Automats, Taxi Dances, And Vaudeville » (New Edition)

David Freeland is a writer who specializes in music history and popular culture. He is a contributing writer to the weekly New York Press, and his articles and criticism have also appeared in music magazines including American Songwriter, Relix, and Goldmine. He is the author of Ladies of Soul, a history of under-recognized female vocalists from the 1960s, and wrote the introduction, supplementary articles, and over 100 entries for Schirmer's reference work Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Popular Musicians. He lives in New York City.

From the lights that never go out on Broadway to its 24-hour subway system, New York City isn't called "the city that never sleeps" for nothing. Both native New Yorkers and tourists have played hard in Gotham for centuries, lindy hopping in 1930s Harlem, voguing in 1980s Chelsea, and refueling at all-night diners and bars. The slim island at the mouth of the Hudson River is packed with places of leisure and entertainment, but Manhattan's infamously fast pace of change means that many of these beautifully constructed and incredibly ornate buildings have disappeared, and with them a rich and ribald history.

Yet with David Freeland as a guide, it's possible to uncover skeletons of New York's lost monuments to its nightlife. With a keen eye for architectural detail, Freeland opens doors, climbs onto rooftops, and gazes down alleyways to reveal several of the remaining hidden gems of Manhattan's nineteenth- and twentieth-century entertainment industry. From the Atlantic Garden German beer hall in present-day Chinatown to the city's first motion picture studio-Union Square's American Mutoscope and Biograph Company-to the Lincoln Theater in Harlem, Freeland situates each building within its historical and social context, bringing to life an old New York that took its diversions seriously. Freeland reminds us that the buildings that serve as architectural guideposts to yesteryear's recreations cannot be re-created-once destroyed they are gone forever. With condominiums and big box stores spreading over city blocks like wildfires, more and more of the Big Apple's legendary houses of mirth are being lost. By excavating the city's cultural history, this delightful book unearths some of themany mysteries that lurk around the corner and lets readers see the city in a whole new light.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

In its people and its real estate, New York maintains a complicated relationship with its past: though always moving forward, the city is also preoccupied with its grand old architecture, a refined sense of nostalgia and an idealized sense of times gone by. Still, few New Yorkers know much about the city's actual history. Historian and music journalist Freeland (Ladies of Soul) provides an excellent correction in this detailed exploration of Manhattan's lost leisure spots, from defunct 19th century Chinatown beer gardens to the earliest integrated theaters in Harlem. Along the way, Freeland unreels meticulous accounts of Manhattan's more fascinating and scandalous moments. New Yorkers past and present will learn much about parts of the city-buildings, neighborhoods, people and hot spots-long gone, or so transformed as to be unrecognizable. Focusing on five neighborhoods-Chinatown, Union Square/East Village, the Tenderloin, Harlem and Times Square-these stories provide a vivid cross-section of the city as a whole in ways a more generalized approach couldn't. Exceptionally well-written and researched, this volume will satisfy anyone curious about New York, or the way a modern metropolis builds and rebuilds itself to reflect the times.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xv

Part I Chinatown, Chatham Square, and the Bowery 1

1 A Round for the Old Atlantic (The Atlantic Garden) 5

2 Chinatown Theater (The 1893 Chinese Theater) 25

Part II Union Square and the East Village 43

3 A Roof with a View (American Mutoscope Studio) 47

4 Caretakers of Second Avenue (Hebrew Actors' Union) 65

Part III The Tenderloin 79

5 If You Can Make 'Em Cry (Tin Pan Alley) 85

6 Tenderloin Winners and Losers (Shang Draper's Gambling House) 107

Part IV Harlem 129

7 A Theater of Our Own (The Lincoln Theater) 135

8 Rise and Fall of the Original Swing Street (West 133rd Street) 155

Part V Times Square 165

9 The Strike Invisible (Horn & Hardart's Original New York Automat) 169

10 Last Dance at the Orpheum (The Orpheum Dance Palace) 187

11 Nights of Gladness (Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe) 203

Epilogue 223

A Note on Sources 231

Notes 235

Bibliography 251

Index 257

About the Author 269

Figures

I.1 The former Baby Grand, 319 West 125th Street, 2008 xviii

1.1 The Atlantic Garden during its vaudeville years, early 1890s 6

1.2 The Atlantic Garden, 2008 22

2.1 Interior of the Chinese Theater, 1896 24

2.2 Doyers Street, with the former Chinese Theater building, 2008 41

3.1 Filming at the American Mutoscope rooftop studio, 1897 48

3.2 The former American Mutoscope rooftop, 2008 62

4.1 Membership cards from the Hebrew Actors' Union, 1921 and 1993 64

4.2 The Hebrew Actors' Union, 31 East 7th Street, 2008 77

5.1 Tin Pan Alley during its peak years, early 1900s 84

5.2 View of the buildings of Tin Pan Alley, numbers 55 through 47, 2008 104

6.1 Tenderloin scene, perhaps the"cork room" of Koster & Bial's, 1890s 108

6.2 Shang Draper's former gambling house, 6 West 28th Street 126

7.1 The Lincoln Theater, 1916 136

7.2 Side view of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, the former Lincoln Theater, 2008 152

8.1 133rd Street nightclub as photographed by Andreas Feininger, 1940 154

8.2 Basement level of 168 West 133rd Street, once Pod's and Jerry's Log Cabin, 2008 162

9.1 Times Square Automat, 1914 170

9.2 Remnant of decorative ceiling, Times Square Automat, 2006 184

10.1 Orpheum dancers, 1936 189

10.2 Orpheum Dance Palace, 2005 200

11.1 Diamond Horseshoe patrons, early 1940s 204

11.2 Diamond Horseshoe window case in front of Paramount Hotel, 2007 220

E.1 Second floor of the former Nest Club building, 169 West 133rd Street, 2007 224

Maps

1 Bowery/Chinatown, ca. 1905 xxviii

2 Union Square/Second Avenue, ca. 1928 42

3 Tin Pan Alley/Tenderloin, 1902 78

4 Harlem/West 133rd Street, ca. 1929 128

5 Broadway/Times Square, ca. 1940 164