Three once famous downtown hotels have been completely wiped out, their sites have long been occupied by stores and offices and they are very names are becomin’ traditions; yet within a generation, in the memory of many men still livin’, they were as familiar to New Yorkers as are now the Fifth Avenue, Hoffman and St. James hotels.
One of these three hotels was the American, which was located at the corner of Broadway and Barclay street. It was kept by Cozzens, and was noted all over the city and Country for its “table.” It made a feature of its “ladies’ ordinary,” where, it was claimed, the best served dinner and lunch on the continent was to be obtained.
A prominent guest of the American hotel in its palmy days was General Scott, then in the height of his glory, “Scott boards there,” people used to say, pointin’ to the American, as if that settled it. Cozzens was excessively proud of havin’ the most distinguished military man in America as his guest, and made him as comfortable as possible. He at first refused to take money from the General, kind of thinkin’ that his name was money enough to the house. But the old General was so mad at the bare idea of puttin’ him on the free list and usin’ his name as an advertisement that he nearly left the hotel in a huff. Ah! Scott didn’t live in these days when Presidents and Presidential candidates made it a point to travel and live as “deadbeats.”
Scott, like Brignoli, prided himself on bein’ a good cook. He had an especial hobby for bread, and held that to make excellent bread was the highest achievement of a cook, just as to write simple short sentences is the highest achievement of a writer. When he came to the American the bread there was bad, though perhaps not any worse than it was everywhere else. “To eat bread in America is to commit suicide,” said Mrs Trollope, and she was half right. At the very first dinner the General ate at the American he sent for Mr. Cozzens, and while complimentin’ him on some of his dishes told him bluntly that his “bread was not fit for dogs to eat.” He then wound up by sayin’ that if Cozzens would send him his cook he would instruct the cook how to bake bread. Cozzens thereupon sent his cook to Scott and Scott gave him his ideas upon bread bakin’. About a week later Scott sent for Cozzens again and told him: “Cozzens, your bread is better; that is, it is now just fit for dogs to eat. Send me your cook again and I will get him one step further on the right road.” So the General and the cook had a second interview and the bread got still better, till at last the American Hotel bread got locally and deservedly famous.
The Howard House stood at the corner of Maiden Lane and Broadway, and was greatly frequented by sports and business men–as well as mercantile strangers. In these points it came nearest to the present Astor House.
Sam Lover, the well-known composer and song writer, stayed at this hotel during his visit to New York, while he was playin’ an engagement at the old Broadway Theatre, managed by Marshall, at the corner of Broadway and Anthony street. Lover had written several popular songs, but, as a man is generally vainest on his weakest point, he was anxious to make a hit as an actor–a line in which he thought he had no livin’ equal, but a point on which the public differed from him altogether.
Another song writer, the man who is responsible for “Beautiful Snow,” used to be ‘round the same hotel at that time, and spite of the old adage about “two of a trade,” the two song writers got along very well together–got to be chums, in fact.
One afternoon the two song-birds were drinking together and Lover said that he felt that he could write a song which would beat any of his others. So he got paper and pencil and dashed off a song. He then walked to the piano in the room, and tried his composition. Somehow, it did not please him as much as he expected, and in a fit of chagrin he tore up the paper and threw it into the grate. Durin’ the evenin’, while Lover was at the theatre, the “Beautiful Snow” man, goin’ into the room for somethin’, saw the fragments of the discarded song lyin’ at the bottom of the grate. They had escaped the flames, and were lyin’ calmly among the ashes underneath. The “Beautiful Snow” man stooped down, picked up the pieces, and put ‘em together again. The song struck him more favorably on a second trial of it than it had at first, and he put it in his pocket, to hand back to Lover. The next day he appealed “from Philip drunk to Philip sober.” He took the restored fragment of the song to Lover’s room and got the composer to play it over again. He did so, and began to wonder how he could have thrown it away the day before. He at once set to work, revised his work carefully, and the result was a song known all over the world, the best song Lover ever wrote, “Peggy in the Low-backed Car.” This little episode illustrates forcibly the accidents upon which literary or a musical–like all other successes–often depends. Had the “Beautiful Snow” man not got hold of the original fragments, or if the chambermaid of the hotel had got hold of ‘em instead, the world would have lost a charmin’ song and Lover would have lost a deal of reputation and solid profit.
Washington Hall was the third of the hotels around the City Hall Park on Broadway, and once ranked with the Brunswick or Delmonico of to-day. Among the frequenters of the Hall at one period was a man called Shepard, who later on became a noted figure in the criminal annals of New York. This man Shepard, havin’ saved a little money, went into business for himself and got some stock heavily insured in a dwellin’ house. He set fire to this house, and was condemned to death for arson. But while in the Tombs awaitin’ the death penalty, he excited a good deal of public sympathy by savin’ another prisoner, a young lad, from a violent death at the hands of a third prisoner named Sanchez. This Sanchez had killed his wife in a fit of jealousy and then ran around and tried to kill her whole family, the mother-in-law and all. Previous to the attack of this Sanchez on this prisoner-boy, public feelin’ had been dead against Shepard and in favor of pardonin’ Sanchez, or commutin’ his punishment to imprisonment for life, on the ground of “emotional insanity.” But after this attack public sentiment veered completely round, and everybody clamored for Sanchez’s immediate execution and the pardon of Shepard.
The bar at the old Washington Hall was a very popular one, and the nobs of the day were to be seen in in its immediate vicinity. “Handsome George” Fanwager was the boss barkeeper of the day. He looked a good deal like Ned Gilmore, who has mixed drinks in his time–and mixed ‘em well. George was a tip-top dresser. He was worth $10,000 a year to any bar-room–and he generally charged the greater part of that for his services.
But times have changed, and if Handsome George was alive now he would probably scorn to accept a position in a down-town bar.
[Editor’s notes: Efforts to track down “George Fanwager” and his elusive concoctions have thus far failed…]
