MY sister’s husband having something to do with this narrative, I will
touch upon his history as well as that of my sister. In her youth E——
was one of the most attractive of the girls in our family. She never had
any intellectual or artistic interests of any kind; if she ever read a
book I never heard of it. But as for geniality, sympathy, industry,
fair-mindedness and an unchanging and self-sacrificing devotion to her
children, I have never known any one who could rival her. With no
adequate intellectual training, save such as is provided by the
impossible theories and teachings of the Catholic Church, she was but
thinly capacitated to make her way in the world.
At eighteen or nineteen she had run away and gone to Chicago, where she
had eventually met H——, who had apparently fallen violently in love with
her. He was fifteen years older than she and moderately well versed in
the affairs of this world. At the time she met him he was the rather
successful manager of a wholesale drug company, reasonably well-placed
socially, married and the father of two or three children, the latter
all but grown to maturity. They eloped, going direct to New York.
This was a great shock to my mother, who managed to conceal it from my
father although it was a three-days’ wonder in the journalistic or
scandal world of Chicago. Nothing more was heard of her for several
years, when a dangerous illness overtook my mother in Warsaw and E——
came hurrying back for a few days’ visit. This was followed by another
silence, which was ended by the last illness and death of my mother in
Chicago, and she again appeared, a distrait and hysteric soul. I never
knew any one to yield more completely to her emotions than she did on
this occasion; she was almost fantastic in her grief. During all this
time she had been living in New York, and she and her husband were
supposed to be well off. Later, talking to Paul in St. Louis, I gathered
that H——, while not so successful since he had gone East, was not a bad
sort and that he had managed to connect himself with politics in some
way, and that they were living comfortably in Fifteenth Street. But when
I arrived there I found that they were by no means comfortable. The
Tammany administration, under which a year or two before he had held an
inspectorship of some kind, had been ended by the investigations of the
Lexow Committee, and he was now without work of any kind. Also, instead
of having proved a faithful and loving husband, he had long since
wearied of his wife and strayed elsewhere. Now, having fallen from his
success, he was tractable. Until the arrival of my brother Paul, who for
reasons of sympathy had agreed to share the expenses here during the
summer season, he had induced E—— to rent rooms, but for this summer
this had been given up. With the aid of my brother and some occasional
work H—— still did they were fairly comfortable. My sister if not quite
happy was still the devoted slave of her children and a most
pathetically dependent housewife. Whatever fires or vanities of her
youth had compelled her to her meteoric career, she had now settled down
and was content to live for her children. Her youth was over, love gone.
And yet she managed to convey an atmosphere of cheer and hopefulness.
My brother Paul was in the best of spirits. He held a fair position as
an actor, being the star in a road comedy and planning to go out the
ensuing fall in a new one which he had written for himself and which
subsequently enjoyed many successful seasons on the road. In addition,
he was by way of becoming more and more popular nationally as a
song-writer. Also as I have said, he had connected himself as a third
partner in a song-publishing business which was to publish his own and
other songs, and this, despite its smallness, was showing unmistakable
signs of success.
The first thing he did this morning was to invite me to come and see
this place, and about noon we walked across Fifteenth Street and up
Sixth Avenue, then the heart of the shopping district, to Twentieth
Street and thence east to between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, where in a
one-time fashionable but now decayed dwelling, given over to small
wholesale ventures, his concern was housed on the third floor. This was
almost the center of a world of smart shops near several great hotels:
the Continental, Bartholdi, and the Fifth Avenue. Next door were Lord &
Taylor. Below this, on the next corner, at Nineteenth and Broadway, was
the Gorham Company, and below that the Ditson Company, a great music
house, Arnold, Constable & Company and others. There were excellent
restaurants and office buildings crowding out an older world of fashion.
I remember being impressed with the great number of severe brownstone
houses with their wide flights of stone steps, conservatories and
porte-cochères. Fifth Avenue and Twentieth Street were filled with
handsome victorias and coaches.
Going into my brother’s office I saw a sign on the door which read:
_Howley, Haviland & Company_, and underneath, _Wing & Sons, Pianos_.
“Are you the agent for a piano?” I inquired.
“Huh-uh. They let us have a practice piano in return for that sign.”
When I met his partners I was impressed with the probability of success
which they seemed to suggest and which came true. The senior member,
Howley, was a young, small, goggle-eyed hunchback with a mouthful of
protruding teeth, and hair as black as a crow, and piercing eyes. He had
long thin arms and legs which, because of his back, made him into a kind
of Spider of a man, and he went about spider-wise, laughing and talking,
yet always with a heavy “Scutch” burr.
“We’re joost aboot gettin’ un our feet here nu,” he said to me, his
queer twisted face screwed up into a grimace of satisfaction and pride,
“end we hevn’t ez yet s’mutch to show ye. But wuth a lettle time I’m
a-theenkin’ ye’ll be seem’ theengs a-lookin’ a leetle bether.”
I laughed. “Say,” I said to Paul when Howley had gone about some work,
“how could you fail with him around? He’s as smart as a whip, and
they’re all good luck anyhow.” I was referring to the superstition which
counts all hunchbacks as lucky to others.
“Yes,” said my brother. “I know they’re lucky, and he’s as straight and
honest as they make ’em. I’ll always get a square deal here,” and then
he began to tell me how his old publisher, by whom Howley had been
employed, had “trimmed” him, and how this youth had put him wise. Then
and there had begun this friendship which had resulted in this
partnership.
The space this firm occupied was merely one square room, twenty by
twenty, and in one corner of this was placed the free “tryout” piano. In
another, between two windows, two tables stood back to back, piled high
with correspondence. A longer table was along one side of a wall and was
filled with published music, which was being wrapped and shipped. On the
walls were some wooden racks or bins containing “stock,” the few songs
thus far published. Although only a year old, this firm already had
several songs which were beginning to attract attention, one of them
entitled _On the Sidewalks of New York_. By the following summer this
song was being sung and played all over the country and in England, an
international “hit.” This office, in this very busy center, cost them
only twenty dollars a month, and their “overhead expeenses,” as Howley
pronounced it, were “juist nexta nothin’.” I could see that my good
brother was in competent hands for once.
And the second partner, who arrived just as we were sitting down at a
small table in a restaurant nearby for lunch, was an equally interesting
youth whose personality seemed to spell success. At this time he was
still connected as “head of stock,” whatever that may mean, with that
large wholesale and retail music house the Ditson Company, at Broadway
and Eighteenth Street. Although a third partner in this new concern, he
had not yet resigned his connection with the other and was using it,
secretly of course, to aid him and his firm in disposing of some of
their wares. He was quite young, not more than twenty-seven, very quick
and alert in manner, very short of speech, avid and handsome, a most
attractive and clean-looking man. He shot out questions and replies as
one might bullets out of a gun. “Didy’seeDrake?” “What ‘d’esay?”
“AnynewsfromBaker?” “Thedevily’say!” “Y’ don’tmeanit!”
I was moved to study him with the greatest care. Out of many anywhere, I
told myself, I would have selected him as a pushing and promising and
very self-centered person, but by no means disagreeable. Speaking of him
later, as well as of Howley, my brother once said: “Y’see, Thee, New
York’s the only place you could do a thing like this. This is the only
place you could get fellows with their experience. Howley used to be
with my old publisher, Woodward, and he’s the one that put me wise to
the fact that Woodward was trimming me. And Haviland was a friend of
his, working for Ditson.”
From the first, I had the feeling that this firm of which my brother was
a part would certainly be successful. There was something about it, a
spirit of victory and health and joy in work and life, which convinced
me that these three would make a go of it. I could see them ending in
wealth, as they did before disasters of their own invention overtook
them. But that was still years away and after they had at least eaten of
the fruits of victory.
As a part of this my initiation into the wonders of the city Paul led me
into what he insisted was one of the wealthiest and most ornate of the
Roman Churches in New York, St. Francis Xavier in Sixteenth Street, from
which he was subsequently buried. Standing in this, he told me of some
Jesuit priest there, a friend of his, who was comfortably berthed and “a
good sport into the bargain, Thee, a bird.” However, having had my fill
of Catholicism and its ways, I was not so much impressed, either by his
friend or his character. But Sixth Avenue in this sunshine did impress
me. It was the crowded center of nearly all the great stores, at least
five, each a block in length, standing in one immense line on one side
of the street. The carriages! The well-dressed people! Paul pointed out
to me the windows of Altman’s on the west side of the street at
Eighteenth and said it was the most exclusive store in America, that
Marshall Field & Company of Chicago was as nothing, and I had the
feeling from merely looking at it that this was true; it was so
well-arranged and spacious. Its windows, in which selected materials
were gracefully draped and contrasted, bore out this impression. There
were many vehicles of the better sort constantly pausing at its doors to
put down most carefully dressed women and girls. I marveled at the size
and wealth of a city which could support so many great stores all in a
row.
Because of the heat my brother insisted upon calling a hansom cab to
take us to Fourteenth and Broadway, where we were to begin our northward
journey. Just south of Union Square at Thirteenth Street was the old
Star Theater of which he said: “There you have it. That used to be
Lester Wallack’s Theater twenty years ago—the great Lester Wallack.
There was an actor, my boy, a great actor! They talk about Mansfield and
Barrett and Irving and Willard and all these other people today. All
good, my boy, all good, but not in it with him, Theodore, not in it.
This man was a genius. And he packed ’em too. Many a time I’ve passed
this place when you couldn’t get by the door for the crowd.” And he
proceeded to relate that in the old days, when he first came to New
York, all the best part of the theatrical district was still about and
below Union Square—Niblo’s, the old London on the Bowery, and what not.
I listened. What had been had been. It might all have been very
wonderful but it was so no longer, all done and gone. I was new and
strange, and wished to see only what was new and wonderful now. The sun
was bright on Union Square now. This was a newer world in which we were
living, he and I, this day. The newest wave of the sea invariably
obliterates the one that has gone before. And that was only twenty years
ago and it has all changed again.
North of this was the newer Broadway—the Broadway of the current actor,
manager and the best theaters—and fresh, smart, gay, pruned of almost
every trace of poverty or care. Tiffany’s was at Fifteenth and Broadway,
its windows glittering with jewels; Brentano’s, the booksellers, were at
Sixteenth on the west side of Union Square; and Sarony, the
photographer, was between Fifteenth and Sixteenth, a great gold replica
of his signature indicating his shop. The Century Company, to which my
brother called my attention as an institution I might some day be
connected with, so great was his optimism and faith in me, stood on the
north side of Union Square at Seventeenth. At Nineteenth and Broadway
were the Gorham Company, and Arnold, Constable & Company. At Twentieth
was Lord & Taylor’s great store, adjoining the old building in which was
housed my brother’s firm. Also, at this street, stood the old
Continental Hotel, a popular and excellent restaurant occupying a large
portion of its lower floor which became a part of my daily life later.
At Twenty-first Street was then standing one of the three great stores
of Park & Tilford. At Twenty-third, on the east side of the street,
facing Madison Square, was another successful hotel, the Bartholdi, and
opposite it, on the west side, was the site of the Flatiron Building.
Across Madison Square, its delicate golden-brown tower soaring aloft and
alone, no huge buildings then as now to dwarf it, stood Madison Square
Garden, Diana, her arrow pointed to the wind, giving naked chase to a
mythic stag, her mythic dogs at her heels, high in the blue air above.
The west side of Broadway, between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth, was
occupied by the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the home, as my brother was quick to
inform me, of Senator Platt, the Republican boss of the State, who with
Croker divided the political control of the State and who here held open
court, the famous “Amen Corner,” where his political henchmen were
allowed to ratify all his suggestions. It was somewhere within. Between
Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth on the same side of the street were two
more hotels, the Albemarle and the Hoffman House. Just north of this, at
Twenty-seventh and Broadway, on the east side of the street and running
through to Fifth Avenue, was Delmonico’s. Into this we now ventured, my
good brother hailing genially some acquaintance who happened to be in
charge of the floor at the moment. The waiter who served us greeted him
familiarly. I stared in awe at its pretentious and ornate furniture, its
noble waiters and the something about it which seemed to speak of wealth
and power. How easily five cents crooks the knee to five million!
A block or two north of this was the old Fifth Avenue Theater, then a
theater of the first class but later devoted to vaudeville. At
Twenty-ninth was the Gilsey House, one of the earliest homes of this my
Rialto-loving brother. At Thirtieth and Broadway, on the east side,
stood Palmer’s Theater, famous for its musical and beauty shows. At
Thirty-first and Broadway, on the west side of the street, stood
Augustus Daly’s famous playhouse, its façade suggestive of older homes
remodeled to this new use. And already it was coming to be _passé_.
Weber & Fields’ had not even appeared. And in my short span it appeared
and disappeared and became a memory! Between Twenty-eighth and
Thirty-fourth were several more important hotels: The Grand, The
Imperial; and between Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth streets, in Sixth
Avenue, was the old Manhattan Theater, at that time the home of many
successes, but also, like Daly’s, drawing to the end of a successful
career.
In Thirty-fourth, west of Broadway (later a part of the Macy store
site), was Koster & Bial’s Music Hall, managed by a man who subsequently
was to become widely known but who was then only beginning to rise,
Oscar Hammerstein. And around the corner, in Broadway at Thirty-fifth,
was a very successful theater, the Herald Square, facing the unique and
beautiful _Herald_ building. Beyond that in Thirty-fifth, not many feet
east of Sixth Avenue, was the Garrick, or the Lyceum as it was then
known, managed by Daniel Frohman. Above these, at Thirty-sixth, on the
west side, was the Marlborough, at which later, in his heyday, my
brother chose to live. At Thirty-eighth, on the southeast corner, stood
the popular and exclusive Normandie, one of the newer hotels, and at the
northeast corner of this same intersection, the new and imposing
Knickerbocker Theater. At Thirty-ninth was the far-famed Casino, with
its choruses of girls, the Mecca of all night-loving Johnnies and
rowdies; and between Thirty-ninth and Fortieth, on the west side, the
world-famed Metropolitan Opera House, still unchanged save for a
restaurant in its northern corner. At Fortieth over the way stood the
Empire Theater, with its stock company, which included the Drews,
Favershams and what not; and in this same block was the famous Browne’s
Chop House, a resort for Thespians and night-lovers. At Forty-second and
Broadway, the end of all Rialto-dom for my brother, and from which he
turned sadly and said: “Well, here’s the end,” stood that Mecca of
Meccas, the new Hotel Metropole, with its restaurant opening on three
streets, its leathern seats backed to its walls, its high open windows,
an air of super-wisdom as to all matters pertaining to sport and the
theater pervading it. This indeed was the extreme northern limit of the
white-light district, and here we paused for a drink and to see and be
seen.
How well I remember it all—the sense of ease and well-being that was
over this place, and over all Broadway; the loud clothes, the bright
straw hats, the canes, the diamonds, the hot socks, the air of security
and well-being, assumed by those who had won an all-too-brief hour in
that pretty, petty world of make-believe and pleasure and fame. And here
my good brother was at his best. It was “Paul” here and “Paul” there.
Already known for several songs of great fame, as well as for his stage
work and genial personality, he was welcomed everywhere.
And then, ambling down the street in the comforting shade of its west
wall, what amazing personalities, male and female, and so very many of
them, pausing to take him by the hand, slap him on the back, pluck
familiarly at his coat lapel and pour into his ear or his capacious
bosom magnificent tales of successes, of great shows, of fights and
deaths and love affairs and tricks and scandals. And all the time my
good brother smiled, laughed, sympathized. There were moments with
prizefighters, with long-haired Thespians down on their luck and looking
for a dime or a dollar, and bright petty upstarts of the vaudeville
world. Retired miners and ranchmen out of the West, here to live and
recount their tales of hardships endured, battles won, or of marvelous
winnings at cards, trickeries in racing, prizefighting and what not, now
ambled by or stopped and exchanged news or stories. There was talk of
what “dogs” or “swine” some people were, what liars, scoundrels,
ingrates; as well as the magnificent, magnanimous, “God’s own salt” that
others were. The oaths! The stories of women! My brother seemed to know
them all. I was amazed. What a genial, happy, well-thought-of successful
man!
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