476. City in Lockdown: Who's Down and Who's Up

BROWDERBOOKS

Nothing new to report.  Thanks to changes in my computer, I can't preview posts, have no idea what a new published post will look like.  Another reason to hate computers.


                         CITY  IN  LOCKDOWN:
                 WHO'S  DOWN  AND  WHO'S  UP

In New York City today, a city gripped by the pandemic, who is afflicted and who is flourishing?  For every great crisis tears somebody down and lets somebody else rise up.

Afflicted are the gay bars, since high rents and no income are putting them at risk.  Gay people need public spaces like bars to congregate in, say the bar owners, since they don't have the family network that straight people have.  But to reopen now, with the pandemic still widespread, would be a disaster.  Even the legendary Stonewall Inn, the site of the 1969 riots that gave birth to the Gay Pride movement, is in danger of never reopening, and gay bar owners in the other boroughs are likewise worried.

Other bars, too.  The famous White Horse Tavern, where Dylan Thomas indulged in the final binge that killed him, reopened outside and was overwhelmed by the flood of patrons who flocked there, many of them without masks and not observing social distancing.  The owner deplored this, but insisted that he could not physically intervene.  Result: the bar has been shut down by the New York State Liquor Authority for multiple violations, including the lack of social distancing.  It's not easy being a small business owner during the pandemic.

So who in the city is flourishing?  Home cooks who, confined to home by the virus, have more time to cook, and offer their wares to their neighbors.  Many were astonished at the response, and are cooking more and earning a steady flow of profits on the side.   What are they cooking?  Pizzas, flan (for Mexican neighbors), Hungarian goulash, cinnamon rolls, carrot cake, empanadas -- you name it.  New Yorkers have always been a creative bunch, and never more than now.

Also, a 33-year-old designer who markets art-inspired backpacks and other streetwear, an observant Jew who is up at dawn, prays three times a day, and does volunteer work delivering food and apparel to New Yorkers in need.  So what has he just added to his line of goods?  Masks.  Stylish, of course, and very cool.

Also, bicycle shops.  New Yorkers who have to commute are leery of the enclosed spaces of buses and subway cars, especially when some fellow commuters don't wear masks.  So they are flocking to bike shops, where they line up outside, are admitted one or two at a time, and buy one of the shop's dwindling supply of new bikes.  But if they want their bike repaired, it may take weeks, given the amount of business the shops now have.  

Also, a young woman who recently graduated from Columbia University's School of Public Health and now works from her home in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, as a contact tracing supervisor.  She leads a team of information gatherers who are out in the city getting info, so that case investigators can reach out to contacts of COVID-19 patients.  She and her team are constantly exchanging e-mails, working hard to identify vulnerable people and limit the spread of the virus.  Intense work that requires very up-to-date info as the situation is constantly changing.  Tact and compassion are also needed, when it is necessary to notify someone that they are COVID-19 positive.   But she loves her work; it's vital.

Musicians are also thriving, though not financially.  In Flatbush, Brooklyn, a saxophonist, deprived of gigs by the lockdown, serenades his neighbors from a second-floor balcony, greeting the evening with the strains of "Amazing Grace."  As word gets out, more and more people gather to hear him play jazz, and he is joined on the balcony by his trumpet-playing son, and by musicians on the street below, all masked and observing the proper distance.  A Barcelona-born jazz musician plays a melodica as his young children dance.  A Haitian guitarist comes all the way from from Canarsie, and a Pakistani shows up to play drums.  Occupying nearby driveways and lawns is a growing crowd of jazz fans: African Americans and whites, Pakistanis and Mexicans, joined at times by neighbors on porches and stoops clapping their hands to the music.  Hearing the music, a Mr. Softee truck driver stops his 

truck and listens, tapping his hands.  Once again, New Yorkers are adapting to unforeseen circumstances with imagination and creativity.  Not even a pandemic can stop them.

Source note:  These stories were inspired by items in the Metropolitan Section of the New York Times of Sunday, June 28, and Sunday, July 5, 2020.  This weekly section keeps me informed about what my fellow New Yorkers are up to.

Coming soon:  Maybe something, maybe nothing.

©  2020   Clifford Browder

475. Spas: Where Killers Make Nice, Cops Wink, Waters Burn, and Roses Turn to Stone

 BROWDERBOOKS

The front cover of my forthcoming historical novel, Forbidden Brownstones:

And now, an incident from last Thursday.  The phone rings and I answer, expecting a scam.  

A woman's voice: "May I speak with Mr. Robert Lagerstrom?"

Me: "He died two years ago,"

Her: "Oh my God.  Are you Mrs. Lagerstrom?"

Me: "No, I'm the cleaning lady."

Her:  (Resignedly.)  "All right."  (Hangs up.)

     SPAS: WHERE KILLERS MAKE NICE,

     COPS WINK, WATERS BURN,

     AND ROSES TURN TO STONE

That there was something suspect about our American spas hit me when, researching the legendary Waldorf Astoria Hotel for my nonfiction title New Yorkers, I learned that notorious mobsters like Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano lived there under false names, rubbing shins with more respectable residents like ex-President Herbert Hoover and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  And when, in 1936, the feds came for Luciano, the desk clerk warned the mobster, who instantly took off for -- of all places -- Hot Springs, Arkansas.  Long noted for its thermal springs, Hot Springs in those days was also a favorite mob hangout, and Luciano felt comfortable in going there.  But another fed agent nabbed him there, and he ended up in prison for running a massive prostitution ring in NewYork.

      My knowledge of spas was, and is, limited.  I knew that President Roosevelt died at Warm Springs, Georgia, in 1945.  I first set foot in a spa in the summer of 1952, when I visited my young French friend Claude at Vichy, where, like many of his compatriots, he went annually to partake of its healing waters, but I myself did not taste thereof or bathe therein.  Years later, visiting my friend Bill in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he taught the rigors of modern philosophy to the charming demoiselles of Skidmore College, we visited the spa there off season.  It was completely deserted, but one site bore a chalked inscription: "good for poopie."  Though it figured prominently as a summer resort in the history of New York City, I have never visited Saratoga Springs in season.

      What drew my attention to American spas recently, and specifically to Hot Springs, Arkansas, was a review by Jonathan Miles in the New York Times Book Review section of Sunday, August 9, 2020.  Entitled "Sleaze City," Miles's article reviewed David Hill's book The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice.  This long title promises, and the book evidently delivers, an eye-opening account of a little town in the Bible Belt that became -- for a while -- a glittering center of vice, corruption, and fun.  And oh yes, there were thermal springs that reputedly enhanced your physical health and well-being, if you drank their waters, bathed in them, or inhaled them in a steam room.

                            A bathhouse in Hot Springs today.

                                             daveynin

                        

      The Vapors was a "hot" night club that out-glittered and out-flashed anything that Vegas could offer.  Liberace played in a front room, while oil tycoons gambled fantastic sums in the officially illegal back-room casino.  Much in Hot Springs in those days was "officially illegal," but everyone -- the mayor, the cops, maybe even the preachers -- winked.  It was a fun place, drawing five million visitors a year.  

      "The only rule in Hot Springs," Virginia Clinton Kelley once wrote, "was to enjoy yourself."  And she added, "Hot Springs let me be me with a vengeance,"  And who was Virginia Clinton Kelley (full name: Virginian Dell Blythe Clinton Dwire Kelley)?  A local resident and trained nurse who raised two boys there, one of whom grew up to be the forty-second president of the United States.  Yes, Bill Clinton grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where his mother's favorite hangout was the Vapors.  And she died there in 1993, a year after her older son became president.

      The Vapors opened in 1960, but Hot Springs was "hot" and wide open long before that, as in the 1930s, when Lucky Luciano was arrested  there.  A prominent visitor back then was Owney Madden, who ran the famous Cotton Club in New York.  Not for nothing was he known as "The Killer," but in Hot Springs this graduate of Sing-Sing married the postmaster's daughter, organized illegal gambling, took up golf, was generous to civic causes, and behaved himself to the extent of not killing anyone.  A photo of him in an outsized cap shows a leering young man you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, or even on a well-lit street.  Said Mae West of him, "Sweet, but oh, so vicious." And where did he die in 1965?  In Hot Springs, of course.

Owney Madden, a 1931 mug shot.

      In its heyday Hot Springs played host to gamblers, bookmakers, con artists, prostitutes, politicians on the take, and legendary mobsters like Al Capone, who also refrained from killing anyone there.  To which I'll add one more name: Clifford H. Browder, Sr., my father.

      A corporation lawyer who worked for the International Harvester Company in Chicago with a specialized knowledge of railroad law, he was also a great outdoorsman, a hunter and fisherman and, alas, a heavy smoker who knew that smoking was undermining his health.  As he got older and his health deteriorated, he went once a year to Hot Springs to experience the famous thermal springs.  The fact that he, a rigorously honest citizen, went there purely for the springs, says a lot.  Corruption and vice can flourish, unnoticed by honest, hard-working citizens who want only to go about their daily lives.  My father wasn't there for gambling and vice, may not even have been aware of them.  I can imagine him sitting quietly at his hotel in the evening, reading Field and Stream magazine, or chatting with fellow sportsmen likewise there for the springs, while gamblers gambled, prostitutes solicited, and Al Capone cavorted.

A 1902 postcard with a view of a fountain at Karlsbad, Austria (now in the Czech Republic).  Written in the margin in English: "It is weird and wonderful to watch this continually spouting medicine.  A flower placed in this water becomes stone in 8 days.  Water is so hot it burns one's tongue."

      Europe has had spas from time immemorial, though to my knowledge they were never the playpen of mobsters.  They were, certainly, more than healing centers.  Their organizers knew to make them cultural centers and amusement parks, with concerts and theaters as well as the inevitable and quite legal gambling casinos.  There was something relaxed about them, with the usual social barriers less rigorous, more porous.  In Henry James's charming story "The Siege of London," an American woman of doubtful reputation is out to marry a very respectable young English baronet.  And where did they meet?  At a spa.  And in Thackeray's Vanity Fair the "fallen" woman Becky Sharp haunts the spas of Europe, no doubt on the lookout for just such a lucky involvement.  European spas were respectable, yet dubious characters could hope to interact there with their betters, who might become their friends, their spouses, or their victims.

      There are those who assert that the thermal waters of the spas are no more healthful than ordinary water, when heated.  But the spas are not about to disappear.  They are part of the European way of life, and have too much tradition, hope, and money invested in them to yield to pettifogging critics who may, or may not, mount valid criticisms.

Source Note:  Much in this post comes from Jonathan Miles's article "Sleaze City," in the Book Review section of the New York Times of Sunday, August 9, 2020.  Supplementing it are various online articles on Owney Madden, Hot Springs, European spas, etc.

Coming soon:  City in Lockdown: Who's Down and Who's Up

©   2020  Clifford Browder

474. New Yorkers and the Virus: An Outdoor Baby Grand, a Naked Jesus, Free Haircuts, Mopeds, Bikes

BROWDERBOOKS

Attention all LGBTQ readers: The e-book of my historical novel The Pleasuring of Men is now available from Amazon's Kindle for $4.99, marked down from $9.99.  But this bargain will soon end.  If you want the e-book, get it now.

I have two BookBub ads going.  But first, what is BookBub?  It is a free book-discovery service that helps readers find new books and authors.  Readers tell BookBub what kind of books they're interested it, and BookBub sends them e-mails with recommendations, and notices of discounts and new releases.  And in those e-mails are ads promoting new books -- ads created by authors eager to find new readers; in other words, authors like me.

BookBub ads are tiny little squibs of things that appear at the bottom of BookBub e-mails. They consist of three items: the book's cover image, a few words of description (10 to 60 characters), and a call-to-action (CTA) so you can buy the e-book immediately.  (BookBub only does e-books; no paperbacks.).  So the ad for Pleasuring of Men has that sexy cover of a young guy, then the text: "TOM'S SERVICES COST A LOT, BUT HE KNOWS HE'S WORTH IT," and then the CTA: "READ NOW."  This ad is appearing in Amazon in the US, the UK, and Canada. 

My other ad is for my new nonfiction title, New Yorkers: A Feisty People Who Will Unsettle, Madden, Amuse and Astonish You.  The 

ad includes the cover (so small the subtitle is illegible); the text "SURPRISNG FACTS ABOUT NEW YORK YOU WON'T FORGET"; and the inevitable "READ NOW."  It appears in Amazon and Barnes & Noble USA, and in Kobo and Google Play as well in Canada, the UK, India, and Australia.

So what do I expect?  Hopefully, more e-book sales.  But honestly, how would I, as a BookBub member, react to these two ads?  Would I  buy?  The first one, for New Yorkers, maybe not.  The subtitle, which I count on to hook readers, is readable in the cover illustration here, but not in the BookBub ad.  And the other ad, showing the sexy young guy?  You bet!  That photo does it all.  But will it work on others?  Will others buy?  Time will tell.

There's a learning process involved in BookBub.  You have to analyze your CTR and hoped-for ROI and other statistics to find out what kind of ad works best for you, and that can be a challenge.  But even before that, you have to learn the meaning and significance of CTR, ROI, CPC, CPM, and God knows what else.  So wish me well and don't expect glorious tidings, for I'll be groping through a labyrinth of stats that I barely understand.  Maybe, instead of BookBub ads, one should take up knitting.  And undermine one's masculine image (if a male)?  Well, John L. Sullivan, heavyweight boxing champion from 1882 to 1892, used to knit, so that should settle that.  Sullivan, who sported a magnificent handlebar mustache, was a hero of my childhood, along with Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and sexy Batman.  Even so, I doubt if I'll try it. (A sudden inspiration: why not a post on heroes?  My own, and everyone's.  Could be interesting and might say a lot.  I'll ponder.)

 NEW YORKERS COPE:

AN OUTDOOR BABY GRAND, 

A NAKED JESUS, FREE HAIRCUTS,

MOPEDS, BIKES

New Yorkers are famous for adapting: to hurricanes, blackouts, 9/11 -- you name it.  So of course we're adapting to the pandemic, of which our city is the epicenter.  But with few visitors and lots of muggy summer heat, it isn't easy.  So what are we doing?

For fifteen years Colin Huggins, 42, has been giving free outdoor piano concerts in Washington Square Park.  He plays a 900-pound Baby Steinway that he lugs on a dolly to and from the park.  He lets people lie under his piano, so they can be cocooned in sound as he plays.  In good times he played to crowds of tourists entranced by the sound and sight of classical piano music in a park.   Donations from these concerts were enough to let him live modestly in the city.  Never has he thought of moving indoors; he is at heart, and totally, a street performer and wants contact with his audience.  But now, in the absence of tourists, he plays to small crowds who are masked, hesitant, and socially distant; they part with a dollar or two -- not enough for him to pay his rent.  And the Steinway has to be lodged somewhere, always in some improvised arrangement that never lasts: a small rented space that

became infested with drug dealers; a shuttered restaurant that finally reopened; and now, providentially, space in the Judson Memorial Church, just across the street from the park.  But getting a 900-pound Steinway into the church's small elevator isn't easy.  

Strapped for cash, Mr. Huggins may have to give up the concerts and leave the city.  When he announced this in Instagram in June, donations poured in, giving him a little more time in the city.  He is determined to keep on playing, but there are limits, physical as well as financial, to what he can do.  The sight of him pushing his draped monster of a piano on a dolly along the sidewalk is one of those where-but-in-New-York experiences that make this city unique.  Let's hope he finds a way to stick around.

Recently, when he arrived in the park with his piano, he saw some police officers and paramedics gathered around the park's fountain, which had been occupied by a young man, stark naked, who went by the name of Jesus.  Jesus had moved into the fountain with a couch and a sun umbrella.  His behavior there caused disruptions in the park, he got into a fight with another local, and now he refused to leave.  Finally the paramedics got hold of him and took him off in an ambulance.  A naked young Jesus living in a park fountain: another where-but-in-New-York experience.

Another New Yorker who is adapting is Herman James, 32, an African-American barber whose Upper West Side barbershop was closed last March, when the city closed all nonessential businesses.  Eager to keep busy and to help his fellow New Yorkers, in May he began giving free haircuts in Central Park.  The first day he just put his chair and tools out there, and waited.  Within ten minutes someone jumped in the chair, and he's been in business ever since, clipping masked customers, many of them with three months' growth of hair.  He commutes by subway from Brownsville, Brooklyn, where he lives alone, carrying his tools in a suitcase with a chair attached.  He can be found on the west side of the park just north of Strawberry Fields.  His barbershop reopened in June, but he plans to continue his one-man outdoor operation through September, after which he will switch to house visits.  Outdoor clippings and house visits are less risky than an indoor setting, he reasons, and people love getting snipped outdoors in the lovely setting of the park.

Mr. James prefers appointments, but walk-ups are welcome, and donations are as well.  His preferred customers are people strapped by the pandemic: all ages, both sexes; they pay what they can.  Is what he's doing against park regulations?  There are no rules against it, but there are no permits for it, so it's in a gray area.  So far, the police have been supportive.  Several officers even took his card, wouldn't mind getting a haircut themselves when off duty.  He's gone the whole day, takes a 4 p.m. break to get lunch at a cocktail and wine bar where he's a regular, then back to work.  After work he revisits the bar, takes the Long Island Railroad back, gets home around 9 or 10 p.m.  And in his spare time --  as if there were any -- he's writing a self-improvement book.  A real New Yorker; a doer, tireless, energetic, innovative.

So what are other New Yorkers up to?  Even though the subway cars and buses have never been cleaner, many commuters avoid their enclosed spaces.  A young woman who wanted to get from her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to attend a small garden party in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, got creative.  She went there by stages:

• a rented electric moped to Alphabet City, the most downtown spot available, where she parked it;
• by foot one mile to the South Street Seaport;
• a NYC Ferry to North Williamsburg;
• sipping a to-go margarita en route, by foot for 20 minutes to the event.

It took two hours, but she didn't mind.  Going home, she took a car-share service with her roommate.

Others also avoid the subway:

• a woman who runs a media company skateboards when on errands in the East Village;
• a young dentist commutes from his home in Hell's Kitchen to his practice in Chinatown by Citi Bike or moped;
• another woman rides Citi Bikes, but changes bikes just short of 30 minutes, when an extra fee is charged.  She meets friends only in places that can be reached by bike or on foot.

Yet those who ride the buses and subways insist that, thanks to nightly deep cleaning, they have never been cleaner.  Personally, I've avoided the subway, as much because of its horrendous jolts as its enclosed spaces.  I've ridden a bus just once, masked, got on in front when I should have got on farther back, and will ride one again, if necessary.  (The front is now reserved for persons needing help, as for example anyone in a wheelchair.)

Source note:  The information in this post was taken from the Metropolitan Section of the New York Times of Sunday, July 19, 2020.  As always, this section keeps me updated on what my fellow New Yorkers are doing.

Coming soon:  ???

©   2020   Clifford Browder

473A. Pleasuring of Men

BROWDERBOOKS 

Forgive this impromptu post, prompted by my inept attempts at BookBub ads (more about them in the next post).

Attention, all those interested in gay novels:

The e-book of my gay novel The Pleasuring of Men, the first title in my Metropolis series of historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York, is available from Amazon Kindle for $4.99, marked down from $9.99.  Tom Vaughan, the protagonist, is a high-priced male prostitute, and you'll never get him cheaper.  BUT:  This offer expires soon; if you want the e-book, get it here and now.  

The Pleasuring of Men has been read and reviewed by as many women as men, and post cards with the front cover, when offered free at book fairs, fly off the counter.  It's that sexy cover, of course.  But Tom Vaughan makes the worst mistake a professional male prostitute can make: he falls in love a client.  Worse still, with Walter Whiting, his most difficult client.  Whiting is brilliant, knowledgeable, and sophisticated, which appeals mightily to Tom, but he is also moody and difficult.  But once Tom knows what he wants, he goes after it, armed with wit, cunning, and persistence, and also with what. may be his greatest gift: his ability to listen.  Tom's clients have included his mother's Episcopal minister, a rowdy young lawyer, a guilt-stricken Irish-American alderman, countless married men, and a European count who has him burst out of a cake naked at a party.  But the one that counts is Whiting, elusive, troubled, and difficult.

I had hoped to exhibit The Pleasuring of Men and some other books at the Rainbow Book Fair, the annual gay book event at the Gay Center on West 13th Street, just a short walk from my apartment.  Silas and I exhibited there last year and had some weird experiences, as reported in my post #432.  But the Rainbow, in view of the pandemic, has been officially postponed until 2021.  

I've also done a fictional interview with Tom; see post #320.  A fun post; I should do more with other fictional characters from my books.

So much for Pleasuring, the Rainbow, and related matters.  My next post, on how New Yorkers are coping with the virus, will be published next Sunday.  Meanwhile stay safe, stay wise, stay healthy.  

473. Apothecaries: Cocaine, Arsenic, and Opium, and All of It Just for You.

BROWDERBOOKS

She's young, blond, and sexy, and promises marvels. Though Russian-born, in this country Alinka Rutkowska has adopted all the ways of enterprising capitalism and made herself a fortune.  She's all over the Internet, promising to make authors the same kind of fortune that she has made for herself.  Want to land on the USA Today bestseller list?  She'll show you how.  Stymied in your book marketing attempts?  She'll help you attain remarkable success ... for a price.  Two of her many books, bestsellers all: How I Sold 80,000 Books, Write and Grow Rich -- yours for only $2.99.

Have I had dealings with her?  Yes, in a limited way.  For a fee, I enrolled in her LibraryBub program, which supposedly made my first self-published title available to libraries, though I saw no notable increase in sales.  Will I do it again?  Yes, though at her bargain price, without expensive frills.  So what do I expect?  More exposure, a few sales, nothing more.

Why haven't I banished her to oblivion, as I have so many exploiters of aspiring and gullible Indie authors?  Well, have a look at her online.  She makes business sexy.  Maybe it's her long blond hair.  Or her enticing smile.  I like her, she's fun.  If nothing else, I keep her around for laughs.

A note on Goldman Sachs

Followers of this blog know the love I have for Goldman Sachs, 

which has been described as a vampire squid sucking profits out of everything it touches.  Though I disapprove of the outfit, whose former  execs have a way of infiltrating presidential cabinets, I can't help but marvel at its ability to feel out profits and suck them up.  But Public Citizen has announced a signal victory: it has nudged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) into issuing an order rejecting Goldman Sachs's denial of affiliation with a private equity company called Goldman Sachs Renewable Power.  Investigating the names of this company's board members, Pub Cit found that the same three served on the boards of some 70 shell companies with ties to Goldman Sachs.  After more digging, Pub Cit learned that the omnipresent trio work for companies based in the Cayman Islands that offer "directors for hire" to private equity shell companies for Wall Street.  So for once, the vampire squid's behind-the-scenes attempt to control an allegedly independent shell company has failed.  But this, I suspect, is just the tip of the iceberg.  The vampire squid's tentacles reach everywhere and are rarely detected, as happened on this occasion, thanks to Public Citizen.   (For more on the vampire squid, see post #340 and scroll down to "Goldman Sachs: The Vampire Squid Thrives On.")

APOTHECARIES:

COCAINE, ARSENIC, AND OPIUM,

AND ALL OF IT JUST FOR YOU

On an errand recently (properly masked), I went to my local independent pharmacy, Grove Drugs, and in the window I saw a conglomeration of objects that I recognized: old bottles of every size and shape, mortars and pestles, scales for weighing, dusty old books, and a massive volume, its pages open to reveal careful scribblings now indecipherable.  I recalled seeing an almost identical display there three years ago, reported in post #309, which I am reproducing here, abridged.  It takes us back to an earlier age when customers got individual remedies for their ailments.

CARDAMUM

CAMPHOR

AMMONIUM CHLORIDE

ZINC OXIDE

ALUM

RHUBARB AND SODA MIXTURE

BELLADONNA

A row of time-worn books, one  labeled Elements of Chemistry.  Two thick, massive volumes brown with age, open to pages with scores of prescriptions affixed, scribbled in a near-indecipherable hand, their dates not visible, but probably from the early twentieth century.  The whole display fascinating, puzzling, reeking with history and age.

Apothecary jars

         Such is the current window display of Grove Drugs, but a couple of blocks from my apartment.  One of the few independent pharmacies left in the West Village, where chain stores dominate, Grove typically provides window displays of unusual interest, and this one fascinates.  When I asked inside about the source of the earlier display, I was told that these objects had been found in the basement of the Avignone Chemists at Bleecker Street and Sixth Avenue, now closed, whose antecedents had gone back a century or more.  Discovered during a renovation in 2007, these relics of the past might have been discarded but were preserved.  Now, 

when displayed, they give us a glimpse of the pharmaceutical past, when the time-honored apothecary shop prevailed.

         The profession of apothecary dates back to antiquity and differs from that of pharmacists today.  Pharmacies today are well stocked with mass-produced over-the-counter products that come in standardized dosages formulated to meet the needs of the average user.  But in earlier times the apothecary created medications individually for each customer, who received a product specific to his or her needs.  In theory, the apothecary had some knowledge of chemistry, but at first there was scanty regulation. 

A Flemish apothecary shop, late 14th or early15th century.

A 17th-century German apothecary.

Welcome Library

         The objects on display in Grove’s window hearken back to this early period when the apothecary made compounds from ingredients like those in the bottles and jars displayed, grinding them to a powder with a mortar and pestle, weighing them with scales to get just the right measure, or distilling them with the glass paraphernalia seen in the window to make a tincture, lotion, volatile oil, or perfume.  The one thing typical of the old apothecary shops that the display can’t reproduce is the aroma, a strange mix of spices, perfumes, camphor, castor oil, and other soothing or astringent remedies.  Mercifully absent as well from the Grove display is a jar with live leeches, since by the late nineteenth century the time-honored practice 

         The apothecary’s remedies were derived sometimes from folk medicine and sometimes from published compendiums.  Chalk was used for heartburn, calamine for skin irritations, spearmint for stomachache, rose petals steeped in vinegar for headaches, and cinchona bark for fevers.  Often serving as a physician, the apothecary applied garlic poultices to sores and wounds and rheumatic limbs.  Laudanum, or opium tincture, was employed freely, with little regard to its addictiveness, to treat ulcers, bruises, and inflamed joints, and was taken internally to alleviate pain.  But if some of these remedies seem fanciful, naïve, or even dangerous, others are known to work even today, as for example witch hazel for hemorrhoids.

         But medicines weren’t the only products of an apothecary shop.  Rose petals, jasmine, and gardenias might be distilled to create perfumes, and lavender, honey, and beeswax were compounded to create face creams to enhance the milk-white complexion desired by ladies of the nineteenth century, when the sun tan so prized today marked one as a market woman or farmer’s wife, lower-caste females who had to work outdoors for a living.  (The prime defense against the sun was the parasol, without which no Victorian lady ventured outdoors.)  A fragrant pomade for the hair was made of soft beef fat, essence of violets, jasmine, and oil of bergamot, and cosmetic gloves rubbed on the inside with spermaceti, balsam of Peru, and oil of nutmeg and cassia were worn by ladies in bed at night, to soften and bleach the hands, and to prevent chapped hands and chilblains.

         But there were risks.  Face powders might contain arsenic; belladonna, a known poison, was used to widen the pupils of the eyes; and bleaching agents included ammonia, quicksilver, spirits of turpentine, and tar.  All of which suggests a lousy grasp of basic chemistry.  And in the flavored syrups and sodas devised to mask the unpleasant medicinal taste of prescriptions, two common ingredients were cocaine and alcohol, which must have lifted the users to pinnacles of bliss.

Marketed especially for children.

         Also available in an apothecary shop 

were cooking spices, candles, soap, salad oil, toothbrushes, combs, cigars, and tobacco, so that it in some ways resembled the small-town general store of the time.  And in the eighteenth century American apothecaries even made house calls, trained apprentices, performed surgery, and acted as male midwives.

         Belladonna, which appears in the Grove Drugs window display, figures often in history and legend.  It is said that Livia, the wife of the Roman emperor Augustus, used it to do away with her husband, so that Tiberius, her son by another marriage, could succeed him.  And in folklore, witches used a mixture of belladonna, opium, and other poisons to help them fly to conclaves of witches called sabbaths, where participants did naughty things, danced wildly, and kissed the devil’s behind.  The shiny black berries have been called “murderer’s berries,” “sorcerer’s berries,” and “devil’s berries.”

         All in all, not a plant to mess with, although a staple in most apothecary shops.  And if you think you’ve never gone near it, think again, for if you’ve ever had your eyes dilated, belladonna is in the eye drops.  And the name is intriguing: belladonna, the beautiful lady who poisons.  Which brings us back to the Empress Livia; maybe she did do the old boy in.

         Given their lack of formal training and use of questionable ingredients, one may ask why, for centuries, apothecaries attracted a steady clientele.  Because the only alternative was the medical profession, and prior to the nineteenth century they "cured" you by bleeding you or purging you, and in so doing sent many a patient to the grave.  Mixing a medication meant specifically for you, apothecaries looked pretty good by comparison, probably killed fewer patients, and at times even managed a cure.

         Gradually, the professions of apothecary and pharmacist -- never quite distinct – became more organized, and then more regulated.  In the nineteenth century patent medicines (which were not patented) became big business, thanks to blatant advertising, but their mislabeling of ingredients and their extravagant claims finally resulted in the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.  This and subsequent legislation probably benefited apothecaries, since mass-produced patent medicines competed with their products. 

Collier's attacks the patent medicine industry. 

         As late as the 1930s and 1940s, apothecaries still compounded some 60% of all U.S. medications.  In the years following World War II, however, the growth of commercial drug manufacturers signaled the decline of the medicine-compounding apothecary.  In 1951 new federal legislation introduced doctor-only legal status for most medicines, and from then on the modern pharmacist prevailed, dispensing manufactured drugs. 

         By the 1980s large chain drugstores had come to dominate the pharmaceutical sales market, rendering the survival of the independent neighborhood pharmacy precarious.  But in a final twist, the word “apothecary,” meaning a place of business rather than a medicine compounder, has become “hip” and “in,” appearing in names of businesses having nothing to do with medicines.  As for a business that does indeed deal in medicines, a longtime pharmacy in the West Village calls itself the Village Apothecary.  The word "apothecary" expresses a nostalgia for experience free from technology and characterized by creativity and a personal touch, a longing for Old World tradition and gentility.  In other words, it's charmingly quaint.  And as one observer has commented, “apothecary” is fun to say. 

Coming soon:  New Yorkers and the Virus: An Outdoor Baby Grand, a Naked Jesus, Free Haircuts, Mopeds, Bikes.

©   2020   Clifford Browder