The recent death of that “prince of caterers,” as he was called, Lorenzo Delmonico, brings up naturally the remembrance of another “prince of caterers” of old New York, who, more ambitious than Delmonico, became the father of Italian opera in this city, and also its first martyr. Everybody nowadays knows Maretzek and Gye and Mapleson, but almost everybody has forgotten poor old Palmo. Yet a generation ago he was the leadin’ restaurateur of New York, and went down to posterity (and poverty) as the founder of Palmo’s Opera House.
Palmo was an odd character and in his time filled quite a place in old New York. I met him once or twice, in the decline of his days, but found the old fellow, if not as enthusiastic as he had been ten or twenty years previously, at least almost as cheerful.
Palmo was a genuine child of Italy, bein’ born in Naples, where the opera is as much of an institution as the macaroni and the lazzaroni. He had heard a good deal of America, and how everybody could make a fortune here in anywhere from five months to five years, startin’, if they were Dutch, on a pound of cheese and a barrel of beer; or if they were Italians, on a hand organ and a monkey. So he came over to America at the age of twenty-five or thereabouts, and opened a store in Richmond, Virginia. He did pretty well there, but having heard so much about New York, where money seemed to grow in the streets, he pushed to Gotham after the dollars. To catch ‘em he opened a candy store on Broadway near Fulton street, but his confectionery scheme didn’t succeed at all. People, for some reason or other, didn’t take to his bonbons, and he was obliged to suck his own candy. So he put back to “Ole Virginny” again, where he married and settled. And, if he had only kept settled there, he would have probably have been a well-to-do and independent man all his life. But some people never know to leave well enough alone. They are like the man who desired to be engraved on his tombstone, “I was well. I wanted to be better, and here I lie.”
Palmo once more came to New York and went into business once more, but on a bigger scale. He opened a saloon or cafe, fixed it up very elegantly, and gave it a first-class foreign name–”Cafe des Milles Colonnes.” It was at the corner of Broadway and Reade street, a tip-top location then as now, and he soon made a lot of money–made up in his second venture in Gotham all he had sunk in his first, and was thousands ahead. He was the Delmonico of his time, and was personally very popular. If he had only now stayed where he was, and attended to his own legitimate business, he would have lived comfortably and died rich. But he made another venture. He opened a big saloon on Chambers street, and havin’ done well with it a while, he conceived the idea that New York was destined to be what the papers nowadays call “a great musical centre,” and that the first man who should put it in the way of fulfillin’ its manifest destiny would not only get lots of glory, but lots of money besides.
After thinkin’ the matter over day and night till he got kind of crazy on it, he made up his mind that he was to be this “first man,” this first fellow to help New York to fulfill its musical fate. So all the money he could get a hold of, all the savin’s of his years of toil, and all the money he could borrow from his friends, over $75,000 in all, was “sunk” in fitting up his Chambers street saloon as an opera house and gettin’ an expensive company to open the new place, which he called “Palmo’s Opera House.” The papers sang his praises, of course, and the deadheads said there was no man like him. A few swell families took stock in the new opera house, but the people kind of gave the new concern the go-by. New York wasn’t quite big enough yet or ripe enough yet for Italian opera, and although Palmo may have been the comin’ man, he certainly came too soon, which is almost as bad as comin’ too late; some think worse.
Palmo’s Opera House was opened in fine style in the beginning of February with a tremendous crowd, the opera bein’ the splendid one of I Puritani. There was plenty of cheerin’ and clappin’ and claquin’, and the press notices were immense, and they were not “cooked,” either. For a week or so it looked as if Palmo had really stumbled on “a big thing,” but pretty soon the enthusiasm died away, and Palmo was left to struggle on with his opera and his opera house as best he could.
He struggled bravely for three seasons, then his opera house yielded up the ghost, because in stage slang “the ghost couldn’t walk” any longer, and it’s manager became a bankrupt.
There never was a manager in the whole history of New York who from first to last meant better or worked harder than this Ferdinand Palmo–not even Max Maretzek. And yet he had worse luck than even Maretzek, for Max managed to save somethin’ from the wreck, and has, I believe and hope, a place to call his own on Staten Island somewhere. But poor Palmo when he threw up the sponge was an utter bankrupt; not worth a hundred dollars in the world.
He was a pretty old man by this time, too, nearly sixty-five years of age, and pretty well played out and discouraged; so his future looked blank.
But a few of the friends of his better days stuck to him still–only a few, but enough to start him once more in a “hotel.” But the old man had lost head as well as heart by this time, and he couldn’t “keep a hotel” any more, nor could the hotel keep him. So he gave up the hotel to his “backers” and, like the true, sensible man he was at bottom still (all exceptin’ his musical madness), he put his pride in his pocket (it was about the only thing he had to put in his pocket just then) and called upon a sport he had once known, a man called Chris Williams, who kept an eatin’ saloon called the Waverly, at the corner of Fourth street and Broadway.
This Chris Williams was somethin’ of an oddity and though pretty tough in his ways, was at heart a real good fellow, “which nobody will deny.” He had made quite a success out of the Waverly, and had acquired quite a reputation for servin’ exquisite dishes. Well, Palmo called upon Williams and asked him for a place in his establishment. Williams thought, of course, Palmo wanted to become superintendent or manager of the place, and told him that he (Williams) always intended to be his own manager and superintendent. “That is all right,” said Palmo, “but I do not wish the position of manager. I have managed it a great deal too much already.” “Well, then,” asked Williams in surprise, “what on earth can I do for you? What other position do you want in my place?” “I want to be your cook,” said Palmo.
This proposition almost took Williams’s breath away. The idea of the celebrated manager of Italian opera in New York becomin’ the cook of a New York restaurant. And yet, why not? All good Italians were good cooks. Palmo had kept a saloon himself, and knew all about it. Besides, the very fact of having Palmo for his cook would attract some curiosity, and be a good advertisement for William’s place. And then it would be a charitable and decent thing to do to give an enterprisin’, well-known, unfortunate old man a support in his declining years. So Williams agreed to Palmo’s proposition and the ex-manager of Italian opera entered at once upon his culinary duties.
He put on his white apron and his white cap and went about the Waverly next day as if he had been cook there from childhood. He never played the “seen better days” dodge. He never went round the place murmurin’ over the past or howlin’ over the present. Nor, on the other hand, did he hide himself from the public gaze, as if he was a leper. No; he behaved like a first-class old fellow, and while he worked well he enjoyed himself in his spare times, when he had any, and if anybody got to talkin’ with him about Italian opera, why he would let ‘em talk, that was all.
I really think he was more of a man, and showed more stuff in him as Chris Williams’s cook then he did as the director of Italian opera at Palmo’s Opera House. Anybody can be a manager, but everybody can’t be a man.
Williams and Palma became sincerely attached to each other, but Williams one day did what all men do–some time or other, because they can’t help it–he died. This broke up the old “Waverly,” and left Palmo nearly seventy-five years old, unable to do much work, and without a dollar or a situation.
It was a cruel position for a man who had spent a fortune in tryin’ to give New York a new and noble amusement, but it brought the amusement people out strong, and showed one of their best points–their kindness to each other in distress. An association was formed to create what was called a Palmo fund; each member of this association paid only a mere trifle to the fund, only a dollar a month, but altogether it made a comfortable yearly support to poor, old Palmo, who lived gratefully upon it till his eighty-eighth year, when his fund and his troubles ceased together, and he was buried in Greenwood Cemetery–a warnin’ to managers, and a martyr to music.
