Part 13 (1/2)
Martin remembers ”Bob” Chambers, and some young newspaper men from the _World_--G.o.ddard, Manson and others. From uptown the great foreigners came down--some of them stayed there, indeed. In 1889, approximately, it started its biggest boom, and it went on steadily. Ask either Mr.
Martin or its present proprietor, Mr. Raymond Orteig, and he will tell you, and truthfully, that it has never flagged, that ”boom.” The place is as popular as ever, because, in a changing world, a changing era and a signally changing town, it--does not change.
It was to the Hotel Martin that the famous singers came--Jean and Edouard de Reszke and Pol Plancon and Melba; the French statesman, Jules Cambon, used to come, and Maurice Grau--then the manager of the Metropolitan--and Chartran, the celebrated painter, and the great Ysaye and Bartholdi. And Paulus--Koster and Bial's first French importation--to say nothing of Anna Held and Sandow!
A motley company enough, to be sure, and certainly one worthy to form the nucleus of New York's Bohemia.
Says Mr. Martin: ”The most interesting thing that ever happened in the 'Old Martin'? I can tell you that quite easily. It was the blizzard of 1888, when we were snowed in. The horse cars ran on University Place then, the line terminating at Barclay Street. I have a picture of one car almost snowed under, for the snow was fully six feet deep. It was a Sat.u.r.day night and very crowded. When it became time for the people to go home they could not go. So they had to stay, and they stayed three days. They slept on billiard tables, on the floor or where they could. We did our best, but it was a big crowd. Interesting? It was most interesting indeed to me, for I could get no milk. I could supply them with all the wine they wanted, but no milk! And they demanded milk for their coffee. Oh, that blizzard!”
Mr. Martin, in remembering interesting episodes, forgot that trifling incident--the Spanish-American War, in 1898. Whether because of his early connections with Panama (there were countless Spaniards and Mexicans who patronised the hotel at that time) or whether because of a national and political misunderstanding, he was justifiably and seriously concerned as to the feeling of New York for the Hotel Martin. Many good and wise persons expected France to side with Spain, and many others watched curiously to see what Frenchmen in New York would do.
Mr. Martin left them but a short time for speculation. Today, with our streets aflutter with Allied colours, perhaps we fail to appreciate an individual demonstration such as this--but at that time there were few banners flying, and Mr. Martin led the patriotic movement with an American flag in every one of the fifty windows of the Hotel Martin and a French flag to top off the whole display! Perhaps it was the first suggestion, in street decoration, of what has recently proved to be so strong a bond between this nation and France.
If any of you who read have even begun to peer into Bohemian New York you have undoubtedly visited the Lafayette as it is today. And, if you have, you have undoubtedly seen or perhaps even played the ”Lafayette Game.” It is a weird little game that is played for drinks, and requires quite a bit of skill. It is well known to all frequenters; the only odd thing is that it is not better known.
”Americans are funny!” laughs Raymond Orteig. ”When I go abroad and see something which is new and different from what has been before, my instinct is to get hold of it and bring it back. If I can I bring it back in actual bulk; if I were a writer I would bring it back in another way. But through these years, while everyone has played our absurd little game, no one has ever suggested writing about it--until tonight!”
Its name? It is _Culbuto_. That is French,--practically applied,--for failure! It is, you see, an effort to keep the little b.a.l.l.s from falling into the wrong holes. As it so often results in failure _Culbuto_ is an ideal game to play for drinks! Someone has to pay all the time! It is an unequal contest between the individual and the law of gravity!
But we must not linger too long at the Lafayette, alluring though it may be. All Greenwich is beckoning to us, a few blocks away. We have a new world to explore--the world below Fourteenth Street.
Fourteenth Street is the boundary line which marks the Greenwich Village's utmost city limits, as it marked those of our great-grandfathers. Like a wall it stands across the town separating the new from the old uncompromisingly. Miss Euphemia Olcott, who has been quoted here before, describes the evolution of Fourteenth Street in the following interesting way:
”Fourteenth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues I have seen with three sets of buildings--first shanties near Sixth Avenue from the rear of which it was rumoured a bogy would be likely to pursue and kidnap us.... These shanties were followed by fine, brownstone residences.... Some of these, however, I think came when there had ceased to be a _village_. Later on came business into Fourteenth Street....”
And today those never-to-be-sufficiently-pitied folk who live in the Fifties and Sixties and Seventies think of Fourteenth Street as downtown!
CHAPTER VII
_Restaurants, and the Magic Door_
I
What scenes in fiction cling more persistently in the memory than those that deal with the satisfying of man's appet.i.te?
Who ever heard of a dyspeptic hero? Are not your favourites beyond the Magic Door all good trenchermen?
--ARTHUR BARTLETT MAURICE.
It was O. Henry, I believe, who spoke of restaurants as ”literary landmarks.” They are really much more than that--they are signposts, psychical rather than physical, which show the trend of the times--or of the neighbourhood. I suppose nothing in Greenwich Village could be more significantly illuminating than its eating places. There are, of course, many sorts. The Village is neither so unique nor so uniform as to have only one sort of popular board. But in all the typical Greenwich restaurants you will find the same elusive something, the spirit of the picturesque, the untrammelled, the quaint and charming--in short, the _different_!
The Village is not only a locality, you understand, it is a point of view. It reaches out imperiously and fastens on what it will. The Brevoort bas.e.m.e.nt--after ten o'clock at night--is the Village. So is the Lafayette on occasion. During the day they are delightful French hostelries catering to all the world who like heavenly things to eat and the right atmosphere in which to eat them. But as the magic hour strikes, presto!--they suffer a sea change and become the quintessence of the Spirit of the Village!
It is 10.20 P.M. at the Brevoort in the restaurant upstairs.
All the world and his wife--or his sweetheart--are fully represented.
Most of the uptowners--the regulation clientele--are going away, having finished gorging themselves on delectable things; some few of them are lingering, lazily curious; a certain small number are still coming in, moved by that restless Manhattanic spirit that hates to go home in the dark.
Among these is a discontented, well-dressed couple, seen half an hour before completing their dinner a block away at the Lafayette. The head waiter at that restaurant explained them nonchalantly, not to say casually:
”It is the gentleman who married his manicurist. Regard, then--one perceives they are not happy--eh? It is understood that she beats him.”