Hot Dogs and Haute Cuisine

New York Public Library Serves Exhibition on the History of Dining in New York

New York, NY, October 11 -- From the high style of Delmonico’s, Le Pavillon, and The Four Seasons, to popular fare available at diners, delis, automats, street carts, and beer halls, a new exhibition at The New York Public Library provides a unique look at the history of dining out in New York. Curated by New York Times restaurant critic William Grimes, New York Eats Out includes 255 menus, photographs, prints, magazine covers, and other items drawn from the 25,000 vintage menus in the Library’s Buttolph Menu Collection, from other Library collections, and from the private holdings of restaurateurs, chefs, and other individuals. New York Eats Out is on view November 8, 2002 through March 1, 2003 in the Edna Barnes Salomon Room at The New York Public Library’s Humanities and Social Sciences Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Admission is free. Please note: this exhibition has been extended through July 12, 2003.

New York Eats Out recounts New York’s dining history from the rise to prominence of Delmonico’s in the mid-19th century through the development in the early 1960s of a new style of restaurant that emphasized quality American cuisine. The exhibition starts with a section on Delmonico’s, and then is organized by “High-style Dining” and “Popular Dining,” with each style broken into two parts, “19th Century to Prohibition” and “Prohibition to 1960s.” Other sections of the exhibition look at “Street Vendors,” “Automats,” and “The World’s Fair, 1939-40.” A coda to the exhibition focuses on Windows on the World, which, situated dramatically atop the World Trade Center, was the realization of a grand experiment in urban dining and a significant loss in the wake of the September 11 attack.

Delmonico’s and High-style Dining, 19th Century to Prohibition

“Delmonico’s, Fifth Avenue at N.E. corner of 44th Street.”Photograph by Wurts Brothers, Photographers, 1907. The New York Public Library, Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, Photographic Views of New York City.

For almost a century, the standard-bearer of grand dining establishments was Delmonico’s. Opened on William Street as a confectioner’s shop in 1827, Delmonico’s was New York’s (and the country’s) first real restaurant and also a gathering place for high society. New York Eats Out includes photographs and prints depicting the lavish restaurant in several of its various locations. Also featured is a menu from a gala ball honoring the Prince of Wales, which was catered by Delmonico’s at the Academy of Music. For ambitious cooks there is The Epicurean, an 1894 book by the restaurant’s chef, with 4,000 recipes. Like many high-style restaurants, Delmonico’s could not survive Prohibition and finally closed its last location, at Fifth Avenue and 44th Street, in 1923.

Other high-style restaurants of the same era included Café Martin, Sherry’s, the Waldorf-Astoria, and the Astor, many of which were established and staffed by former Delmonico’s employees. Special banquets held almost every night of the year were a mainstay of these establishments, and many of the menus for these events are on view. For example, the anniversary dinner of the St. Nicholas Society at the Metropolitan Hotel, December 6, 1856, featured among its many menu choices: green turtle soup; boiled salmon with lobster sauce; saddle of mutton; roast partridge with cream sauce; boned pig; terreen (sic) of goose liver with jelly; Santa Claus pudding; ornamented Charlotte Russe; ornamented rum punch slices; and fancy China soufflés.

Popular Dining, 19th Century to Prohibition
At the same time that the wealthy enjoyed such lavish meals, ordinary New Yorkers ate in oyster cellars, cafeterias, or crowded lunch spots where they often consumed their meals standing up in a matter of minutes. New York Eats Out documents a wide range of such establishments, ranging from Lombardi’s, the city’s first pizzeria, to kosher delicatessens, cafeterias, oyster houses, and the earliest Chinese restaurants. In addition to menus from turn-of-the-century working-class standbys like Childs and Lowell Lunch, there also are bills of fare and promotional items from The Syrian Hotel and Turkish Café, H. Harris Delicatessen and Lunch Room, and the White Rose Vegetarian Restaurant, which opened at the time of an early health food craze and served such items as Broiled Nut Steak in Vermicelli and Bean and Walnut Loaf.

Street Vendors

Clam vendor. 116th Street and Second Avenue, New York, July 16, 1936. Photograph by P. L. Sperr. The New York Public Library, Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, Photographic Views of New York City

Then, as today, New Yorkers in a hurry or on a budget could choose from a plentiful assortment of street-cart fare. A valuable collection of street scenes photographed by Percy Loomis Sperr on behalf of the Library from the 1920s to the 1940s provides views of vendors selling such items as candy, roast sweet potatoes, coconut milk, and pretzels. On the Lower East Side, a hot-dog vendor’s display read: “Isidore’s Hot Frankfurters on a Roll with Sauerkraut. A Nickel Meal Served Tastefully,” and a clam vendor in Harlem dealt his fare from a cart shaped and decorated like a boat.

The World’s Fair, 1939-40
The World’s Fair was not intended to be a food festival, but nearly every country that erected a pavilion at the fair seized the opportunity to show off its national cuisine. Aside from introducing New Yorkers to a wide range of tastes, the Fair left a legacy of restaurants that took hold on an ongoing basis. For example, the manager of the French Pavilion opened Le Pavillon, which established French cuisine as the standard of fine dining in New York. Among the items showcasing food at the World’s Fair are menus from a tea terrace created by the Japanese government; the Star and Crescent Restaurant, which featured authentic fare from Turkey; and the Belgian Restaurant, which later relocated to Manhattan as the Brussels. There also is a menu for the newly established La Guardia Airport, featuring such items of local pride as Queens olives, Bronx celery, Harlem brown bread, and Gotham potatoes.

High-style Dining, Prohibition to 1960s

The recovery of fine dining culture after Prohibition was dampened by the Depression and wartime austerity. Still, two of the toniest restaurants in the city, the “21” Club and the Colony, emerged from the speakeasies of the Jazz Age. The “21” Club’s food is represented in a dinner menu from 1947, featuring among the entrée selections Sirloin Steak Braisé Bourguignonne Nouilles and Pigeon Desossé Farçie Souvaroff. Its status as a hangout for the city’s movers and shakers is documented in photographs of such celebrities as Zsa Zsa Gabor from the 1940s.

 

 

Café Martin, Fifth Avenue and 26th Street, New York. Supper menu, March 7, 1902. The New York Public Library, General Research Division, Buttolph Menu Collection.

Le Pavillon spawned notable offshoots including La Côte Basque, La Grenouille, and La Caravelle, and the menus on view from these establishments show the French fare that served as the basis of fine dining in the middle of the century. In the 1950s, Joseph Baum, an executive with Restaurant Associates, pioneered a new type of restaurant which demonstrated that American cuisine, in a modern setting, could be every bit as fashionable and good as French cuisine. Menus and photographs represent some of Baum’s establishments, notably The Four Seasons. Among the items related to the esteemed culinary spot is the menu for President John F. Kennedy’s 45th Birthday Dinner, held at the restaurant May 19, 1962.

Popular Dining, Prohibition to 1960s
Popular mainstays after Prohibition included such chains as Schrafft’s and Childs, as well as a wide variety of ethnic and specialty restaurants. Photographer Berenice Abbott documented several of these in her 1939 book Changing New York. New York Eats Out features her original black-and-white portraits of such restaurants as Lüchow’s, an inexpensive Bowery eatery known as Blossom Restaurant, and Lebanon Restaurant, one of the many Middle Eastern and Greek restaurants that were located in Greenwich Village. Other reasonably priced restaurants covered include Louise’s No Name Restaurant and Xochitl, which claimed to be the city’s first Mexican restaurant.

Coda: Windows on the World
Like the World Trade Center itself, Windows on the World was a daring experiment. The restaurant, occupying more than an acre on the 107th floor, was the vision of Joseph Baum, who created an entire complex of restaurants and cafes in the World Trade Center. New York Eats Out features a variety of menus and other items from its 35-year history. The restaurant and the 79 employees working there at the time were lost in the collapse of the Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Although outside the time frame of the rest of New York Eats Out, it is included to represent the full realization of the new type of restaurant Baum brought to life and as a tribute in light of its unexpected loss.

Questions and Answers with the curator, William Grimes

The Buttolph Menu Collection

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New York Eats Out is on view from November 8, 2002 through March 1, 2003 at The New York Public Library’s Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Edna Barnes Salomon Room. Exhibition hours are Tuesday and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Sundays, Mondays, and national holidays. Admission is free. For more information about exhibitions at The New York Public Library, the public may call 212-869-8089 or visit the Library’s website at www.nypl.org.

Support for this exhibition has been provided by Cascade Linen and Uniform Service. Additional support has been provided by The Nash Family Foundation.

Support for The New York Public Library’s Exhibitions Program has been provided by Pinewood Foundation and by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.

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Contact: Herb Scher and Sabina Potaczek, 212-704-8600.

 

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