Coney Island

For this Musical Monday, we take the train out to Coney Island for a trip down memory lane.

Reginald Marsh  Wonderland Circus, Sideshow Coney Island, 1930 (ARTstor)

From 1926, the Five Harmaniacs with Coney Island Washboard Roundelay, music by Hampton Durand and Jerry Adams, words by Ned Nestor and Aude Shugart: 

Jug band not your style? How about some street corner harmony with the Excellents: 

Amusing the Zillions "fave Coney Island song" is Joe McGinty's Million Dollar Mermaid :


Coney Island Tours Coney Island History Project Coney Island USA The Brooklyn Theatre Index, Volume III, Coney Island Including  Brighton Beach & Manhattan Beach is available online at the Coney Island USA Gift Shop.

Cezar Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, a three-volume history of borough showplaces. The first two volumes chosen 2010 OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR by the Theatre Historical Society. Final volume published in  September 2014.

He conducts a series of popular theatre talks and walking tours.

Now selling on Etsy

Splinter Beach

In the sweltering heat of a New York summer, city kids once sought refuge in front of the johnny pump or by diving into the murky waters of the East River.

Weegee ( Arthur Fellig ): Children playing in water sprayed from an open fire hydrant (johnny pump), 1942.

George Wesley Bellows, Splinter Beach, lithograph, 1913


Coming: The Floating East River Pool

Cezar Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, a three-volume history of borough showplaces. The first two volumes chosen 2010 OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR by the Theatre Historical Society. Final volume published in  September 2014.

He conducts a series of popular theatre talks and walking tours.

Now selling on Etsy.

42nd Street

"42nd Street", a pre-code musical directed by Lloyd Bacon, featuring the choreography of Busby Berkeley. Songs composed by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics).

Movies and the Great Depression had already brought changes to 42nd Street by the time this film was released in 1933. 

The area eventually became known as the Deuce. The once elegant theatres reduced to grind houses. The Urban Dictionary providing the fellowing definition:

The Deuce

42nd Street in New York City (the southernmost part of Times Square). Back in the day, a center of total depravity, especially between 8th and 9th Avenue, but currently Disneyfied. 

Each Monday, Baghdad on the Subway takes a musical look at the City.

Cezar Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, a three-volume history of borough showplaces. The first two volumes chosen 2010 OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR by the Theatre Historical Society. Final volume published in  September 2014.

He conducts a series of popular theatre talks and walking tours.

Now selling on Etsy.

On a Musical Note: The Bowery

This week, we stroll the Bowery,of the "Gay 90s", where they say such things and do strange things.

From the musical A Trip to Chinatown with music by Percy Gaunt and lyrics by Charles H. Hoyt.

From Wikipedia

Preservation Note:
Bowery Alliance
Lower East Side Preservation Initiative
Each Monday, Baghdad on the Subway enjoys a musical view of the city.

Cezar Del Valle is the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, a three-volume history of borough showplaces. The first two volumes chosen 2010 OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR by the Theatre Historical Society. Final volume published in  September 2014.

He conducts a series of popular theatre talks and walking tours.

Now selling on Etsy.

 

Elegy in Manhattan

George Jessel, photo: Gene Lester

Drawing inspiration from Spoon River Anthology, George Jessel wrote Elegy in Manhattan, transforming Edgar Lee Master's fictional village into the real world of New York entertainment.

"The confiding thoughts of fifty-six glittering guys and gals who once walked the streets of the Big Town."



As in Spoon River, the first poem serves as an introduction:

"Where are Joe and Lew;
Sam Bernard, Foy, Hitchy;
Nat C. Goodwin, and all his lovely wives;
'Terrible Terry,' 'Big John L';
The Frohman brothers, Charles and Dan;
The Shuberts, Lee and Sam?

"Nearly all are resting on
the banks of Manhattan,
Dreaming of how Lillian Russell
looked that New Year's Eve at Delmonico's,
of what Al Smith said
to Murphy that morning in Tammany Hall, 
of what Teddy R. said
at Union Square of young Cohan's 'Waving the Flag,'
and of 'dashing Jimmy'
the Mayor.

"Nearly all are resting on the banks of the Manhattan."   

On Amazon

Cezar Del Valle is also the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, a three-volume history of borough showplaces. The first two volumes chosen 2010 OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR by the Theatre Historical Society. Final volume published in  September 2014.

He conducts a series of popular theatre talks and walking tours.

Now selling on Etsy.

On a Musical Note--I'll Take Manhattan

Each Monday, Baghdad on the Subway takes a musical view of the city.

Makers of Melody (1929) (S. Jay Kaufmann) by hohlenmensch

The 1929 short Makers of Melody featuring Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart supposedly backstage at a Broadway theatre and not on a movie set.

Showcased is their first hit song Manhattan, sung by Ruth Tester and Allan Gould.

Cezar Del Valle is also the author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index, a three-volume history of borough showplaces. The first two volumes chosen 2010 OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR by the Theatre Historical Society. Final volume published in  September 2014.

He conducts a series of popular theatre talks and walking tours.

Now selling on Etsy.

Pip and Flip, Coney Island, 1932

Artists have long been drawn to Brooklyn's gaudy "Sodom by the Sea."  Reginald Marsh among the most famous.

Pip and Flip, 1932. Tempera on paper mounted on canvas
(© 2013 Estate of Reginald Marsh/Art Students League, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Working her way down from vaudeville to sideshows was Mrs. Jack "Legs" Diamond, widow of the slain gangster. She worked for Samuel Wagner at the World Circus Sideshow, 1216 Surf Avenue, Coney island. 

PiP and Flip, Jenny Lee and Elvira Snow, were micro-cephalics from Georgia, not Peru. They appeared in the movie Freaks (1932).


On Sunday, July 12, 2015,  Cezar Del Valle, author of the Brooklyn Theatre Index Volume III, hosts the cHURCH OF MONICA, Open Source Gallery, with an illustrated talk on the history of Coney Island theatre.

He is available for theatre talks and walks in 2015-2016: historical societies, libraries, senior centers, etc.

Now selling “vintage” on Etsy.