Wednesday, December 23, 2020 – EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY AND VERY FULL AFTER READING THIS MENU

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SHOP THE RIHS KIOSK WEDNESDAY / THURSDAY 12 NOON TO 5 P.M.

Hotel Pabst on Longacre Square

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2020

OUR 243rd  ISSUE
OF
FROM OUR ARCHIVES

A Christmas feast at Midtown’s new
Hotel Pabst

1900

FROM EPHEMERAL NEW YORK  (C)

Never heard of the Hotel Pabst? You’re not alone. The nine-story tower with a steel skeleton swathed in limestone only existed from 1899 to 1902—built on the slender triangle formed by Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street at Longacre Square.

Run by the Pabst Brewing Company as part of a short-term effort to acquire hotels, the elegant hostelry at the upper reaches of the city’s theater district and lobster palaces was replaced by the New York Times‘ headquarters in 1904 (and Longacre Square became Times Square).

The eye-popping Christmas dinner menu has been preserved by the New York Public Library in their Buttolph Collection of Menus. Between the carte de jour oyster offerings to the 20-plus desserts (plum pudding! Cream puffs!) are a dozen or so courses that must have taken an army of chefs to prepare.

Many of the dishes are the typical heavy fare of a hotel menu in New York of the era: terrapin a la Maryland, quail, stuffed turkey, filet of sole, prime beef, and lamb chops.

There’s a fair number of items borrowed from French menus, which makes sense, as French cuisine was seen as the most elegant at the time

Some of the dishes are completely foreign to contemporary American tastes, however. Cold game pie, Philadelphia squabs, and reed ducks, anyone?

One thing stands out, though: Christmas dinner at a hotel in 1900 was certainly a feast. By the time you finished your Nesselrode pudding and revived yourself with your Turkish coffee, buttons must have been popping off your clothes!

[Top photo: MCNY 93.1.1.6427; menu: NYPL Buttolph Collection of Menus]

Tags: Buttoph Collection of Menus NYPL, Christmas Dinner Menus 1900, Hotel Pabst Longacre Square, Hotel Pabst New York City, Longacre Square 1900, Longacre Square Times Square, Old Christmas Dinner Menus NYC
Posted in Bars and restaurants, Holiday traditions, Midtown, Out-of-date guidebooks, Sketchy hotels

WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

Can you identify this site?

Send you submission to 
ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM

TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

FERRY WELFARE FROM EAST 78 STREET
TO DOCK NEAR METROPOLITAN HOSPITAL NOW OCTAGON.
SERVICE ENDED IN 1957.
JAY JACOBSON GOT IT RIGHT

A FEAST 

READING THESE MENUS OF DAYS A CENTURY AGO IS A TRIP THRU TIME WHEN THE WELL-OFF LIVED AND ATE WELL WITH MANY MULTI-COURSE MEALS.  CHECK OUT THE ITEMS AND REMEMBER WHEN OUR MEALS WERE HEAVY AND FULL OF CALORIES.

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c)
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
unless otherwise indicated

EPHEMERAL NEW YORK   (C)

FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD

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rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com