There are several points in everyday life in New York which, simple and familiar as they are now, have a good deal of interesting reminiscence connected with ‘em, and which took a good deal of time and “circus,” as I call it, to get to just what they are now, havin’ been originally, in old, very old New York, somethin’ very different.
There is the simple matter of the dinner hour, for instance. New York dines now from five o’clock to seven o’clock, as a matter of course, and thinks nothin’ more about it.
But years ago all New York dined in the middle of the day–took dinner more than an hour earlier than it now takes lunch. And it took a good many years and a deal of trouble and talkin’ to accomplish the change of dinner hour. People don’t change their home and feedin’ habits in a hurry or without good reason, or what they think good reason.
The town bells used to ring out at noon in the good old times and then work stopped, and everybody started off for home, the merchant walkin’ quite as fast and about as far for his grub as the mechanic. Imagine Clafflin and his clerks all walkin’ home now to dinner in the middle of the day, with time worth ten dollars a minute; or Gould, Vanderbilt and Field trottin’ off to their respective residences at high noon to spend an hour at dinner with their wives and families and then walkin’ back to Wall street. But for many a year New York got along well enough with its noon dinner, till some of its big bugs then, or rather some of the children of the big bugs, went to Europe in the packet ships and brought back European ideas of livin’ and dinin’. One of the Misses Stuyvesant, who went to Paris, came back and protested against the noonday meal and talked to her folks into puttin’ it off till two o’clock, and then one or two other families who had been to Europe, or who wanted to be European, followed the Stuyvesants’ example.
A good many packet ship captains and strangers from abroad used to stop at the old City Hotel, and these, of course, protested against the old Knickerbocker noon dinner business, and at last prevailed upon Willard & Jennings, the proprietors, to have the dinner at two o’clock, too.
But this newfangled hour of dinin’ caused a big stir among the regular housekeepers and heads of families in Gotham, and once the old-fashioned wives and mothers held a prayer meetin’, and prayed against the two o’clock dinner and other foreign and new-fangled notions. Then, what was more to the purpose, some of the ladies called upon Willard & Jennings at the City Hotel and asked ‘em not to set the example before the whole city of New York of departin’ from the time-honored institution of the noonday meal. Now Willard & Jennings were cute chaps, and, as about the time these ladies called on ‘em, they had found that some of their old customers still clung to the noon dinner and didn’t take any stock in the two o’clock movement, why they pretended to be convinced by the ladies’ arguments, and promised them that hereafter at the City Hotel the dinner hour should be restored to twelve o’clock again, which it was forthwith, only the two o’clock dinner was retained, too. In other words, one could dine at twelve or at two, just as you pleased, there bein’ two separate meals at those hours, the City Hotel bein’ the first in America thus to introduce the modern custom of different hours for dinner to suit different classes of people. This double system worked pretty well for a while, all the Quakers and old fogies patronizin’ the dinner at twelve o’clock and all the foreigners and swells and people who had traveled goin’ in for the dinner at two o’clock–the twelve o’clock people thinkin’ the two o’clock people airish or dissipated, and the two o’clock folks thinkin’ the twelve o’clock folks very plebeian and ignorant, just as if the time of a man’s dinner was a part of a man’s character.
But on the whole the two o’clock crowd got the best of it. The “foreign element” was assertin’ itself at dinner, the noonday meal gradually dwindled down, and then, not satisfied with two o’clock, some of the “foreign element” back by some of the native, asked for dinner at three o’clock and got it. This nearly broke the regular old Knickerbocker New York housewife’s heart, as it not only upset the old-fashioned dinner but destroyed the old-fashioned tea, which had hitherto been held from five to six, but with dinner not over till four tea at this time was out of the question.
Steven Whitney, Phillip Phoenix, Peter Schenck, Ray Schermerhorn and men of that stamp stuck to the noonday dinner and the six o’clock tea as long as they could; but the old times were doomed, and swells like Dandy Mark, and men-about-town like Colonel Nick Saltus, and travelers like Captain Barker gradually witnessed the triumph of their late dinners and late suppers, though the dinin’-at-six-o’clock generation which came after these made as much fun of their three o’clock dinners as they had made of the noonday meal. Perhaps the next generation will dine at nine o’clock and laugh at us poor devils who dine at six!
Then, in the matter of dancin’, New York is the greatest dancin’ city in America. Next to Vienna and Paris the greatest dancin’ city in the world. Yet within the memory of friends of mine now livin’ it was a difficult matter to know where to get a good dance in public, or to have a good time dancin’, in the whole city of New York, unless he wanted to be looked upon as a loafer or an outcast. There were a few, a very few, dancin’ masters in the good old times, but they didn’t give any public entertainments. They kept themselves and their rooms entirely for the benefit of their “swell” and “dull” patrons, heads of families, and misses and masters of the most respectable families, and put ‘em through a lot of old-fashioned stately, tiresome, cotillions. But at last some of the young swells of New York, who are grandfathers now, tried to see if they couldn’t get up public balls which would be “respectable” as well as lively, and infuse some fun into the first families. They proposed to invite nice young ladies to accompany nice young gentleman to a public ball. They got into the good graces of old John Charraud, who was the crack dancin’ master of New York at the time, the favorite instructor of all the first families’ “heels and toes,” and engaged for him the use once a fortnight of the ladies’ parlor on the second floor of the old City Hotel. This ladies’ parlor was then considered the finest in New York and had no less than three glass chandeliers in it, with a fine arched ceilin’. Then the young man engaged in this laudable undertakin’ appointed a very select and high-toned committee to supervise the sale of the tickets, and issued a limited number of tickets at $25 apiece, each ticket admittin’ to the contemplated series of five balls. This was at the rate of $5 a ball, and considerin’ all things was a good deal higher than the price of admission into the very finest balls now. Still such was the desire among young New York then to get a chance to enjoy itself that the tickets found ready takers.
There was pretty good music, and the first ball, or City Hotel Reunion, as it was called, was a success. The papers the next day came out and gave the initials of some of the parties present, with a description of their dresses. But what a fuss the religious people, and the old maids and the old Knickerbockers made about this ball report and this ball. Why one would have thought that Old Nick had established his headquarters at the ladies’ parlor of the City Hotel the way they talked. They held up their hands and rolled up the whites of their eyes. And “Did you ever?” “No, I never!” and all that style of thing. The young gentleman didn’t care of course, but the young ladies who attended the ball or social (or sociable) found all this back talk very unpleasant indeed.
One chap on the ball committee proposed, half in jest, half in earnest, to invite the matrons and especially the old maid aunts of the young ladies, along with the young ladies ‘emselves to the next ball, but the proposition was laid on the table and the second ball, or soiree, or sociable, though not a failure exactly, was not as largely attended as they first, and the third wasn’t as popular as the second, and so on.
They got through with the five balls of the first series, but the second series of five was only talked about, not given, or rather it was given–up. “The City Hotel sociables were discontinued till further notice,” as the announcement in the papers ran. But this was only a temporary defeat, and simply serves to show that that the Old Dutch or Knickerbocker element after all was not much more liberal than the Yankee Puritan element if left to itself. But human nature was too much for even the Dutch dowagers and dominies in the long run, and within a few years public balls got to be the “thing” in Gotham, and the Tammany Hall balls, and Apollo Hall balls, and the Fireman’s balls became very popular, while upper crust circles lost their exclusiveness and, from the date of the openin’ of the Academy of Music took kindly to “fashionable balls.” Old John Charraud built himself a dancin’ school on White street, between Church and Chapel streets, and did quite well for a while. The fashionable world thought Charraud was movin’ “too far up town” at first–(too far up town at White street; but the old dancin’ master lived to see the town too far up town for White street even, and his fashionable dancin’ saloon was finally used as a dog pit.
[Editor’s notes: The dancing master, John J. Charraud (1794-1879), who taught the cotillion and waltzing to fancy dress ball-goers of New York City, should be better known. He also brought the first ballet troupe to New York City. He was a pupil of Augustus Verbecq, one of New York’s first dancing masters.]
