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Nov. 30th, 2013 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsA while back I was hanging out with izilen in the NYPL store, and I ended up lurking around the books-about-New-York section surreptitiously noting down the names of half a dozen really cool-looking books about New York history to . . . check out of the library at later date instead of buying in the store, because THAT'S WHAT LIBRARIES ARE FOR.
The first one of these that I've gotten around to is Automats, Taxi Dances and Vaudeville: Excavating New York's Lost Places of Leisure.
The gimmick of the book is basically One Dude's Quest to Track Down the Last Little Bit of Molding In Existence From Buildings That Existed Last Century. I do not actually super care about the last little bit of molding from the Chinese Theater -- although, I mean, I'm glad David Freeland is excited about it! -- but I do care about the history that goes along with it.
The book covers six slices of architecture/history:
1. beer gardens in the Bowery
2. the turn-of-the-century Chinese theater scene -- I had not realized that there was a period of time in which it was extremely fashionable for 1890s hipsters to go to the opera in Chinatown, which only real connoisseurs appreciated, obviously. This section also offered an amazing quote from a turn-of-the-century Chinese lady which I feel the need to include in its entirety:
"We Chinese women abominate the corset. In our native country we have the evil custom of pinching the feet . . . but the Chinese are progressing. We are putting a stop to feet binding. Therefore, I should think the American women, who claim to be so progressive, would follow our example. Why don't they throw away their corsets?"
PLUS CA CHANGE.
3. early film studios around 14th Street and the Yiddish theater scene on Second Avenue, which is one of my favorite bits of New York History
4. Tin Pan Alley and the sentimental songwriters of the pre-phonograph music business, when the key to getting a piece of sheet music to be a huge hit was getting all your friends to sing it over and over again at a bar until tourists bought the sheet music just to get the damn thing out of their heads
5. the Harlem club scene of the 1930s
6. Times Square - focusing mostly on the famous Times Square automat (I'm still sad I missed the NYPL exhibit on that) and the taxi dance parlors. I knew about 1930s taxi dancers, otherwise known as dime-a-dance girls, but I did not realize that taxi dance clubs still existed into the 1970s . . . and since Freeland still calls them dime-a-dance clubs when he's writing about the 1970s ones, what I now desperately need to know, with horrified fascination, is whether in 1960 a dance still cost only a dime! (Also . . . what kind of dance were they paying for? Disco? INQUIRING MINDS.)
Anyway, overall, it's an interesting historical overview which makes an effort to portray New York in its vast diversity, and does not shy away from portraying some of the less charming bits of New York entertainment's charming past, such as the Times Square automat's labor abuses. Recommended! Though it did not succeed in making me care about molding.
izilen in the NYPL store, and I ended up lurking around the books-about-New-York section surreptitiously noting down the names of half a dozen really cool-looking books about New York history to . . . check out of the library at later date instead of buying in the store, because THAT'S WHAT LIBRARIES ARE FOR. The first one of these that I've gotten around to is Automats, Taxi Dances and Vaudeville: Excavating New York's Lost Places of Leisure.
The gimmick of the book is basically One Dude's Quest to Track Down the Last Little Bit of Molding In Existence From Buildings That Existed Last Century. I do not actually super care about the last little bit of molding from the Chinese Theater -- although, I mean, I'm glad David Freeland is excited about it! -- but I do care about the history that goes along with it.
The book covers six slices of architecture/history:
1. beer gardens in the Bowery
2. the turn-of-the-century Chinese theater scene -- I had not realized that there was a period of time in which it was extremely fashionable for 1890s hipsters to go to the opera in Chinatown, which only real connoisseurs appreciated, obviously. This section also offered an amazing quote from a turn-of-the-century Chinese lady which I feel the need to include in its entirety:
"We Chinese women abominate the corset. In our native country we have the evil custom of pinching the feet . . . but the Chinese are progressing. We are putting a stop to feet binding. Therefore, I should think the American women, who claim to be so progressive, would follow our example. Why don't they throw away their corsets?"
PLUS CA CHANGE.
3. early film studios around 14th Street and the Yiddish theater scene on Second Avenue, which is one of my favorite bits of New York History
4. Tin Pan Alley and the sentimental songwriters of the pre-phonograph music business, when the key to getting a piece of sheet music to be a huge hit was getting all your friends to sing it over and over again at a bar until tourists bought the sheet music just to get the damn thing out of their heads
5. the Harlem club scene of the 1930s
6. Times Square - focusing mostly on the famous Times Square automat (I'm still sad I missed the NYPL exhibit on that) and the taxi dance parlors. I knew about 1930s taxi dancers, otherwise known as dime-a-dance girls, but I did not realize that taxi dance clubs still existed into the 1970s . . . and since Freeland still calls them dime-a-dance clubs when he's writing about the 1970s ones, what I now desperately need to know, with horrified fascination, is whether in 1960 a dance still cost only a dime! (Also . . . what kind of dance were they paying for? Disco? INQUIRING MINDS.)
Anyway, overall, it's an interesting historical overview which makes an effort to portray New York in its vast diversity, and does not shy away from portraying some of the less charming bits of New York entertainment's charming past, such as the Times Square automat's labor abuses. Recommended! Though it did not succeed in making me care about molding.
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Date: 2013-11-30 11:28 pm (UTC)But this reminded me of the blog I think I mentioned to you when we last saw each other? http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com -- kind of the most depressing NYC blog ever, but relevant in that many of the places referred to in the book are no longer there since it was published.
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Date: 2013-12-01 12:40 am (UTC)Thank you for extracting this quote! I love it intensely.
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Date: 2013-12-01 02:00 am (UTC)[/rant]
That done with. What are taxi dancers? This sounds like something I need to know.
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Date: 2013-12-01 02:14 am (UTC)Oh, man, I meant to mention the thing we talked about, about how some of the places even mentioned in the book are no longer there. Thanks for relinking me to the blog -- depressing, but so relevant.
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Date: 2013-12-01 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-01 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-03 12:51 am (UTC)Thanks for the explanation!
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Date: 2013-12-03 01:18 am (UTC)