[New York Peasant by Wilfrid: March 12, 2013]
I've previously mentioned a historic cocktail, the Odd McIntyre, a variant of the Sidecar. This was possibly insufficient to alert readers to my fascination with vintage New York newspaper columnists, those tweeters of the past.
O.O. (Oscar Odd) McIntyre, now long forgotten, became famous before Walter Winchell for his staccato dispatches from Manhattan. His column was gossipy, but kinder than Winchell's, written from the perspective of a small-town boy plunged into the glamor of the big city.
He composed it daily in a typewriter in his hotel room (and later, his Park Avenue apartment), and his wife mimeographed the column and mailed it to some 500 newspapers across the country. He was probably the most read syndicated columnist in history. I've read McIntyre's work between hard covers, but imagine my excitement when I discovered an "New York Day by Day"--from a Baltimore paper--pasted to the wall of a restroom at Mile High House, the bar next door to the Bowery Ballroom.
"I love this dirty town, Sidney."
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