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OldWaldorf Bar Days
York telephone directory contains, and still not be able
to get them all in. The crowd has been compared to a
"Who's Who." Often, it contained a 'lot of "Who
Wasn't." No list of references was required for admis–
sion; no card; nothing, as a matter of fact, beyond a
fairly decent appearance, or one that advertised ready
money.
If
a detective who was supposed to keep his
eye on the crowd happened to be off guard, others
slipped in. Questionable characters and crooks, for ex–
ample. But even a Waldorf sleuth would be slow to
deny admission to Dr. John Grant Lyman, promoter
of a notorious zinc swindle during the early part of the
century, for Lyman "looked like a million dollars,"
talked that way, and bought that way. True, they had
prevented him from registering during the hotel's early
days, but for years he proved a good customer of the
Bar, and no doubt there found many an ear ready to
drink in his "blue sky" chants.
PROFESSIONAL REVOLUTIONISTS
Not infrequently, revolution-experts were of the com–
pany present-men who were the heads or members of
organizations that stood ready, at the drop of a hat,
or upon receipt of a code cable, to start up trouble in
any Latin-American country, provided the prke was
forthcoming.
Gun:-runningwas at one time a remuner–
ative, if sometime hazardous vocation-some spelled it
''avocation''-in the Caribbean and along the West
coast from Nicaragua down. One dealer in ammunition
and guns owned, or leased, an island up the Hudson,
which was reported to be well stocked with the latest
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