A daredevil stuntman on a 42nd Street skyscraper

Why is this man standing on his head on a skyscraper being fed donuts?

It’s a publicity stunt, of course. That’s Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly, famous in the 1920s for his flagpole-sitting feats (his record is 49 days).

By 1939, when this photo was taken, the flagpole-sitting fad was over, and Kelly was reduced to doing gimmicks for events such as National Donut Dunking Week—which is the reason he’s upside-down on the roof of the Chanin Building on East 42nd Street.

He gained notoriety for his daredevil feats in life, and then for the way he died near his apartment on West 51st Street. “Broke and on welfare, Kelly dropped dead in 1952 while walking between two parked cars in New York City,” states yourememberthat.com.

“Clutched tightly in one arm was a scrapbook containing clippings and mementos from his glory days as King of the Flagpole Sitters.”

[Photo: New York Daily News]

The zodiac symbols on a Bryant Park office tower

The soaring temple of commerce at 11 West 42nd Street has been casting a shadow over Bryant Park since 1927.

Now home to NYU’s Midtown campus, the building features 32 floors and an ornate lobby (shown off in this slideshow).

Yet perhaps its quirkiest detail is on the facade: the 12 very detailed zodiac signs carved into the stone entrance, with the corresponding months listed beneath each one.

Eleven West 42nd Street has a few other distinctions. Above the zodiac signs are carved figures representing various professions—a likely nod to the building’s use as a modern office tower.

And on a more bittersweet note, the ground floor was the last home of Coliseum Books, one of New York’s premier independent bookstores until it went out of business in 2007.

Madison Square Garden moves to Eighth Avenue

This 1930ish postcard shows what was then the “new” Madison Square Garden on Eighth Avenue and 49th Street.

It’s the third incarnation of New York’s iconic arena, and the first one located no where near Madison Square.

It moved here in 1925, and for the next four decades hosted boxing matches, circuses, rodeos, Billy Graham revivals, ice shows, and of course the Rangers and the Knicks.

Was this a good place to watch a game? It looks awfully cramped and crowded from outside.

In 1968 the Garden moved again, this time to its current home at 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue. In its place we have the office tower Worldwide Plaza, which looks strangely similar to the old MSG.

Some great old photos of the Garden and its very cool marquee can be found at Wired New York.

Partying with Zelda Fitzgerald in the 1920s

Every decade in New York, a couple comes along and serves as an emblem for the time.

In the first part of the Roaring 20s, that couple was F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

On April 3, 1920, reunited in New York, they married in a hasty ceremony in front of eight people at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. They stayed at the Biltmore Hotel, then the Commodore Hotel, getting kicked out of both for being too rowdy.

They celebrated their eviction by spinning giddily through the hotel’s revolving doors for half an hour. Zelda also earned wild child status when one night she jumped into the fountain at Union Square fully clothed.

“They did both look as though they’d just stepped out of the sun,” wrote Dorothy Parker.

Scott’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, was a hit, and New York’s smart set was dazzled by the young couple. Zelda was particularly taken with the city’s nightlife, according to Nancy Milford’s Zelda: A Biography. In Zelda’s words:

“Girls in short amorphous capes and long flowing skirts and hats like straw bathtubs waited for taxis in front of the Plaza Grill; girls in long satin coats and colored shoes and hats like straw manhole covers tapped the tune of a cataract on the dance floors of the Lorraine and the St. Regis.”

“Under the sombre ironic parrots of the Biltmore a halo of golden bobs disintegrated into black lace and shoulder bouquets . . . . It was just a lot of youngness: Lillian Lorraine would be drunk at the top of the New Amsterdam by midnight, and football teams breaking training would scare the waiters with drunkenness in the fall. The world was full of parents taking care of people.”

Of course, the parties didn’t last. After moving to Paris later in the decade, the golden couple split, and Scott went to Hollywood to try his hand at screenwriting, where he died of a heart attack in 1940.

By 1930, Zelda was in a Maryland mental institution. There, she perished a fire in 1948.

The “enigmatic emptiness” of a city sidewalk

“Edward Hopper’s haunting realist canvas evokes an enigmatic emptiness that has become the artist’s trademark,” states the caption accompanying this 1924 painting on the website of the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia.

“His sparsely populated New York cityscapes, bleak New England views, and lonely interiors share the same stark simplicity.”

“In New York Pavements Hopper used bold cropping, an elevated point of view, strong diagonal lines, and a simple, bleached palette to achieve an odd and detached effect.”

“From a bird’s-eye perspective, the only hint of narrative is the figure emerging from the lower left.”

It’s such an ordinary city scene yet so disquieting. Who is the nun with the baby carriage, and what neighborhood is this?

A Village speakeasy attracts a bohemian crowd

If you think New York packs in a lot of bars today, imagine what it was like in the 1920s.

During Prohibition, 32,000 speakeasies were operating in New York City, twice the number of legal saloons that existed in 1920.

Cousins Jack Kriendler and Charles E. Berns ran one of them: a little basement space called the Red Head, opened in 1923 off Fourth Street in Greenwich Village, then under the dark and grimy Sixth Avenue El.

“The Volstead Act had gone into effect in January 1920, so the illegal club in a tea room was an immediate hit,” states Dorothyparker.com.

After it was gutted by a fire, “the pair moved their speakeasy to a basement at 88 Washington Place at the height of the bootlegging, Jazz Age New York.

“Called the Fronton, it was now a real speakeasy, complete with live music and huge tables.”

Club Fronton had a Spanish theme and catered to artists and writers, such as Edna St. Vincent Millay (below) and Dorothy Parker (above), plus nightlife-loving politicians like Mayor Jimmy Walker.

Police raids didn’t close the Fronton down—eminent domain did. After a year, the property was condemned by the city so the West Fourth Street subway station could be built.

Kriendler and Berns moved to midtown this time. In 1928, they set up a speakeasy at 21 West 52nd Street. The 21 Club was an instant success—and 80 years after Prohibition, still packs them in.

[Above photo: 88 Washington Place today, a condominium residence]

When the Straw Hat Riots rocked 1920s New York

Senseless riots have always broken out in the city: Astor Place, the Draft Riots, Tompkins Square.

But a riot that started over a silly male fashion rule about not wearing straw hats past September 15? It’s probably the most pointless of all.

It began on September 13, 1922, two days before the end of straw-hat season. Donning straw after this date made you the target of street kids, who would steal your hat and stomp on it.

Eager kids living near Mulberry Bend decided to get a jump on this weird tradition, grabbing hats off factory workers’ heads and smashing them.

Some men fought back, and brawls began by the Manhattan Bridge. Police broke them up, but only temporarily. For the next few nights, mobs of youths across the city roamed the streets, stealing hats and beating victims.

“A favorite practice of the gangsters was to arm themselves with sticks, some with nails at the tip, and compel men wearing straw hats to run a gauntlet,” states The History Box.

“Sometimes the hoodlums would hide in doorways and dash out, 10 or 12 strong, to attack one or two men. Along Christopher Street, on the Lower West Side, the attackers lined up along the surface car tracks and yanked straw hats off the heads of passengers as the cars passed.”

A mob a thousand roamed Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, reported The New York Times, while more gangs came out on the Lower East Side and East Harlem.

Incredibly, no one was killed—though riots broke out again over the next few years that did claim at least one victim.

[Above photo: Men in straw hats on William Street, about a decade before the 1922 riots.]

Izzy and Moe: New York’s top Prohibition cops

After Prohibition was ratified in 1919, a new career opportunity was born: Prohibition agent. An army of men were needed to enforce the law by raiding speakeasies and busting bootleggers.

Two men who took up this line of work were New Yorkers Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith (left, as a rabbi and in drag).

Friends (and Masons) before they got the gig, they quickly became famous for the astounding 4,932 arrests they made citywide—and the outrageous lengths they went to pull each one off.

“Moe, although somewhat in the role of straight man, was a highly effective agent, but Izzy (the human chameleon), with his numberless disguises, was the color and front man,” states this Mason newsletter.

“He was, in turn, a traveling salesman, a street cleaner, a banker, a bartender, a grave digger, a streetcar conductor, a Texas cattleman and, in Hollywood, a movie extra.”

Izzy and Moe were hugely popular with the public and the press, and they loved the attention, allowing reporters to cover their raids.

They also loved alcohol, reports one source. “After a busy day arresting Prohibition offenders, Izzy and Moe enjoyed sitting back and enjoying their favorite beverages, which were beer and cocktails.”

In 1925, their D.C. bosses had enough of the Izzy and Moe show and discharged them.

Both became successful insurance agents. Izzy died in 1937, and Moe passed on in 1960.

[Above photo: posing in 1935 for the New York World Telegram and Star]

Have you ever seen Grand Central like this?

Empty of pedestrians, cars, taxis, and traffic, especially during daylight hours, that is. The image comes from a 1920s postcard of the terminal, not long after it opened in 1913.

Check out this grainy photo of the original Grand Central Depot, in the 1870s, with real live cows grazing in front of it—a glimpse of the city’s rural recent past.

A heroic and heart-tugging statue in Central Park

City parks are filled with animal sculptures—some quite brutal and realistic, reminding genteel urbanites of the power and grandeur of nature.

But one statue pays homage to a specific brave creature: Balto the Siberian husky.

In 1925, Balto led a team of dogs through 600 miles of blinding blizzard to deliver diphtheria medicine to kids in isolated Nome, Alaska.

He was arguably the most popular dog in the country after his story hit the news, prompting some New Yorkers to raise funds to have him immortalized in bronze.

The real Balto even came to the city for his statue’s unveiling just 10 months later:

The parks commissioner said of Balto’s statue, “it was a most unique occasion in having a real ‘hero’ present at the dedication of a monument in his honor, as most heroes have to wait until they are dead to be so honored,” reported The New York Times.

“‘But we are glad,’ he added, ‘to reward loyalty and courage, even in a dog.’”

While Balto’s statue is one of the most popular in the park, the real Balto had a few rough years, sold to the vaudeville circuit before he was rescued by the Cleveland Zoo, where he lived out the rest of his life.

[Top photo: Centralpark2000.com]