Speakeasies of 1932: Over 400 Drawings, Paintings & Photos - Hardcover

Hirschfeld, Al

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1557835187 ISBN 13: 9781557835185

Publisher: Glenn Young Books, 2003

Synopsis

Introduction by Pete Hamill.

When Manhattan joints were hung out to dry, the Booze-oizie sniveled, then pirouetted on their stools to find reasonably palatable Speakeasy facsimiles. These Prohibition hangouts each had their own flavor, decorum, décor and formula for ducking the law. Each found its own alcoholic substratum: its own inimitable characters behind, at and under the bar.

Fear not – all has not been lost to the repeal of the 18th Amendment, Starbucks corporate latte, and the wrecking ball. One intoxicating artifact remains, a book of lustrous vintage – Al Hirschfeld's The Speakeasies of 1932, wherein Hirschfeld nails these dipsomaniacal outposts with his pen and brush in the manner of a dour Irish bartender sizing up a troublesome souse. Provided as well is the recipe for each of the speakeasy's cocktail claim to fame. The resulting concoction is the perfect antidote to the Cappuccino Grande Malaise, a book that will make everyone yearn for a Manhattan, old fashioned, and straight up.

“His comments are as swooping and witty as his lines.”

– The New Yorker

About this title

About the Author

Before Al Hirschfeld was known for being at every Broadway opening, he was known for being at many speakeasies until closing. Gordon Kahn, journalist bar excellence, accompanied him on this mixological tour de force.

Reviews

Brought back into print, this redesigned volume of Hirschfeld's pen-and-ink drawings from 1932 offers a window onto the Jazz Age. His trademark illustrations capture the feeling of bartenders, both straight-faced and dour, as well as of the patrons, some dressed for dance, others longing to bend an ear. Set on the facing page of each drawing is a short essay on the drinking establishment (written by Gordon Kahn and Al Hirschfeld), followed by the recipe for that place's signature drink. For example, in Mike's bar in Harlem, the author's write, "Caucasian patronage is tolerated but not solicited," and the Pink Lady Cocktail is made with grenadine, brandy, gin and egg white. Hirschfeld depicts the bartender Ralph, serving a sophisticated, blasé black couple, sitting at the same table as a derelict-looking white man. The publication of this book marks the launch of Applause's new imprint, Glenn Young Books.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Originally published in 1932 under the rather coy title "Manhattan Oases," Hirschfeld and Kahn's book memorializes three dozen of some thirty-two thousand illegal drinking holes that sprang up in New York during Prohibition, ranging from the Mansion, where "admission is by a unique, wooden card only," to the Bowery dive O'Leary's. In Hirschfeld's caricatures of the barmen behind their bars, his dynamic line is less exuberant than in later years and has a muted quality appropriate to the Depression. The text, co-written by Kahn, a journalist and screenwriter whose career was later destroyed by the blacklist, includes a specialty of each house—gin daisy, horse's neck, brandy flip, prairie-oyster cocktail, and so on. A preface, written by Hirschfeld shortly before his death, in January, insists that he and Kahn tried every single one: "This may be the best damned researched book ever."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Edition details

• Publisher: Glenn Young Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1557835187
• ISBN 13: 9781557835185
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96