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V. HISTORICAL
THE OLD WALDORF BAR
1897-1919
"And drop upon its grave a tear."
N
OT far from the spot where the Indian chief who
sold Peter Minuit the Island of Manhattan coined
the expression, "Here's how!" when he tackled the bottle
of rum that the crafty Dutchman threw
a~er
his twenty–
four dollars to bind the bargain; not far from that spiritu–
ous spot,
in
later years, arose a mighty hotel. In one of
its great halls, disciples, if not descendants, of the noble
red man were wont to assemble every afternoon, and to
preface, as well as conclude, with his utterance on that
memorable occasion, deals which caused the original New
York real estate speculation to dwindle to the proportions
of a fly-speck.
What some of those men did, under the influence of a
just-ended session of the Stock Exchange, of the news–
ticker that kept discharging its tape into a waste-basket,
and possibly-and probably-of what was dispensed in
that hall by a dozen talented bartenders, helped make
American history. Men staked fortunes there; they formed
pools; they plotted to corner markets. For years the names
of certain of them made the first page of the newspapers
almost every. day. They were, in their way, giants, and
they took their ease
in
a Gargantuan way.
Many of that noble army of gallant drinkers I knew
by name; many others I knew by sight. The majority
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