced that the Association of Teachers of CrippledChildren had been "quietly formed" in December 1908 "to arouse a greater interest in the welfare of the crippled child in the public schools of New York."

At Public School 67, explained an article in The New York Times on March 21, 1909, "the regular public school curriculum is followed, and the little cripples share in all the education advantages that are given to the strong and healthy."

Students at Public School 67 received an impromptu lesson in civil disobedience on February 2, 1912.  In an early example of busing, 50 male students of Public School 51 on West 54th Street near Eleventh Avenue were transferred to P.S. 67 because of overcrowding.   The boys were disgruntled not only because the new school was significantly farther from their homes; but because they were soon to graduate.  They also complained that there was no room for them at P.S. 67.  One boy told reporters "They made us sit in the assembly room, and we aren't going to stand it."

And so 16-year old John Colton, "a stocky boy" who had been captain of the basketball team at Public School 51, organized a walk-out.  A newspaper reported "they didn't enter their classrooms at all, but spent the day in a demonstration before their new school.  They marched through the streets with banners: 'We are on strike, Public School 51,' and sang and shouted in defiance to the teachers who tried to conquer them."

The police arrived, but rather than arrest the demonstrators, moved them away from the school building.  The Times noted "Principal McNally of School 67 got into communication with some of the boys' parents in the afternoon as the first step in restoring order."  The parents swayed more authority of the teens than did the police.  "A number of the youths were brought around to a different view of the situation."

A few of the parents, however, sided with the boys.  One, Mrs. Haff, told reporters "We are hard-working people and we have made sacrifices to keep the boys in school.  We have been thinking all along how fine it would be to have them graduate, but now they are really turned into the street."

The determined boys learned an important lesson in political science on a small scale that day when their demands were eventually met.

A much different lesson in civics was learned by 13-year old Mike Botto and his schoolmates Herman Wenzel, 10, and Edgar Sweeney, 11 in 1921.  During the first week of March Botto, whom The New-York Herald deemed "more or less of a student," was disciplined by Assistant Principal Amy Blenenfeld.  He did not take the episode lightly, the newspaper saying "he considered it a serious affront to his manly dignity."

To get revenge, the three boys climbed into a window of the school on Saturday March 12.  Using a penknife, Botto jimmied the door to Miss Blenenfeld's room.  With the aid of his penknife again, he broke into the teacher's desk.  The boys tore up report cards and other paperwork, spreading the remnants over the classroom.  They used bottles of red, blue and black ink to draw "futuristic and cubist and dadaistic pictures upon the walls and the floors, creating some starling designs.  But," said the newspaper, "three bottles of ink will not last forever, even in the hands of three small boys.  They cast about for something else."


The vandalism continued with the boys shredding students' drawings from the cork board, and carving "charming designs" on the wooden desks, particularly Miss Blenenfeld's.  Then, just as they prepared to leave, Mike Botto noticed the two goldfish bowls containing seven fish.  The Herald reported "They emptied the bowls, stabbed the goldfish to death with the pocket knife, and put the bodies in Miss Blenenfeld's desk and carefully closed it.  Then they went home satisfied and not really knowing that they had done wrong."

They discovered that, indeed, they had done something wrong when Detective Cooney appeared at each of their homes on the night of March 18.  In an article headlined "3 Kids Caged for Gold Fish Murder" The New York Herald explained that the vandals were learning about the justice system.

"Advices from the [Children's Society's] rooms last night stated that Mike and Herman and Edgar are gripped by Remorse with a capital R, and have sniffed themselves to the point where they are quite receptive to moral teachings."  When Mike Botto was informed by attendants that he would appear in court the next morning, he gulped "I hope the Judge don't forget about puttin' coals of fire on somebody's head."

Public School 67 and the High School of Commerce continued here for a few more years.  The building became an annex of the Haaren High School by 1928.  Then on October 25 1947 the Board of Education announced that the building would receive a $57,569 conversion to the system's first School of Performing Arts as an annex to the Metropolitan Vocational High School.

The Board explained "300 boys and girls will be selected from among city-wide applicants for the new school on the basis of talents and abilities in their respective fields.  The institution will have a regular four-year curriculum, but will emphasize courses of study that will be of value in the performing arts."

Four years later, when the school's first class prepared for graduation, The New York Times updated its readers on its success.  The only school of its kind in the country, its students had already appeared in summer stock and 'in such Broadway shows as The King and I, Flahooley, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Seventeen.  They had received lectures by celebrated artists like Jose Ferrer, Clifford Odets, Leo G. Carroll and Jean Dalrymple.

Over the years graduates would include Dom De Luise, Rita Moreno, Liza Minelli, Al Pacino, Suzanne Pleshette, Ben Vereen, Richard Benjamin, Priscilla Lopez, Vinette Caroll and dancers Louis Falco, Arthur Mitchell and Edward Vellela.

On January 30, 1960 the School for Performing Arts announced plans to merge with the High School of Music and Art, saying "the building it occupies--an antiquated former elementary school--is sorely inadequate."

During renovations of the vacant building in the winter of 1988 fire broke out.  The inferno completely gutted the vintage structure, leaving only a burned-out shell.  Rather surprisingly the ruins were not demolished, but the interiors were rebuilt.  The old building became home to a girls-only annex to the Murray Bergtraum High school.  Here young women studied business courses, an relatively unusual opportunity for females at the time.

A year following the death of the former First Lady, the school was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School for International Careers in 1995.  Now co-educational, the school offers courses in international business studies, hospitality, virtual enterprise, tourism and accounting.  And, following the previous half-century tradition, drama and dance.

C. B. J. Snyder's first public school project survives in the much changed, bustling Times Square neighborhood with little noticeable outward change--a reminder of a time when tenement children poured into its halls and young men, optimistic of their futures, learned to use a typewriter.

photographs by the author