Passageway to the Knickerbocker

"The Knickerbocker bar, beamed upon by Maxfield Parrish's jovial, colorful 'Old King Cole,' was well crowded."  F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (1920)

My morning subway route is the NQR train to Times Square Station.  Leaving the station earlier this week, I noticed an obscure door at the end of the track marked "Knickerbocker."  The passageway looked like it had been boarded up for years but had led somewhere in the past.  Could it be that it led to the iconic Knickerbocker Hotel?

The grimy sign above the door says "Knickerbocker"

Sure enough, the building just above the track at 42nd and Broadway was the old Knickerbocker Hotel.  The iconic Hotel was built in 1906 and was one of the most fashionable spots in New York during the time period.  The underground passageway was built so that its wealthy patrons arriving in private train cars could privately enter the hotel.  The Hotel bar, called the Knickerbocker bar, is rumored to be the site where one Martini de Arma di Taggia created the first martini for John Rockefeller. 

"Old King Cole" painting

Behind the Knickerbocker bar hung the painting "Old King Cole" by Maxfield Parrish which depicts a monarch with a rather sheepish grin flanked by several disgusted knights.  According to legend, Parrish and his colleagues held a competition to see who first could portray the act of passing gas in a painting.  Apparently, Parrish one.  Following the Knickerbocker Hotel's closure in 1920, the "Old King Cole" was moved to the St. Regis Hotel where it remains today.  I visited the bar recently for one of their "Red Snapper" bloody marys (a great drink but at $21 a drink bring your wallet).  You can read more about the "Old King Cole" painting and its recent restoration here.

The Knickerbocker hotel has now been converted into a Gap where the lobby used to stand and commercial office space where the hotel rooms were. In February 2012, however, the building was purchased by a U.S. Reit that intends to restore the building to a 330 room 4-star hotel opening late 2013.

Former Knickerbocker Hotel (42nd and Broadway)

Knickerbocker Hotel circa 1909

"Meet Me at the Fountain"

Last week I was walking back from brunch with my girlfriend Claire when we stumbled upon a majestic building in Chelsea at 620 Sixth Avenue (6th ave between 18th and 19th).  The building is now occupied by a Bed Bath and Beyond and T.J. Maxx but the building's ornate facade suggested a deeper history - no doubt it has an interesting one.

620 Sixth Avenue (between 18th and 19th st)

Siegel-Cooper store in 1896

In 1896, the Times reported the opening of a "shopping resort" at this site.  It was called the Siegel-Cooper store and it was the largest department store in the world at its opening with over 15 acres of retail space.  The Times reported that its opening on September 12, 1896 at 7:30 pm drew a crowd of 150,000 people and 8,000 employees.  You could purchase just about anything under the sun at Siegel Cooper - bicycles, furniture, jewelry, meats, vegetables, canned goods, and even, on the roof, exotic plants.  The Times also reported that the establishment contained a barbershop, a bank, a dentist office, animal shop, a manicure salon, and purportedly the largest grocery store in the world on the 4th floor.  There was an employees-only restaurant on the 6th floor where staff could take in their 45 minute lunchbreak.  There was also a doctor and trained nurses on staff for the employees that paid the required 15 cents per month fee.  The full Times article from 1896 is available here.

Fountain of the Siegel-Cooper store

One remarkable feature about the store
was its lobby fountain with a golden-lady statue entitled "The Republic."  The fountain became a popular meeting place and the phrase "meet me at the fountain" soon caught on.  The store adopted the phrase as its slogan.  Siegel-Cooper went bankrupt in 1915 and the store closed soon after in 1917.  The building was used as a hospital during World War I and later a warehouse.  It currently underwent renovation to house the stores Bed Bath and Beyond and T.J. Maxx.

Women entering the Siegel-Cooper store circa 1896

Channeling Warhol

The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens a new exhibit called "Regarding Warhol" this Tuesday, September 18, 2012.  An intriguing and complicated American contemporary artist and New York socialite, Warhol in many ways embodied the decadent lifestyle of the inner circles of 1970s and 80s Manhattan.  According to Bob Colacello, a biographer of Andy Warhol, the 1970s and 80s were Warhol's entrepreneurial years.  After a successful emergence in the 1960s, Warhol was a Manhattan socialite during the 1970s and 80s, forming relationships with Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, and John Lennon among others, in hopes of rounding up wealthy donors to commission his paintings.

Among the spots Warhol frequented were the famous Manhattan nighclubs Studio 54 and Max's Kansas City.  Studio 54 opened in 1977 at 254 West 54th St in Midtown Manhattan. 

Former Site of Studio 54 (54th and 8th) - now a theater

 In many ways, Studio 54 exemplified the "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" mantra that has been associated with the 1970s and 1980s.  Cocaine was prevalent (federal agents raided the spot for cocaine in 1978) as were alcohol, popular music acts, and electric lightshows.  On February 4, 1980, Studio 54 held a blow-out party before temporarily closing its doors that included Jack Nicholson, Diana Ross, Richard Gere, and Andy Warhol.  Studio 54 is currently a midtown theatre showing "The Mystery of Edwin Drood."

Another of Warhol's hangout spots was Max's Kansas City at 17th and Park in the Union Square area, where Warhol maintained his famous studio "the factory."  Max's Kansas City was a popular hangout spot for artists and musicians in the 1970s and 80s.  It officially closed its doors in November 1981 with a performance by up and coming hip-hop band the Beastie Boys, which had formed earlier that year.  

Former Site of Max's Kansas City (17th and Park)

Scene from Almost Famous depicting Max's Kansas City

Warhol and his entourage were said to have dominated the "back room" of Max's Kansas City during the 1970s.  Aerosmith played their first New York city gig there in 1971, and, in 1973, Bob Marley opened up for a young Bruce Springsteen at Max's Kansas City.  The list goes on and on.  If you've ever watched Almost Famous, the scene where Stillwater finds out they got the cover of Rolling Stone was at a re-creation of Max's Kansas City.  Today, Max's Kansas City is a Bread and Butter coffee shop.

Warhol's Factory (6th Floor of Decker Bldg, Union Sq)

Warhol's studio "the factory" was just around the corner from Max's Kansas City on the sixth floor of the Decker Building (Union Square West and 16th St).  Warhol occupied several studios in New York, but he used this one from 1967-1973.  The iconic Campbell's Soup painting was released in 1968 and likely painted at this studio.  "The factory" itself was actually a popular celeb hangout.  The 1972 Lou Reed song "Take a Walk on the Wild Side," in fact, tells the story of several of Warhol's so-called "superstars" that frequented "the factory" and its wild times.


Let's hope the Met exhibit does a good job at depicting Warhol's intriguing and decadent life.

September 11th Anniversary - Still Covered in Rain

It's hard to believe but it's been 11 years since the events of 9/11.  I never visited New York when the Towers were standing.  I remember driving into Manhattan for the first time in 2007 with a friend from law school who grew up in Manhattan.  He told me how nicely the Towers used to center the city and how odd the city looked to him that they were no longer there.

One of my favorite songs is John's Mayer's "Covered in Rain" which provides a gloomy view of Manhattan in the aftermath of the tragedy.  It's somewhat of an obscure song but lyrically an introspective, beautiful look at such a difficult subject.  I met Mayer briefly at a party at the Bowery Hotel about this time 2 years ago.  John Mayer's apartment is several blocks away from the Bowery Hotel in a former bank building in Soho that has now been converted into an upscale loft.  No doubt many New Yorkers are still covered in rain from the tragic events, and I pray for all those still affected.  

Mayer's Soho Apartment (Spring and Lafayette)

       

A Manhattan Nightspot with a Helluva Past

A few weeks back, I met a few friends at the speakeasy Little Branch in West Village.  "Speakeasies" were popular nightspots during the Prohibition years (1920-1933) as establishments where alcohol was illegally sold.  There are no signs for their entry (this one in particular took me almost 30 minutes to find as even Google wasn't privy to its address).  "What do you think New York would have been like in the Twenties?" my friend Dee asked.  If only those walls could talk.

Before the Depression years of the 1930s, the boom times of the 1920s ushered in a new era of liberation - economic, artistic, and sexual.  It was a time when mobsters were kings and nightlife roared.  The New York Times ran a post several months back about a more prominent Prohibition era nighstpot called the Casino.  The Casino was located in Central Park near 72nd and 5th avenue, on the site where ABC holds its summer concert series.  Counting Crows and LMFAO, among others, played this year, but more than likely they were unaware of the site's history.

Originally a restaurant, the Casino fell into disarray, and was a "dumpy" nightspot at the beginning of the Twenites according to the Times.  With funding from Manhattan's incoming mayor in 1926 and wealthy donors (rumored to include the likes of notorious gangster Arnold Rothstein), the Casino was renovated into one of Manhattan's most illustrious nightspots by the end of the 1920s (the parking lot had space for 300).  I don't know what life was like in the Twenties, but I'd like to think the Casino hosted some raucous times in its day.

Site where Casino once stood



Casino in its heyday