In Selected Letters Vol. V we encounter Lovecraft writing a late letter to Kleiner. Lovecraft recalls a “Chatham” as a key landmark from early in his New York City years…

the quaint familiar landmarks (Scotch Bakery – Chatham – 78 Columbia Heights, etc.)

This is not footnoted in the first edition of the Kleiner letters. No other reference to a “Chatham” occurs in Letters I have access to.

However the 1925 Diary comes to the rescue with… “Ph. Sug. Ho. Chatham Sq.” and one other mention of “Chatham”. The mention of “Sq.” led me to Chatham Square. This was a very major NYC transport intersection, with the Elevated railway there having fine views of the city skyline… along with less welcome chilly gusts.

Here we see one platform of the Chatham Square’s Elevated twin-platform station in the 1930s, as superbly photographed by Arnold Eagle. Presumably “Chatham” was where Lovecraft frequently met up with some of his Circle who were coming in on the Elevated, before they headed elsewhere.

And here we see a Chatham Square platform in the 1940s, and some of the rainy street below.

Following on from yesterday’s notes, the final post for Selected Letters II.

Page 259: Here Lovecraft is giving advice to young Talman, who by January 1929 had moved to Red Hook. Lovecraft recalls that when living at Clinton Street he had patronised… “the grocer on the corner of Atlantic” as he put it. Thus Clinton Street and Atlantic Avenue, very near his room. He seems to imply there was only one such possible corner with a grocer on it.

Now it can’t be the “Atlantic Food Centre” seen on 1940s.nyc, because that corner was gone by 1934 and the “Food Center” only appeared there after Lovecraft’s time. Before that it was the Fougera apartments. They had stores beneath the apartments, but the larger of these appears to have been a liquor store.

Although on 1940s.nyc the lower picture may be earlier, as the “Druggist” corner on the right of the picture was also demolished in 1942.

We know what the Fougera corner looked like in 1922, before demolition and the later “Atlantic Food Centre”, thanks to pictures in an article on The Fougera by New York historian Brownstoner. It does not look like a grocery store…

The picture of the demolished Fougera site does however give us a peep down the street to Lovecraft’s famous No. 169 Clinton address, albeit in 1935 and thus ten years after his time there…

Lovecraft says elsewhere that he patronised the Syrian “tailor in the same block”, and here we can indeed see a large sign for “Tailor”. Also a glimpse of the corner store on the right (“Heyd…” something). We know from Lovecraft’s “Red Hook” story that there were relic Norwegians in the area, so my guess on the name would be Scandinavian. There are plenty of Heyde and Heyder surnames in Norway. A later picture shows a drugstore/chemists there, and this earlier incarnation does have the visual feel of a chemists’ shop. Not a grocery then.

But what of Lovecraft’s grocer? It’s not the Fougera corner and it’s not the drugstore corner. So it should be one of two possibilities that are behind the above-seen cameraman.

Ok, the 1940s.nyc site now lets me ‘turn the camera around’ and give readers a look at those two possible grocery stores.

The bottom and slicker-looking one was built as a savings bank, which moved out in 1922. Google Street View has the building’s Clinton side as “191 Clinton” and the shorter Atlantic side of the same building is “160 Atlantic Avenue”. The same numbering applied in the 1920s. In 1922 American Art News announces…

Nicolas Macsoud [a painter of the Orient and miniaturist, 1884-1972] has returned to his studio, 191 Clinton Street, Brooklyn.

Although that may indicate the rooms above. The large apartments above the bank were home to several artists circa 1890s-1910s, and circa the 1900s-1910s the address pops up frequently on art show catalogues now on Archive.org. In 1921 it was still the address of the Brooklyn Society of Miniature Painters, though that may be because of the miniaturist Nicolas Macsoud. Nothing much is heard of art there after 1922. That may be due to the copyright cut-off. Or it could be that the artists departed with the bank in 1922, as the area went rapidly downhill.

But my feeling is that a lush marble-lined savings bank of 1922 would not suddenly become home to a cheap grocers the very next year. This reinforces my feeling that 160 Atlantic Avenue / 191 Clinton Street was not Lovecraft’s corner grocery, if it even was a grocery circa 1923-27. To me it feels, peering through the fuzz, like a fancy bread and cakes shop. Or perhaps a fruitier.

Update: I can now discount the store on this ‘bank’ corner of Atlantic Avenue – Clinton Street. A 1927 picture shows that a corner store was not yet there at that time.

That leaves one option. The top of the two pictures is the final possible corner, at 156 Atlantic Avenue. In this circa 1940 picture the address feels the cheaper of the two possible stores. It has what might be ‘delicatessen’ sign-writing on the windows. On the balance of probabilities, I’d say that Lovecraft’s Red Hook grocery store was at No. 156.

Today the area has obviously gentrified and 156 is the affluent hipster’s ‘Swallow Cafe’, though its facade still keeps the old name ‘Tripoli’ (the well-reviewed middle-eastern and “seafood specialities” restaurant that was there 1982-2010s). Pictures of the side of the building today show it goes quite far back, far enough to allow for a large grocery store in the 1920s, and this is confirmed by a similar early 1940s view of the place…

Mythos writers may then be interested to learn that No. 156 also goes down quite deep…

156 Atlantic Avenue: this particular building has three sub-basements, the lowest of which lines up with track level inside the [subway] tunnel. (The World’s Oldest Subway, 2015, page 22)

Thus Lovecraft’s Red Hook corner grocery had deep basements that went down and down until they reached the level of the city’s oldest subway. And was later home to a “seafood specialities” restaurant. Hmmm….

This week, another try at finding H.P. Lovecraft’s New York City cafes and eateries. Today Bickford’s, tomorrow… John’s.

H.P. Lovecraft mentions that a favoured eatery in Brooklyn was “Bickford’s” near Borough Hall. The place was found early during his New York City sojourn. He had abandoned the Tiffany, whose wood-panelled decor he favoured, after he discovered that the clients just could not be ignored in favour of the decor…

the clientele was past enduring … young toughs and gangsters … I got all my stomach could stand after three or four months and thereafter switched to Bickford’s – near Borough Hall.” (Selected Letters II, page 259).

The early switch is confirmed by his 1925 Diary, which notes “Bickford’s”.

In the early 1920s Bickford’s was part of a small but growing chain, with the owner Samuel L. Bickford known for his work with and fund-raising for the Boys Club in Brooklyn. He had also run the New England Waldorf’s Lunch chain in the 1910s, and since these were one of Lovecraft’s favourites he could have been familiar with Bickford’s name in that way. In New York Mr. Bickford offered the unbeatable combination of good cheap food, fast service, and long hours. His chain was a success and in the 1920s branched out into even faster service with self-service automats, it seems, if the New York City branches listed in directories as ‘Bickford’s Lunch System’ are anything to go by. He ended up with a large successful chain.

The Chain Store Age trade magazine tells us that a Bickford’s branch wasn’t located at 425 Fulton Street until 1927. Thus the 58 Court Street branch must have been Lovecraft’s haunt in the Red Hook years, and it is indeed very “near Borough Hall” being just a few steps away down Court St. He calls this branch of Bickford’s a “one-arm”, meaning both cheap and that it had ‘side-arm’ tables just wide enough to hold your plate of food.

In its better days 58 Court Street had been the home to Mr. Edward Greaf, first-class dealer and importer of wines and also the Curator of Entomology at the Brooklyn Institute. But by the 1940s it was the Concord Cafeteria, with a Chop Suey hall above…

As can be seen here in the late 1930s. The former Bickford’s is now the Concord cafeteria and is partly seen on the left. The 25-cent Chop Suey restaurant is above…

Today Street View shows the site as a seedy “Dunkin’ Donuts” hole-in-the-wall next to a failed “General Nutrition” health-food store. However, most of the pleasing stonework and a classic Brooklyn metal fire-escape remain above, evoking a touch of the past.

The above 1940s picture is the nearest in time and place to the 1920s I can get. Not quite as Lovecraft would have known it some 15 years earlier, but I note that since 1917 Bickford’s branches all had the same classy architect and designer, one F. Russell Stuckert. Thus the Court Street branch would probably not be too different from the following frontage in design and logo and perhaps also the use of stained glass. Here we see his design work in the post-1927 frontage for the nearby 425 Fulton Street branch, located a little to the west of Borough Hall…

“Hot Turkey” on the menu. The frontage is deceptive as to the size, since inside it was vast and went back and back and back again — as I’ll explain in another post. The smartness of this 1927 branch, seen here in the late 1930s, may not quite reflect that of the earlier and more worn Court Street branch circa 1925.

David W. Dunlap wrote about the cultural aura of the Bickford’s chain in 2000 in The New York Times, then a reputable newspaper of record. He noted that in the 1950s Ginsberg’s Howl beat generation… “sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s” (Howl, Ginsberg), and that the great Woody Allen later revered the chain… “I got no money. I’ll go sit in Bickford’s.” (Getting Even, 1971, his breakthrough book collection). Other New York creatives also mentioned it over the years. But Dunlap didn’t pick up on the fact that one H.P. Lovecraft had, as usual, got there first.

Hurrah, persistence pays off. Friday the 13th might be unlucky for some, but it’s lucky for Lovecraftians. Because here at last is a picture of Lovecraft’s favourite Jacques Lunch, and at the 9 Canal Street address too. Aka “Jake’s”.

From the budget bundle-o’-local-photos book Rhode Island: Unforgettable Vintage Images of the Ocean State, published 2000 and now long out of print. Here cleaned, rectified and colorised.

The date is uncertain. The caption has it that Hugues Jacques and Pierre ‘Leo’ Jacques are seen behind the counter, and we know from Ken Faig Jr. that they took over the former bar in 1923. So it is probably at about that date or a little later. One can see a docks-worker and probably at least one docks foreman or truck-driver eating at the counter. As well as several old gents who might be of limited means, perhaps the “Salvation Army derelicts” as Lovecraft once referred to them in a letter. A certain ‘Domingo’, not seen, also regularly served behind the counter…

Toward Domingo, an olive-skinned, behind-the-counter servitor at Jacques’, his favorite eating place in Providence, he was as affable as a courtier in a drawing room.” (Talman, on Lovecraft)

Lovecraft had discovered this cheap and abundantly sustaining eatery via Talman in 1926, and from then on he regularly enjoyed its man-sized portions of cheap food. He does not appear to have been a daily or even a weekly customer, but he dropped in and was well known to the place and its people — especially in the summer “visiting season”. The place seems to have slowly slid downmarket over the years. From late summer 1933, and as the Great Depression deepened, Jake’s began to tolerate what Lovecraft called “extremes in the matter of clientele”. He sought out other nearby options, and came to patronise a nearby Al’s Lunch. However, perhaps the “clientele” situation eased. Since Ken Faig Jr. has established he was still eating at Jake’s in August 1934 and March 1935. One day in mid September 1935 Lovecraft found Jacques abruptly closed, the business having failed at last. Lovecraft looked forlornly in the windows again at various times, but found it always “still vacant”.

Also newly discovered, as seen in my earlier post, the opening times as they stood in April 1933…

This week’s ‘Picture Postals’ is part four of four, of a few notes on the new expanded edition of the Galpin letters. On page 293 Lovecraft usefully recalls the exact locations enjoyed during his 1922 visit to Cleveland. This was a very happy time for him as he was effectively released from his long hermitage. The addresses are…

1537 E. 93rd St. [Loveman’s family home], 9231 Birchdale [Avenue, Galpin’s family home, quite near to Loveman], Wade Park, Clark’s Lunch [north side of Euclid Av.], Taylor’s Arcade [south side of Euclid Av.], Eglin’s [bookshop]

I found a good picture of a Clark’s Lunch on the central street called Euclid Avenue, and dated 1922…

Galpin met Lovecraft at the railway station and immediately took him to eat at a Clark’s Lunch, before they then went back to Galpin’s family home. This same Lunch was where he and the boys mostly ate their ‘meals out’ after that, as Lovecraft told his aunt in a letter.

It’s pleasing to get a photo of the exact date, although the heavy coats and hats in the picture suggests a bright-but-chill springtime rather than the early August heat of Lovecraft’s extended and fatefully cheering visit. However, is this the Clark’s Lunch? The people look rather too upmarket and the hole-in-the-wall too small. Were there other branches? There were. The 1920 American Legion Convention booklet usefully yields the list of the city’s branches…

So, there were two Lunch’s on Euclid. And we now know that the branches were open 24 hours.

But which Lunch is shown? The one at 1325 Euclid or at 5410 Euclid? Enough of the surrounding architecture of one remains to be seen today on Google Street View, and thus the above picture can be confirmed as the central Lunch at 1325 Euclid.

However I’m still not entirely certain, as there were evidently other branches. Indeed there were 15 branches in the city by the 1950s. So let’s look more closely at the place of arrival and see if that helps. Lovecraft was on the Lake Shore overnight sleeper train from New York to Cleveland, seeing the Catskills in the distance as he travelled along the Hudson Valley (he would later that year set “The Lurking Fear” in the same mountains). In 1922 the Lake Shore sleeper drew in to Cleveland at the old and decrepit New Union Depot. This had been renovated in earlier decades, but was still then blighted by “years of accumulated soot and ash which had made the building into a dirty eyesore” according to the railway historians. In 1922 it was all-but defunct. The city’s long-planned gleaming station was still just bare cleared-ground at that time, and would only open in 1930. Thus we can be sure that Lovecraft arrived in the city at the old and decrepit New Union Depot. The question is then, which was the nearest Clark’s Lunch branch for the station?

Sadly, it’s not the one seen above at 1325 Euclid. Pity, but the situation did look rather too posh. The nearest to this station would have been the branch at 228 West Superior, on the west side of Cleveland Public Square and about a quarter mile walk from the New Union Depot. There was a large business college at 236 West Superior, and an athletics store at 226, with together suggest a student-ish atmosphere for the Lunch. The food appears to confirm this student-y supposition. The food there was found to be “humble” and “inexpensive”, as Lovecraft told his aunt (Selected Letters Vol. 1., p. 191).

Unfortunately there don’t appear to be vintage pictures of that stretch of West Superior, and this row has since been cleared. It has long been a parking lot called Jacob’s Lot…

But the local press report that by 2024 the car park will be gone. From the site of Lovecraft’s Lunch will soar a new Sherwin-Williams Corp. mega-tower skyscraper. Suitably enough, for a place where artists and writers such as H.P. Lovecraft and Hart Crane once met, the company is ‘America’s Paint Company’ and makes paints.

What of Taylor’s Arcade? This was on the south side of Euclid Avenue in its central run, and is here seen perhaps circa 1912-ish? A decade before. Not to be confused with another and far grander wrought-iron arcade in the same city, which still exists.

What of Wade Park? This had a large zoo with lions and polar bears and suchlike, and an art museum, as well as fine and expansive parkland with lakes. Lovecraft tells his aunt that he toured the “Cleveland Art Museum” there. Aka the Cleveland Museum of Art. This was housed in a long low classical building.

The museum displayed fine art and crafts from all eras and Lovecraft would have seen full armoured and mounted medieval knights, “Carthage” by the famous British artist Turner, Japanese porcelain, French paintings, and far more. Also the following approximate emulation of a Moorish-style courtyard garden, which appears (from another companion card) to have had a further small garden in a more eastern style with a central Buddha.

The heat of early-mid August 1922 was very heavy, and thus no doubt much to the liking of both the garden and Lovecraft. Strong heat always pepped him up. He also found that he needed to blend in more with the boys and thus he divested himself of his usual hat and stiff collar…

Can you picture me vestless [i.e. without a waistcoat], hatless, soft-collared, and belted, ambling about with a boy of twenty, as if I were no older? … One can be free and easy in a provincial city … What I need in order to be cheerful is the constant company of youthful and congenial literary persons. (Selected Letters Vol. 1, p. 293)

As for the bookshop, “Eglin’s” is the form elsewhere in Selected Letters which confirms the spelling. Also confirmed is that some of the shop’s after-hours reading events were quietly rather gay at that time (as the confirming spelling occurs in the context of Lovecraft’s comments on Gordon Hatfield and Loveman). The journal Phantasmus for 1924 then gives the address “Eglin’s Book Store, 824 Superior Ave.” and the 1925 American Book Trade Directory confirms. By March 1930 the sales-outlets list of The Rosicrucian mystical magazine shows it had moved down the Avenue to 806. Today its old site at No. 824 is a 4,000 sq. ft. modern art gallery, seemingly shelled from the original building and with some of the old frontage still intact.

No. 824 is about a quarter-mile west of the Clark’s Lunch branch at 228 West Superior (see above). This helps to very strongly confirm the likely branch at which Lovecraft, Loveman, Galpin and the Eglin’s crowd ate in 1922. Given the “humble” and “inexpensive” fare, from the branch of a growing and reliable 24-hour chain, it would have been the natural choice as a local eatery.

Loveman would later work at Eglin’s as a bookshop assistant, but when he lost the position he followed the poet and his sometime-lover Hart Crane to New York City. Lovecraft later followed Loveman to New York, and the rest is history.