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FOREWORD
had no peer. So far, no attempt has been made to recreate in
print just what that place was and what it meant. What
follows is a study of the old Waldorf Bar and its happen-
ings, as representative of a phase of American social life
which was once important, yet which-so slight is resem–
blance between that Bar and any speakeasy-may be said
to have disappeared as completely as the vast enterprise of
which it was long one of the most popular and most remu–
nerative departments.
The author does not assume to be an authority on the
composition
of
drinks or their ejfects-except as an ob–
server. But he first saw the old Waldorf Bar about one
month after its opening in the autumn of
1897.
He had
occasion to enter it frequently during the first seventeen
years of the century; it was one place where a newspaper
reporter could be sure offinding a patron of the hotel whom
he wished to interview and who happened to be in no other
part of the building. For two years of that time his office was
in the hotel and he visited the Bar daily in search of news.
In gathering materialfor this book, he has had assistance
from many veteran employes of the old Waldorf, some
of
whom date from the days of the "sit-down" caji, that ran
for more than four years. before the brass-rail Bar opened,
with which this book is mainly concerned. And among his
other collaborators have been regular patrons
of
the Bar
who knew its habitu-is and what went on there.