Dead Rabbit Mixed Drinks
Dead Rabbit Mixed Drinks
Dead Rabbit Mixed Drinks
T H TE H TE R TU RE U SE T SO TR OY R YO F O F
A AM AMN A NO N O NA AM I MS IS SI SO IN O N
TOLD WITH
MIXED
MIXED
DRINK
DRINKSS-SSTOLD WITH
LEWIS
LEWIS
PEASE
PEASE
WINTER
1850
WINTER
SPRING
WINTER
SPRING
SUMMER
SPRING
SUMMER
FALL
1850
1850
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1850
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1851
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An Introduction
Winter
1850
Deuteronomy 9:27
Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness
of this people, nor to their wickedness,
nor to their sin.
. Pease
L.M
---
WINTER
A gentle blanket of calm covering the countryside. Or whipping gales that
smash dead branches onto the ground. Both are winter.
By the Shaker
SPRING
John the Baptist
DEATH K NE L L
SUMMER
Moby Dick
Master Juba
FALL
Western Gate
Mockingbird
Stronghold
Wanderlust
All drinks
$15
5.
WINTER
Winter is the end of nature's cycle, but it turns again into its beginning. While we
wait out the weather, we are comforted by the warming, spicy drinks of the hearth,
and all the preserves we put away after the harvest.
SPRING
Preacher Man
SUMMER
B ROADWAY J UNCTION
Black Rose
FALL
Little Water
Cargo Thief
L IGHTHOUSE K EEPER
Irish Coffee
All drinks
$15
7.
Spring There are good souls here, ready for redemption, I am sure,
1851 but they are poisoned by poverty. That may be the true
nature of the task entrusted to me.
Jeremiah 50:25
The Lord hath opened his armoury, and
hath brought forth the weapons of his
indignation: for this is the work of the
Lord God of hosts.
. Pease
L.M
---
WINTER
Part One - Pease: A Man on a Mission
SPRING
Shoots appear through the snow. And soon spring is everywhere. We celebrate
it with citrus from the trees, squeezing the first bright taste of springtide.
By the Shaker
SUMMER
Debonair
Magdalene
FALL
L ONE OA K
Pirate Queen
TWO TER M
Bunny Boiler
Panhandler
National Anthem
All drinks
$15
11.
WINTER
Part One - Pease: A Man on a Mission
SPRING
We celebrate the flowering all around us, turning buds into balms and elixirs
to savor in the soft glow of a fine evening.
SUMMER
HUNGER STRI K ER
L ADY GOPHER
FALL
Heretic
L o o k i n g Gl a s s
Doppelgnger
Precision Pilot
Tiny Riot
Jack of Diamonds
All drinks
$15
13.
lost to drink.
Nehemiah 2:18
Then I told them of the hand of my God which
was good upon me... And they said, Let us rise
up and build. So they strengthened their hands
for this good work
streets, feral and lost, half-naked, begging and stealing, and starving,
and perishing, body and soul. I am haunted by the piteousness of it all.
place of work and lodging and education, all the better to hear the
Word of God.
. Pease
L.M
---
SPRING
Part One - Pease: A Man on a Mission
SUMMER
As the mercury rises, so do our spirits. So let us tame temperature with
refreshing draughts to help pass the muggy, misty nights.
By the Shaker
FALL
Hit and Run
R o m a n Em p i r e
Sanhedrin
W h i t e R a bb i t
R a m s h a c kl e
Bare-Faced Liar
All drinks
$15
17.
SPRING
Part One - Pease: A Man on a Mission
SUMMER
It's time for berries and melons, and the cooling, crackling ice
ready in its straw nest in the cellar.
FALL
Drawing Board
Vigilante
F a ll e n A n g e l
P s y c h o K i ll e r
B ROTHER J OSEPH
SCAR L ET L ADY
Gold Digger
Sneak Thief
All drinks
$15
19.
Fall
1851
has your
told them the truth that I was unloading cloth. And
my employ.
we are resolved to
. Pease
L.M
---
SUMMER
Part One - Pease: A Man on a Mission
FALL
At harvest time, we revel in the yields of nature. We drowse in the temperate
days and nights, with the occasional bracing breeze.
By the Shaker
POC K ET WATCH
Viceroy
SPE L L SPO K E
Faro Point
B u ll e t p r o o f
Insurrection
CANNON B A L L OT
T a x C o ll e c t o r ( SER V ED HOT )
All drinks
$15
23.
SUMMER
Part One - Pease: A Man on a Mission
FALL
The apple from the tree becomes cider, becomes brandy. The full moon animates our
late-night feasts, but a bitter turn in the air augurs another seasonal cycle waiting in the wings.
Pub Thug
H e ll f i r e
Bloodlust
NEW A M STERDA M
Mean Fiddler
F o r t u n e T e ll e r
Irish Paladin
All drinks
$15
25
House of Industry,
Five Points, New-York. 1859-1891
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do for the New-York tippler of today. The order of the day is opulence, and
modern Broadway swells will willingly drink in surroundings that would
have made our ancestors blush at their presumption.
Yet the citys tippling-houses are many, and they serve many classes of men.
Here I present fifteen of the citys most celebrated, ones that run the gamut
from royal palace to paupers hut. I do so not to suggest that my reader might
patronize them allindeed, to send a reader into several of these establishments
would be nothing short of a criminal actbut rather that he be braced with the
detailed knowledge one needs to intelligently guide ones custom.
I shall commence with the palaces, and that means above all with Delmonicos,
at the corner of William-street and Beaver-street. This temple of Gastronomy,
which now needs no introduction, is a temple indeed: Thirteen years ago, as
if to underline that fact, the brothers Delmonico incorporated two marble
columns from the Roman ruins of Pompeii in the elegant faade of their new
Citadel, as the building is known. But while they are perhaps chiefly known
for their delectable plats du jour, the brothers have not neglected Bacchus.
The bar-room on the ground floor is one of the very finest in the city, and their
Whisky Punch is justly famous.
The Astor House, at Broadway and Vesey-street, across from the Post-Office,
is indubitably the most excellent and most modern hotel in the city. Mr. Jas.
P. Stetson, its proprietor, began his career as a bar-keeper at the celebrated
Tremont House, in Boston, and it is perhaps due to that fact that the Astor
House bar-room, secreted in the basement of the building, is unusually
spacious and well-appointed. Its receipts are said to amount to $250 a daysmall
New-Yorkers have always been a thirsty lot, yet the cozy, cobwebbed taverns
and simple, even Spartan bar-rooms that served our grandfathers would not
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On the east side of Broadway, just above Prince-street, you will find the
are yet others that they truly call their own. Geo. E. Sherwoods Oyster
has seen the portions of its leafy walkways and rustic bowers that once faced
Broadway subtracted for another use, which you will find detailed immediately
below, and the rustic wooden saloon that formerly occupied the Crosby-street
portions of the property replaced by a magnificent new Theatre and a fine
Concert Room, there remains yet enough garden to please the eye and cool
the work-heated brow. And, as ever, to receive a Sherry Cobbler from the fair
hands of Mrs. Niblo, who oversees the bar, is to receive nectar from the very
hands of Hebe herself.
One cannot mention Niblos without mentioning the Metropolitan Hotel,
the large and elegant edifice now rising on what was in former days the
the rump of his property. Simeon and William Leland, the proprietors, have
constructed one of the most opulent bar-rooms in the city, if not the whole
announced their intention to maintain one of the finest bar-rooms in the city,
country. Yet despite its intricately carved marble bar, with its vast, eagle-
no matter the cost. It is anticipated that when this edifice is completed, it will
crowned mirror, and its elegant habitus, fisticuffs are as likely to break out
take its place in the first rank of the citys accommodations, and its bar-room
Still further along Broadway stands the New-York Hotel, at Washingtonplace. In the brief four years of its existence, this imposing brick edifice has
established itself as a great favourite of New-Yorks Southern visitors, in large
part due to the excellence of its bar. Jo Fernandez, the young Spaniard who
attends the bar, enjoys a particular reputation in the city as a compounder of
Whisky Cocktails.
While individual members of New-Yorks large and colorful sporting
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There are, however, other, less turbulent branches of the fraternity. Its
theatrical branch may be found at Windusts Shakespeare House, No. 11
Park Row at Broadway, beneath the famous sign, NUNQUAM NON
PARATUS. And indeed Edward Windust and his able bar-keepers are never
not prepared to serve excellent oysters and fine liquors to the thespians and
their admirers ensconced among the memorabiliahandbills, engravings,
various objets trouvsof a thousand theatrical performances.
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Those whose devotion to the humble bivalve is yet more profound will be found
filth and nastiness immediately to its east. Likewise, it is also an outpost of the
Tammany wing of the Democratic Party, although to those who are consuming
Ann-street, where they gorge not only on the titular delicacy, expertly prepared,
but also the freshest oysters, and refresh the inner man with steaming mugs of
the houses famous Tom and Jerry. (Mr. Welch, who formerly prepared this
himself, has joined the water-drinkers and prepares it no more.)
Yet more thespians congregate at The Shades, a venerable old house now
operated by the witty Charles Cox, so well known to the fashionable gentlemen
evil counsel.
Thames-street, behind the site until recently occupied by the City-Hotel, the
Shades is a bastion for Anglophiles, who can be found sitting at the plain deal
tables, eating excellent beefsteak, drinking bright, foaming ale from earthen
mugs, and, in short, out-Englishing the English.
A rare old plant is the Ivy Green, No. 79 Elm-street, just behind the Tombs
a self-satisfied air, a team of fast horses, and a wide acquaintance among the
(as the citys prison is dolefully known), where the atmosphere is purely
sports of the town. Indeed, it is one of those sports who famously lured
Mr. Dickens to this place, where Boz bore witness to the heady atmosphere
Malachi Fallon, a son of Athlone. Mr. Fallon having departed for San Francisco
of Almacks, with its checkerboard clientele, its wild, Africanized music, and
and realms of gold, the Ivy Greenchristened after Mr. Dickenss pretty and
popular song of the same nameis now in the capable hands of Mr. Johnny
equivocal nature of Mr. Williamss patrons, it is said that every visitor is safe
Lord, who ensures that the principles of Irish hospitality are maintained and
that the ale and good whisky continue to flow, much to the delight of the
Democratic politicians who habitually congregate there.
The same cannot be said of James Deans Porterhouse, at 9 Little Waterstreet, in the very diseased heart of the Five Points, which belies its name
Like the Ivy Green, Thomas Dunlaps Pewter Mug, which stands at the
by the noxious, adulterate strong liquors with which it entertains the young
corner of Frankfort-street and Park Row, acts as a sort of customs-post for the
men, flush with the proceeds of recent robberies, and the degraded young
notorious Five Points, the tangle of low rookeries, sinkholes of vice, and general
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DAVID wondrich
David Wondrich is widely hailed as the worlds foremost
authority on the history of the cocktail and one of the
founders of the modern craft cocktail movement. The
longtime Drinks Correspondent for Esquire magazine,
Dr. Wondrich (he has a PhD in Comparative Literature)
is a five-time Tales of the Cocktail Spirit Award winner.
He is the author of countless newspaper and magazine
articles and five books, including the hugely influential
Imbibe! (2007; revised edition 2015), which was the first
cocktail book to win a James Beard award, and Punch,
which came out in late 2010 to wide acclaim and did much
to spark the current boom in punch-making. At present,
he is working on the Oxford Companion to Spirits and
Cocktails, a multi-year project. He is a founding partner in
Beverage Alcohol Resource, Americas leading advanced
training program for bartenders and other mixologists.
He also is a frequent guest lecturer at venues such as the
Smithsonian Institute, the American Museum of Natural
History and top bars on five continents and ships at sea.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
himself with such Dantean vistas as these, for in New-York, as we have seen,
the cup that cheers may be partaken of in a great many establishments with
which none but the most severe critic could find fault.
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including the bootleggers, federal agents, and wild characters who ran the
10,000 speakeasies that kept New York afloat, has completely eclipsed this
MANHATTAN
WET & DRY
A TALE OF 252
GROG-SHOPS
by Christine Sismondo
alcohol, capital punishment, and slavery. While their ideals were noble, the
fight for temperance was marked by political turmoil, street brawls, reams of
They were the best of bars, they were the worst of bars. Good or bad, though, at
propaganda that paved the way for yellow journalism, and bold disobedience
least there was no shortage of them. Antebellum New York was no exception to
from the other side. And, in the middle of all of this was Five Points, a major
battleground in the war on booze and the poster-child that proved the urgent
times. And, in 1850s New York, there were at least 5,500 places to get a dram,
need for prohibition. The fact that the neighborhoods worst features were
even though the city was in the midst of its first real brush with prohibition.
frequently invoked in the debate over the legality of alcohol is the reason we
We hardly ever hear anything about this first booze ban. Many will be surprised
still know the name Five Points and have at least a passing familiarity with
to learn that there even was an attempt to dry out before the Volstead Act,
some of its most famous inhabitants: Lewis M. Pease, Wild Maggie, and,
which, beginning in January 1920, made the national sale of alcohol illegal
for nearly 14 years. Its as if our obsession with the noble experiment,
as the Dead Rabbits. We know about its prostitutes, dance halls, grog-shops,
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and liquor groceries not because it was the worst slum in the world, but, rather,
because it was a central talking point in Americas first major national debate
about whether or not to dry out.
That said, Five Points was still pretty bad. Not exactly the kind of place youd
dream of settling down and raising a family. While New Yorks The Sun is
often said to have increased circulation with stunts like The Great Moon
Hoax, it actually built its audience with lurid accounts in its Police Reports
section of sex crimes and first-person sketches of the misery and vice in
impoverished parts of New York. In his 1843 novel The Life and Adventures
of Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens satirized the sensational penny press
paper (and its many imitators) with descriptions of street hawkers selling The
New York Stabber and the like:
Heres this mornings New York Sewer! cried one. Heres this
mornings New York Stabber! Heres the New York Family Spy!
Heres the New York Private Listener! Heres the New York Peeper!
Heres the New York Plunderer! Heres the New York Keyhole
Reporter! Heres the New York Rowdy Journal!
Figure 1 The Great Moon Hoax. In 1835, The Sun published a series of articles claiming that,
thanks to a new super-telescope, life had been observed on the moon.
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Black and white, white and black, all hug-em-snug together, happy as
lords and ladies, sitting round in a ring, with a jug of liquor between
them, and I do think I saw more drunk folks, men and women, that
day, than I ever saw before, said Crockett in A Narrative of the Life of
Davy Crockett, Written by Himself. In my country, when you meet an
Irishman, you find a first-rate gentleman; but these are worse than
savages; they are too mean to swab hells kitchen.
Crockett saw antebellum Americas worst fears realized in that scene at least
for those who worried about racial purity and moral degeneration, what with
the country experiencing hyper-immigration and on the verge of a volatile
debate over the morality of slavery. Even Dickens, who might not have been
so invested in this American preoccupation with race, was similarly shocked
when, on his visit to Five Points in 1842, he witnessed an interracial orgy at
Frank McCabes roughhouse tavern. In a scene practically right out of postapocalyptic zombie fiction, Dickens, in his American Notes, described McCabes
as a dark retreat inhabited by figures crawling half-awakened, as if the judgment
hour were near at hand, and every obscene grave were giving up its dead.
When he didnt stumble into group sex, however, Dickens seemed pretty
cheerful about interracial integration in Five Points. Unlike Crockett, who
seemed content to glean what he could about the fiddling and dancing from the
outside, Dickens actually ventured into Almacks (a.k.a. Pete Williams Place),
a dance hall on Orange Street where the famous Master Juba bested white
American dancers in Irish jigs and clog dancing. Dickens made it abundantly
clear that Almacks was no dive: The buxom fat mulatto landlady had
40.
or further reading on this, check out City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860 by
F
Christine Stansell.
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lifestyle werent just the fallen women and bankrupt rakes, but also also their
neighborhood that was built on the site of one of Americas first environmental
were cautionary tales to be sure, but they also expressed the deep ambivalence
disasters. Once a wealthy and respectable district, Collect Pond, the freshwater
many had about life in the modern city. New York was, to some, the pinnacle of
human society; to others, it was the scene of Americas regression from a noble
race of idealists into drunken animalism.
source for the area, was destroyed by pollution from tanneries and abattoirs.
The contaminated pond was drained, but a botched landfill job left the area a
muddy disaster, which added to the perception that the moral squalor grew
out of the muck and grime. Between the occasional cholera outbreak, the eras
Five Points, the new wave of Irish Catholic immigrants who were, by many,
intolerant ideas about race and religion, the endemic poverty, and the terrain
At the center of all of this was the grog-shop and grocery, such as Five Points
Crowns Grocery, with its poisoned liquor selling for pennies a glass. From
the reformers perspective, alcohol was the common thread that seemed to
connect all of these separate vices. So, beginning in the 1830s, reformers,
particularly in the Northeast, ramped up their campaign against the urban
dram shops, focusing on those that catered to the poor, the Catholics, and
recent immigrantsin some cases, all three at once. Unlike the swank hotel
bars and new breed of fancy saloons that catered to the rich, groceries were
identified as the root of all evil, and were used as a justification for the No
License votes that were meant to turn wet towns and counties dry.
Popular support was strongest in upstate New York, where many regions
opted to go dry. The area was one of several stomping grounds for a cluster
of associations of idealists working on a number of progressive reforms with
complicated relationships to one another. These reforms included womens
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have been one of the only entry-level business prospects open to themthe
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author complained about the operation of intoxicating liquors upon our elections.
But none of this would have mattered to the grog-shops Whig and KnowNothing opponents, who were only too aware that the bar-room served multiple
purposes. In fact, from the point of view of some temperance societies, these
other uses for the grog-shop were probably the most dangerous things about them.
In the 1852 Annual Report of the American Temperance Union, for example, the
The fact that the grog-shop was a place where politicians (especially Democrats)
could campaign and buy thirsty votes was one of the major factors involved in
nudging temperance over the line from fringe to mainstream. Local option
(to vote a town or county dry) became an increasingly popular vote in towns
dotted all over the United States.
As those who have traveled through Kentucky know perfectly well, though, a
dry county isnt such a terrible hardship, since theres plenty of liquor just two
towns over. But in 1851, Maine residents changed the game by voting the entire
state dry. Buoyed by the support of the Know-Nothings, more than a third of the
existing 31 statesMaine, obviously, but also Delaware, Massachusetts, New
York, Connecticut, Ohio, Vermont, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire,
Indiana, Iowa, and even Texaswould follow suit and implement their own
versions of a Maine Law to hamper the sale of alcohol. Given population
density, this meant half of all Americans lived in a dry state at some point. Texas,
admittedly, allowed alcohol, so long as it was sold in quart-sized containers. So
it seems everything really is bigger in Texas, including moderation.
Figure 5 The Seven Stages of the Office Seeker, by Edward Williams Clay. This 1852 satire of New
York politics shows how the saloon was used by politicians. Stage One: He proves to thirsty loafers
hes the man, / And drowns their judgment in the flowing can.
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Although Maine Laws had broad support and reflected the wishes of the
majority of the electorate in the 13 states in which they were implemented, most
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were also hotly contested and did not pass easily. To some, they were evidence
of the tyranny of the majority, and the manifestation of the greatest fears of
Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who were, from
the start, concerned that democratic rule would trample on inalienable rights.
To others, though, Maine Laws were nothing less than the logical extension of
Manifest Destiny. How could America be a shining city upon a hill if its citizens
were drunk and depraved?2
In New York, this argument began in earnest in 1853, when Whig party member
Myron H. Clark introduced a bill in the state legislature that proposed making
the sale of alcohol illegal as of July 4, 1854. That specific date, Independence Day,
was meant to remind everybody that the law was in keeping with the original
goals of the utopian republic. While the debate over the constitutionality of
the law was taking place in Albany, the state capital, temperance supporters
were busy flooding the country with propaganda. Greeley, the New-York
Tribune publisher, did his part by sending his agricultural reporter, Solon
Robinson, back into the neighborhood George Foster had previously mined
for sensationalism, and Robinson pointedly chronicled the ravages of alcohol
in Five Points.
Robinson called on Reverend Lewis M. Pease, who introduced the writer to
the victims of alcohol in Five Points. In 1853, the paper ran a story about Wild
Maggie, a tale of resistance and redemption involving a sassy, orphaned girl
who was initially hostile to Pease, despite his efforts to help her. Tribune readers
were thrilled to follow Margaret Reagans transformation and, eventually, her
move to the countryside, where she was adopted into a wholesome new life.
2
or further reading on this, try Kyle G. Volks Moral Minorities and the Making of
F
American Democracy.
Figure 6 Uncle Sams Youngest Son, Citizen Know-Nothing. 1854. Library of Congress.
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The story was so well received that Robinson went back to Pease to collect more
morally instructive tales from the area. These were assembled into Hot Corn,
a book that took its name from the cries of the children who hawkedwell,
hot corn on the streets to earn a few pennies for their drunken, undeserving
mothers. Peases stock went up. Significantly.
None of this is to suggest Pease wasnt worthy of beatification. He was a
remarkable character who seems to have lived his religion, not merely
preached it. He must have understood how the hopelessness that stemmed
from poverty would undermine any attempts at reform. In response, he risked
(and, ultimately, lost) his position with the Ladies Home Missionary Society
by helping establish the House of Industry, where Five Points denizens learned
skills and secured employment. By establishing the possibility of a brighter
future, Pease gave some residents a reason to reform. Its worth noting that
he funded much of the shortfalls out of his own pocket and that his system
anticipated many aspects of the modern welfare system.3
If Pease was the hero, Hot Corns villains were also clear. These would be the
grog-shop, liquor grocery and saloon, all equally accountable. Although the
groggeries that catered to Irish and German immigrants fueled much of the
initial energies directed towards prohibition, Solon Robinson didnt just take
aim at dives. Little Katy, one of the delicate little girls who sold hot corn
to support a drunken mother, might have been subsidizing the bad man
at the corner grocery with her meager earnings, but, Robinson conjectured,
Figure 7 Know-Nothing Soap advertisement. 1854. Library of Congress. The Know-Nothing
Party identified as Native Americans who objected to immigrants, even though they were mostly
second- or third-generation immigrants who were increasingly taking over the land once inhabited
by actual Native Americans.
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o learn more about Five Points and Pease, read Tyler Anbinders book, Five Points: The
T
Nineteenth-Century Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the
Worlds Most Notorious Slum
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her mothers first glass had been taken in a fashionable saloon or first-class
liquor-selling hotel. The rabbit-hole from Broadway to vice- and povertyridden Five Points was easy to fall down but to Robinson, there was actually
no difference between the grog-shops and the palatial splendors of the
metropolitan saloons on Broadway. In fact, their proximity to one another
only illuminated the connection between the two:
Okay, so maybe the book isnt exactly an exercise in literary excellence. And if
it seems surprising such a blatant and clumsy piece of propaganda as Hot Corn
should sell so well, consider it in the context of other best sellers of the day.
This would be a list that omitted Moby-Dick, Leaves of Grass, and Walden,
but included Uncle Toms Cabin, the lesser-known The Wide, Wide World
and Ten Nights in a Bar Roomall three novels of moral instruction with
Figure 8 Illustration from Hot Corn Life Scenes in New York Illustrated,
including the story of little Katy Madalin, the bag-picker's daughter.
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strong temperance messages. People didnt just read them, either; they were
adapted for stage and performed all over the country, making these stories as
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Figure 9 Temperance, But No Maine-Law 1854. Library of Congress. By Augustus Fay. Satire
of temperance supporters like Fernando Wood (said to be the man in the hat shaking hands)
quaffing drinks and engaging in a range of bad behaviors.
run for governor himself. And won. His first order of business? To introduce
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a new law prohibiting the sale of alcohol to replace the previously vetoed one.
The Maine Law debate resumed but, this time, Clarks new law was pushed
through quickly. And on April 9, 1855, New York State went dry.
Well, sort of. Almost all New Yorkers simply ignored the law. If any of
Manhattans 5,500 bars were charged with breaking this law, there doesnt
seem to be any record. With saloon owner Matthew Brennan acting as a police
captain, its hard to imagine that many of the saloons in the Sixth Ward were
penalized for selling liquor. Support for grog didnt end with the police, either.
With ex-saloon owner Mayor Fernando Wood at the helm of city government,
non-compliance went straight to the top, where Woods stalwart refusal to
enforce prohibition is said to have been the stance that won him the eternal
support of the Dead Rabbit gang.
Those New York City liquor interests hadnt given up, either. They were merely
waiting for an arrest, since there were a number of grounds on which the law could be
contested, namely, a lack of provision for due process and a lack of respect for private
property. With nobody enforcing the law in Manhattan, it was beginning to look as
if it was going to be quite the wait for a test case. It eventually did happen, though, in
Buffalo, where saloon owner James Wynehamer was arrested for selling liquor.
His appeal, granted in March 1856, established that he had not been tried
by a jury of his peers and that the liquor (which he had apparently bought
before the statute had become law), was private property and, therefore, his
inalienable right to sell it. The law was overturned.
Manhattans immigrant population must have celebrated heartily, since some
Figure 10 Myron H. Clark wasted little time getting this law passed once he became governor.
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a living. On the other side of the fence, both the Whigs and Know-Nothings
were devastated and once the divisive slavery issue started to splinter already
weakened political allegiances, both parties were doomed. Bleeding Kansas,
the eruption of violence over slavery in the Kansas/Missouri border towns
from 1854 to 1861, signaled the seeming inevitability of the Civil War, and
reformers channeled most of their efforts into the most urgent problem
stopping the expansion of the peculiar institution of slavery.
Myron H. Clarks party, the Whigs, might have been decimated by political
disputes over temperance and other hot issues, but he emerged relatively
unscathed and went on to become a prominent man in the new Republican
Party, a party championed by the New-York Tribune under Greeleys direction.
The Democrats, meanwhile, were diminished as a result of their own internal
strife but in New York City, under the command of the newly-elected mayor
Fernando Wood, it was the dawn of a new, more cynical era. Wood had
played all sides, getting support from hard Democrats, soft Democrats,
and even from the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, prohibitionist, nativist
Know-Nothing supportersa bizarre coalition of unlikely bedfellows. Woods
election in 1854 marked the end of the federal era of New Yorks history
and the beginning of Tammany Hall control, an era dominated by saloon-based
campaigns, gang violence, and the consolidation of political support in bars
pretty much the reformers worst nightmare about the grog-shops come true,
with a vengeance. Although Tammany owned municipal politics, Woods hold
on the city was tenuous and controversial. A protracted feud between Wood and
Figure 11 Those opposed to prohibition invoked notions of personal liberty. Image found in
Kyle G. Volks Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy.
60.
the Republicans in Albany led to one of the most infamous civil uprisings in
61.
New Yorks historythe two-day Dead Rabbits Riot that, starting on July 4,
1857, saw massive gang brawls, businesses looted, untold injuries, and eight
people killed.
Wood ultimately wound up serving in Congress.
And Lewis M. Pease? A few years after the end of the Civil War, he moved from
New York to Asheville, North Carolina, where he established four schools for
the poor and the children of recently freed slaves. And Five Points soldiered on
without him. Pease was hardly the last reformer to hit the streets there, nor was
Greeley the last sensationalist to chronicle the squalor to make a political point.
Muckraking pioneering photojournalist Jacob Riis would expose the horrors
of tenement housing in his 1890 book, How the Other Half Lives, a reformminded attempt to raise awareness of urban poverty. And Herbert Asbury
successfully kept the notoriety of the neighborhood alive, writing exaggerated
accounts of the vice and crime of the area in his infamous Gangs of New York .
Between George Foster, Solon Robinson, Riis, Asbury, and a handful of others,
Five Points reputation as a squalid, vice-ridden hell-hole seemed impossible
to shake, even in the face of archeological evidence that contradicted popular
lore. Excavations in the 1990s turned up artifacts suggesting that, while the area
certainly played host to more than its fair share of brothels and groggeries, it was
also lived in by plenty of average, perfectly respectable, working-class families.
The reputation of Five Points would forever be tarnished by that battle to
make the state dry. But the city, overall, fared better. New York would not only
survive that prohibition, it would become known for fostering the bars that
were the face of the golden age of drinking and the central birthplace of the
American cocktail. And it still has no shortage of barssome average, some
fine, and some of the best in the world.
God bless them, every one.
62.
Figure 12 The Great Republican Reform Party, Calling on their Candidate. Louis Maurer, 1856.
Library of Congress. On the left, the temperance man says: The first thing we want, is a law making
the use of Tobacco, Animal food, and Lager-bier a Capital Crime.
63.
Figure 13 Frank Leslies Illustrated Newspaper, July 18, 1857. View from the Dead Rabbit barricade
in Bayard Street, taken at the height of the battle by our own artist, who, as spectator, was present at the fight.
64.
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Christine Sismondo
Christine Sismondo believes just about everything
interesting that ever happened in America started in a bar.
From dives to swank loungesand everything in between
bars are the spaces where people meet, fall in love and make
plans to change the world. And this is the point Sismondo
makes in her love letter to the local, America Walks into a
Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies
and Grog-Shops.
66.