Streets of New York

Tuesday, November 7th., Park Hill, New York.
 
Dinner last night given by the Dutch Treat Club at Kean's Chop House. Over 100. Wallace Irwin gave a good skit on "How to live in New York on 48 hours a day." Amusing. And captures the hectic pace I am obliged to maintain during this visit. In a few words I said I would thank him in print.


I walked down 34th St. to Waterside offices of Italian Lines, saw Duca degli Abruzzi half ready to go. A lot of people on board and a line of third class passengers waiting outside shed for admittance. Nothing but Italian spoken all round me. This swift transition from 5th avenue is very picturesque. Declension of streets sets in immediately after Broadway. 6th Avenue is attrociously paved. After 7th the declension is frank. 10th and 11th are appalling, atrocious, and some of the sidewalks staggering - unworthy of the suburbs of a small provincial town.


This was election day. I saw the sinister but genial fellows bearing openly the insignia of Tammany. Don't, please, think that Tammany is a disease that happens to have attacked N.Y. It is as much an expression of N.Y. character as the barber who shaved me this morning, the pavements, the fineness, the interest in education, etc. etc.

R.H. Davis

Dinner at Sherry's. R.H. Davis, Franklin Adams, Doran and I. Davis told how he interviewed Li Hung Chang for W.R. Hearst. Hearst on it being pointed out to him that bribery would be necessary to get round the whole crowd of Dutch waiters at the Waldorf, where Chang had a suite, said he would give $1000 for the expenses of the interview. Ultimately, after a week of preparing the ground, Chang sent for davis. And Davis entered his suite "with my shoes in my hand". He interviewed him through an interpreter. At the end David asked Chang if he spoke English. He answered "No", in English. Asked if he was rich, he said, "600,000,000 dollars today, nothing tomorrow. All I have is at the mercy of the state." He was very curious about rich men in America. later he sent for Davis as a private man and spoke to him in English. He asked if Davis was married, and Davis said he wasn't because he couldn't afford to be. Chang then said: "Get money. Get a wife. Get a home. Get children." Davis is a writer as well as being a journalist. An interesting man. As a matter of fact he is now married, though he wasn't when he met Chang.

Dining in N.Y.

Tuesday, November 7th., Park Hill, New York.

Dinner last night given by the Dutch Treat Club at Kean's Chop House. Over 100. Wallace Irwin gave a good skit on "How to live in New York on 48 hours a day." In a few words I said I would thank him in print.

Wallace Irwin (1875 – 1959) was an American writer. Over the course of his long career, Irwin wrote humorous sketches, light verse, screenplays, short stories, novels, nautical lays, aphorisms, journalism, political satire, lyrics for Broadway musicals, and the libretto for an opera. With his The Julius Caesar Murder Case (1935), he created a subgenre within detective fiction, the mystery novel set in antiquity.

The Dutch Treat Club was founded in 1905 by Thomas Masson, an editor of Life, the humour magazine, and Robert Sterling Yard, a reporter with the New York Sun. They wanted a New York City club for creative people. The original 11 members consisted of  4 writers, 4 illustrators, 2 editors and a publisher. The lunch was 'dutch' - everybody paid his own bill. From this beginning grew an institution with over 300 members, including some of the most creative minds in America.

http://dwp.bigplanet.com/dutchtreat/history/

I walked down 34th St. to Waterside offices of Italian lines, saw Duca degli Abruzzi half ready to go. A lot of people on board and a line of 3rd class passengers waiting outside shed for admittance. Nothing but Italian spoken all around me. This swift transition from 5th Avenue is very picturesque. 

Declension of streets sets in immediately after Broadway. 6th Avenue is atrociously paved. After 7th the declension is frank. 10th and 11th are appalling, atrocious, and some of the sidewalks staggering - unworthy of the suburbs of a small provincial town. Trains allowed to shunt over 10th and 11th Avenues. Extraordinary.

This was election day. I saw the sinister but genial fellows bearing openly the insignia of Tammany. Don't please think that Tammany is a disease that happens to have attacked N.Y. It is as much an expression of N.Y. character as the barber's (remember my shave this morning at the Waldorf), the pavements, the fineness, the interest in education etc. etc.

Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786. It was the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in controlling New York City and New York State politics and helping immigrants, most notably the Irish, rise up in American politics from the 1790s to the 1960s. The Society expanded its political control by earning the loyalty of the city's ever-expanding immigrant community, which functioned as a base of political capital. The Tammany Hall ward boss or ward heeler – "wards" were the city's smallest political units from 1686 to 1938 – served as the local vote gatherer and provider of patronage. 

Thorough badness of barbers.

Dinner at Sherrys. R. H. Davis, Franklin Adams, Doran and I.

Davis told how he interviewed Li Hung Chang for W. R. Hearst. Davis entered Chang's suite at the Waldorf "with my shoes in my hand". He interviewed him through an interpreter. At the end Davis said: "I asked his excellency if he spoke English, he answered in English 'No'. Asked if he was rich, he said "600,000,000 dollars today; nothing tomorrow. All I have is at the mercy of the State." He was very curious about rich men in America. Later he sent for Davis as a private man and spoke to him in English. He asked if Davis was married and Davis said he wasn't because he couldn't afford to be. He then said: "Get money. Get a wife. Get a home. Get children."

Baseball impressions

Saturday, October 14th., New York.

Going down change at 155th on to Elevated.
No crush. First view of baseball ground.
The effect of millions of staircased windows of apartment houses, with glimpses every now and then of complicated lines for washing.
Street after street, dirty streets, untidy, littered.

Baseball game. Grants v. Athletics. N.Y. v. Phila.

Polo Grounds stadium

Again cigarettes, chewing gum, programmes.
Cheers for kid practising, sharp sort of cheers.
Advertisements around arena.
Drive through Central Park, and then past Carnegie, etc. houses.
Pitcher lifting left leg high. Tip on right toe.
Applause for a run. First red man near to me in joy.
Members of audience being turned out.
The catching seemed to be quite certain,
as rare as a woman in a ball match,
as difficult as to make a first base.
The eagles on top of stand.
The yellow ushers against the dark mass.
The blue men against a red-bordered mat N.Y. police. 
The blue purple shadow gradually creeping up to the sign.
"The three dollar hat with the five dollar look".
a two base hit is the height of applause, real applause.
chewing gum.
combined movement of jaws
obstinacy of chewing gum at end. 
The pitcher is the idol of the affair, as may be seen when he comes in to strike.
The hunchback mascot of Philadelphia.

In the 1911 World Series, the Philadelphia Athletics beat the New York Giants four games to two.

Game	Date	Score	Location	Time	Attendance
1	October 14	Philadelphia Athletics – 1, New York Giants – 2	Polo Grounds	2:12	38,281

Additionally for October 14th., see 'Domestic disturbances' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/domestic-disturbances.html

D. having been much disturbed by revelations of character during a visit to Brighton with me on Monday, could not go to sleep. 

Arriving in the New World

Friday, October 13th., New York.

Last night. Taking pilot and (?) health officers aboard. But perhaps they were ship's officers. First we saw some coloured lights which we took for something on land. It proved to be a ship, and then it proved of course to be the pilot boat. We had been burning flares.

Lusitania arriving in New York, 1910

Doran and two Press men came into saloon off revenue cutter. Only I didn't know they had come off revenue cutter. I was interviewed by two journalists apparently on behalf of the crowd. This was while ship was manoeuvring into dock. And at last we were on shore, after I had been interviewed by three other people. Irwin Cobb was part of our group.
Called at two hotels (free lunch counter etc.) and had time at the N.Y. Central to go to Hotel Belmont, which was our second hotel. I had had views of Broadway, 14th Street, 5ht Avenue etc. Lots of sky signs. Roads up. Not very many people but a sensation of grandness, immensity, lights , heights. Streets full of holes. Cable cars long and noisy but fewer at that time of night.
We got into a long train, smoker - rather shabby, and exactly at 11.19 left the station. I had a lot of evening papers, a wilderness to me. We crossed the Harlem, saw the old ship canal, and then skirted the Hudson. very blue arc lights. Through the town a regular succession of lightning glimpses of long streets at right angles to the track.
Cobb said you could see N.Y. and get a good idea of it. I said: "But what about the home life of people to learn?" he said: "There is none. It's a half-way house. Constant coming and going and changing of centres and so on. Only one man in three is American born." He indicated a whole vast quarter as we passed - probably several miles - which he described as nothing but apartment houses and bedrooms ... Arrival at Yonkers. Station being reconstructed. All wood stairs etc. A buggy, on remarkably thin wheels, and two horses, brown and white, ill-groomed, waited for us. And we seemed to drive a very long way. Through an Italian quarter. We passed through a district full of the remains of decorations of Christopher Columbus Day. which is today. At last, after sundry hills and dales, into an obviously residential quarter. her all roads interminably winding curves. Then the house.