COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE AVERY PINE ARTS RESTRICTED AR01 400673 !0US1 -OF THE DeLMONICOS, Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/historyofoldnewyOOrimnn i£x iCibrtfi SEYMOUR DURST -t ' 'Tort niewt/ ^tn/ierjAm^ of Je iAanhatarus When you leave, please leave this hook Because it has heen said "Ever thing comes t' him who waits Except a loaned hook." Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York LiiiRARY A HISTORY OF Old New York Life AND THE House of the Delmonicos, BV LEOPOLD RIMMER i^n CoPYRicarr, July, 1898. PREFACE. Ridet argento domus ara castis Vincta verbenis, avet immolato Spar<^ier agno Cuncia lestenat manus hue ct illuc Cursitant mistae pueris pucUae. Leopold Rimmer, Author. ^.^*: ^^^yyiy?y^^ Y/^er Austria. Mr. Tallagini was a railroad constructor, who built the Semmerig Bahn, with its tunnels and high up grade to Trieste. 10 When I grew older I took charge, when eighteen years of age, of the Hotel aux trois Courune cl'Or in Vienna, and my good father gave 2,000 florins as a security that I could not run away with the hotel or the money I collected. That was in 1862. Among my customers was King Alfonzo the XII, when he and his mother Isabella were expelled from Spain, and Spain was a republic then for a short time, as everybody knows. Alfonzo studied in the Theresiannum, where only blue blood is accepted, like the Hapsburgers of Austria, or any nobleman of some great house, as princes or barons of some old houses, and counts — of no account — and the like. When King Alfonzo came to my hotel and took luncheon I had manv chats with him. At that time I was good looking and went to my coiffeur in a fiacre every day to have my hair curled with a hot iron, and that is the reason wh}^ I have not much hair left on my head now. I was always dressed to Ivill, in summer white pants and dress coat, and when I stood at the door, i\ ^ne, well-shaped good look- ing, beautiful girl passed every day, at the same hour, from the school ; she looked at me and I looked at her. She went nearly crazy for love of me, and I was dead gone on her, and she is my wife to-day and happy, after a married life of thirty-two years. A young millionaire shot himself because she would not look at him. Our wedding trip was to the United States of America, in 1866, on the old Hamburg steamer, Teutonia. We were frightfully seasick, but we sat on the deck and lived from love, till we came to Hoboken. I could then speak French, German, English and Italian, Latin like any scholar, and a little of the Austrian Slavonic languages. After finding some quarters through a friend whom I already had in this noble land of the free, I became a citizen of the United States of America. Three days after my landing I was engaged by Mr. Charles Delmonico in the F^ourteenth Street house, northeast corner of Fourteenth Street, and Mr. Charles Delmonico, seeing my ability, gave me charge of the cafe room. I entered on St. Patrick's Day, the 17th of March, 1866. It was a very cold day, with plenty of snow. The 17th of March is also the birthday of Mr. Ch, Ch. Del- monico, the father of Mr. Ch. Ch. Delmonico. Mr. Christ was a diamond broker, in Maiden Lane and in Paris. I knew him well, and Mr. Ch. Ch. Del- monico had breeches on then. Mr. Lorenzo Delmonico was the heart and soul of that great establishment, with its grand ball- room, the fine blue room, with its famous blue satin ameublements, the Chinese room and the library room where the rich old New Yorkers dined and wined their ladies and friends in great style. At that time Mr. Lorenzo went every day to the Washington and Inillon markets, and picked out everything at four o'cloclc in tlie morning, for twenty-five years, wliat was good and fine, from meats to game, fish, fowls, terra])in, what- ever was in season, vegetables, and all that makes a fine talkie l^eaiitifnl, and at ciglit o'clock he came l)ack and I served him with a small cup of ])lac]c coffee ; then he smoked a strong P^igaro cigar and went home in his cab to 1 1 1 East t3 Fifteenth Street and went to bed. Every evening he came back, and sat with his friends, after taking a Httle supper, till 12 o'clock he went home again, like a clock work. Among his friends, there are only two alive now, and they are Mr. Wood Gibson, a life -long friend of the Delmonico family, and Mr. Jordan L. Mott, the iron king of Mott Haven, the chum of Mr. Siro Delmonico, of the Chamber Street house. Mr. Wood Gibson died since August 4th, 1898, in New Jersey, and Mr. Jordan L. Mott is living yet. Beside these gentleinen, the others all died long since. There were Mr. Bedlow, Mr. Floyd, Mr. Ben. Venberg, with his high heels ; Mr. George Lawrence, Mr. Arrow Smith and Mr. Turnbull, the old sport, who owned Dexter, the fastest trotter at that time. The first great dinner I saw ^vas the dinner given to Professor Morse, the electrician and in- ventor of the first real useful telegraph. Professor Morse was the first man wlio built a telegraph line from New York to Washington, and it worked. The first European cable was laid in 1866 witli the Great Eastern, and it l^roke very M soon after it was laid ; the second one was laid in 1867, with the Great Eastern and the Faraday, and it Avorked. In the grand ball-room there was a connection made with the first European cable to London, and Professor Morse telegraphed the first cable- gram from his table, and in forty minutes, the answer came back, and was read to the assembled three hundred and fifty guests, and received with tremendous applause. Now, with the permission of my esteemed readers, I will have to go back to music. It was in 1857 when Franz Liszt, the great composer and piano artist, was in Vienna, and living in the Hotel Kaiserin Elizabeth of Austria. At the same time Anton Rul^enstein was there, and Richard Wagner and Alfred Jaehl, and the great violincello artist, Piatti. I knew them all well. Richard Wagner was just then bringing out, and on the stage, Rienzi and Lohengrin, those two great operas. When Anton Rubenstein made his journey to the United States of America he was a daily customer at Delmonicos, and I had many chats with him. Afterwards Franz Liszt became an Abbe in Rome. Oh weh ! Then Manager Bateman brought the first French opera boaffe company from Paris to New York. The first opera he brought out was the Grand Duchess of Geroldstein, by Jacques Offen- bach, a German, but a Parisian composer, with Mademoiselle Toste and Montaland, and when General Boom Boom sang the song, ''le Sabre de moil Pere'\ the jeunesse dore of New York went wild with enthusiasm. It was played in the P^rench theater, corner of Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue. Mr. James P^isk was a visitor at the theater and liked Mademoiselle Montaland, and invited her to dine with him at Delmonico's. Any man with money would do the same. He brought her often with a four-in-hand to Delmonico's. And then came the great fire in Chicago. James P^isk, as President of the Erie Railroad, went witli six: liorses in a truclc wagon, to his many friends, and collected whatever he could get, from clothes to eatables, and sent them by express to Chicago. It took the train 60 liours. 16 Then came the Black Friday and also Miss Josie Mansfield and Mr. Edward Stokes, and the end of this terrible romance everybody knows. I remember when Mr. Cornelias Vanderbilt \vas entertaining" in his house at the corner of Fourth Street and Washington Square, then very fashionable, and the great caterer was always Mr. Lorenzo and Mr. Charles Delmonico, his nephew. At that time Mr. August Belmont, who had a lame foot, gave an after theater supper in the blue room for al^out fifty of his guests and friends. He sat in the middle of the table, his lady, Mrs. Belmont, opposite him, and to her left sat Mr- John Hecksher, the only gentleman at this en- tertainment who is living yet. About the same time, in 1867, the stock of the Maison d'Or, No. 44 Union Square, proprietor, Mr. Matinez, was sold at auction, and Mr. Lorenzo Delmonico bought the finest and oldest brands of port and sherry wines in existence, and some of them are to-day in the Delmonico cellar in Twenty-sixth Street, Madison Square. Some of tliem are over one hundred years old. Price unlimited. 17 Then came a great deal of trouble to the noblest, best hearted and most generous man that ever lived, Mr. Lorenzo Delmonico ; he in- vested money in a petroleum company in Brook- lyn to the amount of half a million dollars, and I rememl)er he went with the steainer Lorenzo, from the Companie Transatlantique Frangaise to his Ijirthplace, Faido Canton, Ticino, Switzer- land, to Ijuild a school there, for the children of his compatriots. Before leaAdng he gave the power of attorney to his l3rother, Mr. Constant Delmonico, who had charge of the old Beaver Street house, with instruction to help the petrol- eum compciny in case they needed some money, and he did it so well that in a short time half a million dollars was gone, and Mr. Lorenzo Del- monico found out that he was a ruined man. When Mr. Lorenzo heard this news he came right home to New York to see what he could do. Mr. Lorenzo's friends advised him to go right ahead with his business. He then had four establishments ; first, the Beaver Street house, managed l)y his ])rother, Constant Del- monico ; the Broad Street house, managed by Mr. John Longhi ; the Chamber street house, managed iS by Mr. Siro Delmonico, the Fourteenth Street house, managed by Mr. Charles Delmonico. Mr. Sandford, from Brooklyn, Mr. Guedin, a brother- in-laAv of Mr. Lorenzo, and others helped him, and he paid every cent to his creditors, and made more millions of dollars ; and besides, he never collected over half a million dollars by law, which New Yorkers owed him. He died in Sharon Springs, State of New York, from a stroke of paralysis, in the hotel of his friend, Mr. Gardner. I look like Mr. L. Delinonico. In his will and last testament, he left every- thing to his nephew, Mr. Charles Delmonico, with the order that as long as a Delmonico lives, the business must be kept running. To his brother Siro, he left $100,000, the interest of it only, and that broke Mr. Siro's heart and he died. Now, Mr. Charles Delinonico was caught by the Wall Street fever, operated largely, and lost almost every time ; his broker, Mr. Alexander Taylor, is living yet. Then one cold day in the winter, I do not remember the exact date any more, he wanted to take a walk, and when he came down stairs, his nephew, Mr. Ch. Ch. Deb 19 monico, who was to accompany him, said : "Uncle, it is too cold ; I will go up-stairs and get a warm coat for you." And when he came down again he was gone. He wandered over the ferry to New Jersey and on to South Orange, and asked for a cup of coffee in a farmer's house, and said he has no money, but he has big friends in Ne^v York ; after he warmed himself he left and was seen no more alive. The stricken family oftered $5,000 to the person who will find his body. It was found in a ditch by the road side, and the reward was paid. With poor Mr. Charles all was over ! Now I have to go back to the living again. There is Mr. Louis Delmonico, who owns an art gallery, 166 Fifth Avenue, his sister, Miss Josie Delmonico, and the sister of Mr. Charles, Miss Rose Delmonico. Mr. L. Delmonico has two sons, fine strapping boys, from nine to twelve vears old. Among the living employees of the Four- teenth Street house are Mr. Charles Rauhafer, the greatest of all the chef cooks in the world, and he is a great disciplinarian ; there is no back talk allowed by any means with him. 20 Mr. Garnier, who commenced as a young boy in the office, in Fourteenth Street; he is the act- ting- manager of all the Delmonicos' business now. Mr. Philip Willerman, who commenced very young in the bar, and is thirty-four years in the house, without missing one day in his life, and he is the most honest man that ever lived. He is now managing the Palm and Roof Garden in Fourty-fourth Street. The engineer, Mr. Robert Allan, who had done the technical work and steain fitting', in the Fourteenth Street house, and in the Twenty-sixth Street house, and he attends to his work yet, in Twenty-sixth Street to-day, and myself. Mr. Nestor Lattard, the young and able manager of the Twenty-sixth Street house, is not only just, but kind and polite to every em- ployee. He is also a landscape painter of ability, and whenever he has a leisure hour, he paints up-stairs for pleasure. He has at least a hun- dred paintings in his atelier. His brother is a renowned painter and artist in Paris. Louis Napoleon made his headquarters in the old Stevens House when he was in exile in America. Dr. Kane, the Arctic explorer, the Hollands, the Van Burens, the Aspinwalls, the Stuyvesants, the Cuttings and the Morgans, came there to drink their cafe a la Francaise, Now for Tweed and Company and the new courthouse ; there was millions in it a la Tam- many Hall. The marriage of Mr. Tweed's daughter was the greatest affair that New York ever saw. I think it cannot be beat to-day in Greater New York. Horace Greeley and Fernando Wood were in the Chainber Street house every day, when sun- beaming Mr. Siro Delmonico, with his ever shining stove pipe hat, was directing the Chamber Street house. When Tweed was in his glory, Greenwich town with its great American club-house sprang up, now called Indian Harbor. There was then a feasting like the old Romans did ; high up in an oak tree, hundreds of years old, was a platform large enough to seat fifty people. Music and wine and beautiful women ^vere there, and Paradise was not in it, and where did Tweed's glory end ? From a poor man to the boss of Tammany, from exile to death as a fugitive in foreign lands. 22 The next event was that of the beautiful Misses Smyths ; their father was the Collector of the Port of New York. The Jaffray brothers were then all the go, and William married one of the Misses Smyths. He had a great hoiTie in England and died there. I do not know what became of Mr. Howard Jaffray. In 1873 I Avent with my wife to the expo- sition in Vienna. I bought two drafts from Messrs. Biederman and Rubino, No. 23 William Street, and when I was at sea on the steamer Deutschland, came the panic of 1873, and every- body in Vienna failed. Gold was at 18 per cent, premium. In Vienna there was a dozen of suicides a day ; yesterday a millionaire, to-day a beggar. In the Prater, a park in Vienna, where the race-course is, the Italian, Slamuci, Avrapped the cheese and Salami in thousand dollar bonds. Mr. Biederman is the brother-in-law of Mr. Bishoffsheim and Erlanger, bankers in London, failed also. When Mr. Luckemeier gave that great dinner in P'ourteenth Street — $75 a head without wine, it 23 was the greatest affair that ever could be got up in any land. The table "was eighteen feet wide and as long as the hall ; it had a big lake in the middle, \vith a big cage over it ; there ^vere swans s\vimirLing around in it ; there were large trees with rustic bird cages, and singing canary birds, and two fountains, stones and sand just like a natural park. Tiffany built the big golden cage ; it was a sight, and Mr. Delnionico allowed every- body to see it, from the gentlemen guests to the plainest servant in the house. Now, since Delmonico moved up to Forty- fourth Street, Twenty- sixth Street is like a step- child, but memory will stay ; for instance, the St. James Hotel, a landmark of the olden times, was turned into one of the finest office buildings of modern times, fourteen stories high, with hundreds of offices and marvellous accommo- dations — elevators and dynamos, and built by Mr. Bruce Price, one of the smartest and ablest architects of modern times. The only mistake that ever was made against the interest of the Delmonicos' business was Mr. Charles Rauhafer's cook book, which gave away 24 all secrets of the house, and every Tom, Dick and Harry, who calls himself a chief cook, and had learned his trade in Delmonico's kitchen, can cook and make up the finest dinners on record, ^vith that book, which tells him everything he don't know. There is hardly one hotel in New York to-day whose chef did not learn his cook- ing at Delmonico's, every one of them. The book gave all the secrets to the world — the market, what is in season, where to get it, and what is the correct thing to eat every day, and all the year around. And this is the error that was made by Mr. Ch. Ch. Delmonico. The only gentleman living yet from the Tweed regime is Mr. Murphy, ex-collector of the port of New York ; he walks sometimes now into the Delmonico cafe, as straight as an arrow, with his cream face, like our noble president, Mr. McKinley, and smokes a cigar not lighted ; he is an honest citizen, and was a great politician in his times, gone by. Mr. Murphy has three sons, Mr. Edgar Murphy, the great wing shot and sporting editor of the New York Journal ; Mr. 25 Waller Murphy, a fine looking man, tall, six feet, blond, and very good natured. He is agent of a great wine and liquor concern. Now, for curiosity's sake. Very few people know why Mr. James Gordon Bennett's nose is broke. I can tell you that. It was one day away back in the seventies, when, one nice summer day, a party sat in the Fourteenth Street house cafe ; amongst them were Mr. Charles Delmonico, Mr. Ed\vard Stokes, Mr. George Lawrence, Mr. James Gordon Bennett, Mr. Ben Wenberg ; it was a race day in Jerome Park, and about two o'clock in the afternoon they had luncheon and cham- pagne ; they were very happy and chatted about this and about that. All at once Mr. Bennett slapped Mr. Stokes' face — why, I don't know, and Mr. Stokes wanted to kill Mr. Bennett, but the other gentlemen would not have it ; so Mr. Ch. Delmonico suggested to have it out, fair and square. They went right into it, took their coats off and went out into the hall. In a twinkling of an eye Mr. Bennett was on the floor, and ath- letic Mr. Stokes hammered away on Mr. Bennett's nose like a sledge hammer, when the other 26 gentlemen took him a^vay and satisfaction \vas given. We had to bring Mr. Bennett up-stairs and sent for a doctor to have Mr. Bennett's nose fixed up, and he has the mark on his nose to-day yet. Mr. J. G. Bennett Hves now most of the time in London, where he spends his inoney which he makes in New York from his great paper, the Herald, founded by his father. The printing, building and offices of tlie Herald, on Herald Square, are a sight by themselves, with the marvellous printing machines of Messrs. R. Hoe & Co., New York and London, which prints in colors, folds and cuts so quick, like rain, ready for the public every hour. It is an astonishing invention of a genius. But Mr. J. G. Bennett is not as true a republican as his father was ; he tries to flatter the Prince of Wales. What for ? I have no idea. What is royalty, I should like to know. Look for instance to the Kings of Bavaria, the Wittelsbachers. There is King Otto, crazy like a lunatic and chained in a padded room, so that he cannot kill himself. His brother jumped into a lake with his doctor and both drowned. What right have 27 such men to be kings from God's grace, I would like to know. A man is a man, when a gentle- man, and a repul^lic is the only government and power on the face of the earth. Look at Uncle Sam and what the United States of America have accomplished ; they own the ^vorld. Where are the European powers? We blow them off the earth. England, once our enemy, now our best friend, and the rest of the foreign powers are not in it. Monroe doctrine is right, whatever may come. The Europeans laughed at us, that we have no navy ; we have no soldiers ; we cannot march or shoot, like they can ; we heive no generals ; oh, no! we cannot compare with them, oh, no! But what does the world think now of Uncle Sam ? The new Forty-fourth Street house is, from the outside, a fine building, in the renaissance style of the fourteenth century, Louis XIV of France, and built hy Messrs. Lord and King, great architects ; but the inside, as a restaurant, is a mistake ; they did not know what hotel service was and never asked anybody who 28 knew something about it. There is the entrance on the side street ; it ought to be on Fifth Avenue ; the kitchen, high and large; the dining- room, sinall and low ; the cafe room, small and low and black, with three windows looking at a stable. Hipnotatiim, Svengo. nbi, ibi. No^v, my dear readers, look back to the genius of old Mr. Charles Delmonico, who built the Twenty-sixth Street house ; it is situated on the finest piece of land in New York City, corner of Twenty- sixth Street and Fifth Avenue, in front of a fine park, the Madison Square Park; there is Admiral Farragut's statue right in front of Delmonico's ; the park itself is a sight, with its big trees, some of them hundreds of years old, its wonderful fountain and flower beds ; there is not such a piece of land in any city, not in Paris, nor in London, or Berlin, or Vienna. The quickness of service to the guests of the house is something marvellous ; the guest first gives his order to the waiter; in a second the waiter gives the order to the cooks, and that is all, so simple and quick ; and I can safely say there is no house in the world which can do the same thing. 29 There is another great man well acquainted with the Delinonicos, Mr. John H. Starin, the multi-millionaire, and owner of Glen Island, and steamships for passengers and transportation, the father-in-law of our noble general, Mr. How- ard Carroll, who went so gallantly to the front to fight for our glorious Stars and Stripes of Uncle Sam. Mr. John H. Starin, with his son Mr. Myndert Starin, the general manager of those neglected islands, turned them into a fairy land. I think there is not another place like it on the face of the earth — those shady walks, the menagerie, the Klein Deutschland, the rustic Rhein Castle, its beautiful waters around it for pleasure boats, boat races and the like. It is a wonder to look at ; its baths and up-to-date restaurant and clam bake, etc. In thanking you, my dear readers, for your patience, I remain very truly yours, LEOPOLD RIMMER, Author. 30