Up in the Old Hotel (Vintage Classics)

by Joseph Mitchell

  ‘Usually, at the conclusion of a bajour, whether it’s been a sew-up or a burn-up, the woman is in a state of shock, she hardly knows where she is, and the gypsy has to take her by the arm and lead her to the door. The moment she leaves, the gypsies start packing. It doesn’t take them long. In half an hour, or even less, they’re out and gone.’

  (1955)

  The Deaf-Mutes Club

  THE UNION LEAGUE of the deaf, Inc., is a social club exclusively for deaf-mutes. It was founded in 1886 and has four hundred members. A man I know, a linotype operator for a morning newspaper, is a member. A couple of weeks ago he sent me a letter of introduction to Mr Samuel Frankenheim, the club’s historian. ‘Mr Frankenheim is a retired Wall Street man and he kills a lot of time around the Union League,’ the linotype operator wrote in a note accompanying the letter. ‘If you’d be interested in writing an article about the club, he would be glad to see you. Drop in most any afternoon and he will be on hand. Take along a note pad, as you will have to write out your questions to him. He will reply the same way. In conversing with him, avoid the term “deaf-mute” as much as possible. I don’t mind it, and he probably doesn’t, but many do. The club used to be called the Deaf-Mutes’ Union League, but five years ago the name was changed because of this. Nearly all so-called deaf-mutes have normal vocal organs and can speak at least a few words if given a chance, and it provokes them to be considered “mute” or “dumb.” As a class, they prefer to be known as “the deaf.” The people generally referred to as “deaf” (the people you see with hearing aids attached to their heads) now insist on being called “hard of hearing.” The two classes pretty much keep to themselves. As a rule, the hard of hearing do not belong to deaf organizations, and vice versa. The address of the Union League is 711 Eighth Avenue, just below Forty-fifth. Go to the top floor. You will see a door with two upraised hands painted on it. The hands represent “U” and “L” in the manual alphabet. Don’t knock, as naturally no one will hear. Go right in, find Mr Frankenheim, and hand him my letter.’

  I visited the Union League on a Saturday afternoon. Its address turned out to be a three-floor, walkup taxpayer. Near the landing on the third floor I found the door with the hands on it. Before opening it, I got out my note pad and wrote, ‘I am looking for Mr Frankenheim.’ Then I went inside. The room was spacious and sunny. In one corner stood a big, soft-drink slot machine. On the walls were a number of framed group photographs, a bulletin board, an American flag, and a cloth banner on which was printed in red, white, and blue letters, ‘GOD BLESS AMERICA. WE ARE PROUD TO BE AMERICANS.’ Along one wall was a row of straight-backed chairs. In one of them sat a small, thin, grizzled man in a brown tweed suit. His hands were limp in his lap, his chin was on his chest, and he appeared to be sound asleep. In disarray at his feet lay a Wall Street Journal. There were three billiard tables in the room. A man with a derby on the back of his head was hunched over the middle table, deliberating on a shot. After he made it, I went over and handed him my pad. He read what I had written on it and a look of annoyance came on his face. He took a pencil out of his vest pocket and swiftly wrote on the pad, ‘What do you want to see Mr F. in reference to? No salesmen allowed in here.’ I wrote, ‘I am not selling anything. I have a letter for him.’ The billiard player read this, shrugged his shoulders, and pointed at the sleeping man. Then he took the pad again and wrote. ‘That is Mr F. asleep. O.K. to wake him up.’

  I went over and touched Mr Frankenheim on the shoulder, and he opened his eyes and yawned. I gave him the letter. After reading it, he motioned to me to sit down. Then he got out a loose-leaf notebook, rested it on a knee, and began writing. When he reached the bottom of the leaf, he tore it out and gave it to me. His handwriting was small and meticulous. ‘Glad to meet you,’ he had written. ‘Nice day, isn’t it? Paper said rain! Always glad to tell hearing people about the U.L. Great club. Best of its kind in the entire U.S. I am one of the founders. Our rooms have been located here eight years. Had rooms in a building on West 125th Street for 31 years. Burnt out there. A fire. Loss to club $7,000. Severe loss. Accommodations here are real nice, if I do say so. This is the billiard room. Equipped with the best tables money can buy. Many good players in the U.L. Adjoining this room is the cardroom and the officers’ room. Will show them to you later.’

  While I was reading this, Mr Frankenheim paid no attention to me but continued to write in his notebook. Presently he tore out another leaf and gave it to me. ‘Down the hall,’ this note read, ‘we have an assembly room. Seating capacity 500. Only use it for membership meetings and Lit. Nights. Name dates back to days when we began having debates in sign language. Debates were considered refined and literary in those days. On Lit. Nights we have lectures, silent movies, and sometimes a debate, and then push the chairs back, switch on the radio, and have dancing. The deaf are A-1 dancers. None better. We don’t hear, but when we dance on a wooden floor most of us feel the vibrations of the music. To watch us dancing, you’d never guess we didn’t hear anything at all. Even have a few jitterbug dancers. Can’t say I think much of jitterbugs myself. A nuisance to one and all. The U.L. is exclusively for men, but we always invite the ladies to our affairs. We have many lectures on worthy topics, sometimes by hearing people. A hearing lecturer gets up on the platform and talks same as he would anywhere else. A hearing man who knows sign language stands beside him and interprets for us. We open all meetings by “singing” the “Star-Spangled Banner” in sign language. All stand erect and go through the entire song with our hands. Do you find these facts interesting?’

  After reading this, I started to write a reply, but Mr Frankenheim motioned to me to wait. He took back one of the leaves he had given me and wrote a sentence on the back of it: ‘I am 72 years old.’ I knew what was expected of me. On my pad I wrote, ‘You certainly don’t look it, Mr Frankenheim.’ I held this up, and he read it, smiled proudly, and began writing again. ‘Never worry!’ he wrote this time. ‘That’s the secret. Been a busy man all my life, but did not worry. Spent 23 years with Lee Higginson Corp. selling stocks and bonds to the deaf throughout U.S. and Canada. Travelled extensively. Retired three years ago. Taking it easy now. It’s great fun! We will take a look at the cardroom. The U.L. has some of the sharpest pinochle players you ever saw. I myself prefer whist.’

  Mr Frankenheim got up and I followed him to the door of an adjoining room. The door had been pegged open, and we stood at the threshold and looked in. In the room, sitting around big, circular, old-fashioned card tables, were about two dozen men, most of whom were middle-aged. A few were reading, one was writing a letter, one was working out a crossword puzzle, and one was repairing a cigarette lighter with a nail file, but the majority were intent on card games. It was not quiet in the room – pinochle players grunted angrily at each other, decks of cards were noisily riffled and cut, chairs were occasionally scraped back, and a couple of kibitzers were wandering around. At the table nearest us, two men were studying racing papers. One had a Daily Racing Form and the other had a past-performance page out of a Morning Telegraph. Suddenly they looked up and began talking to each other in sign language. They were obviously at odds about something; they closed and unclosed their hands in the air, wriggled their fingers, and made complicated gestures. I wrote on my pad, ‘What are they arguing about?’ Mr Frankenheim watched them for a few moments and wrote, ‘Their conversation is in reference to a horse.’

  A man came up behind us and we stood aside to let him in. He was a shoeshine man. He slid his shine box under a table, pulled off his cap, and sat down. Then he took out a handful of change and began counting it. Mr Frankenheim sensed that I was curious about the man and he wrote, ‘Gentleman who just came in is a member. Shines shoes along Eighth Avenue. Well known in the neighborhood and has made many hearing friends. The pursuits of U.L. members are varied from common laborer right on up to one member who owns a big printing business and sells insurance to the deaf as a sideline. In the club all members are equal, no matter what l
ine they are in, or race, or religion, etc. This is not a Park Avenue club. No man blackballed because of race or class. Political and religious matters taboo at our meetings. Most of the members now in the cardroom are night workers who take their leisure in the afternoon. Now let us step into the officers’ room, and I will write you out a brief history of the club.’

  The officers’ room was unpretentious. It was furnished with a roll-top desk, an iron safe, a long table, and half a dozen chairs. On the walls were framed souvenir programs of Union League balls, a bathing-girl calendar, a faded tintype of a brownstone house, and a row of photographs of the club’s past presidents. Mr Frankenheim’s photograph was among them. Two men were sitting at one end of the table. One was a prematurely bald young man who wore spectacles with lenses so thick they made his eyes look protuberant. A Leica camera, slung from his neck, rested on his chest. The other man was middle-aged; he was stout and red-haired and had an unmistakably Irish face. They were examining some negatives. When we came in both men looked up, and Mr Frankenheim conversed with them for several minutes in sign language. Then he and I sat down at the other end of the table. He sharpened his pencil with a pearl-handled knife and began scribbling in his notebook. After a while, I got out a cigarette. The prematurely bald young man looked up and watched me light it. Presently he said, ‘Could I bum a cigarette? I have a pipe, but I forgot my pouch this morning.’ I had not expected him to speak, of course, and I was startled. His voice was without inflection and not much louder than a whisper. He spoke haltingly and with obvious difficulty.

  ‘Certainly,’ I said, sliding the pack down the table. He took one and slid the pack back. I offered the pack to the red-haired man, but he shook his head.

  ‘Much obliged,’ he said, ‘but I don’t smoke.’ His voice was normal. The bald young man lit the cigarette and then said, ‘You were surprised to hear me talk, weren’t you?’ I said that I had been, and asked him if he was a member of the Union League.

  ‘I’m a member,’ he said, ‘but my friend here isn’t. He’s a hearing man, but he knows sign language. He drops in occasionally to shoot pool. I’m totally deaf myself, but I can talk a little and I’m a lip reader. I went deaf when I was around twelve. I had the measles and lost my hearing, but I retained the ability to talk.’

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ I said. He frowned and looked at me fixedly for a few moments.

  ‘It may be very interesting to you,’ he said finally, ‘but it isn’t to me.’

  I was embarrassed and changed the subject. ‘Are you a photographer?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Just an amateur,’ he said. ‘I’m a bookbinder by trade.’

  I wanted to ask more questions, but at this moment Mr Frankenheim tore a leaf out of his notebook and handed it to me. He had covered both sides of it with his precise handwriting.

  ‘Will now tell you how the good old U.L. was founded,’ this message began. ‘It was founded in the parlor of my boyhood home at 531 Lexington Avenue. The old brownstone in the tintype picture on the wall is the house. It was later torn down to make way for the Hotel Shelton. I and three other young men met in the parlor one Saturday afternoon in January, 1886. All were grads of the Institution for the Improved Instruction of Deaf-Mutes, now known as the Lexington School for the Deaf, and all were great chums. Decided to form a social club exclusively for deaf-mutes. Each became an officer – I was the first president – and each chipped in to establish a treasury. Then we passed two resolutions. One required every member to learn how to dance and the other authorized a draft on the treasury for the purpose of having our photograph made. Went to Mrs C. A. N. Smith’s Tintype Gallery at Broadway and Thirteenth, which was famous in its day. Remember it as well as yesterday. How times flies! By the fall of 1888, the year of the blizzard, the club had grown to such an extent we decided to hold a ball. Hired old Lyric Hall on Sixth Avenue and every member was required to wear a full dress suit or pay a fine of $2. Ball was a gratifying success and won a name for the U.L. in deaf-mute circles all over. So we made it an annual affair. Now hold our balls in big hotels, such as the Astor.

  ‘Club gradually got to be of great importance in the lives of the members. Like when the Grim Reaper stalked into the ranks and claimed a member, the club took full charge of the funeral arrangements. Still do that quite often. Always send a wreath to the funeral of a prominent deaf person, even when not a member. U.L. members have always been men of sterling character. Did have to expel one back in 1893 for deserting his young wife. Can’t have that sort of thing. In the early days of the club we didn’t have any regular headquarters, but we grew in strength like the green bay tree of yore and got tired of meeting here today and there tomorrow. So we began to rent clubrooms. First we had rooms in an Elks’ lodge hall, then in Jacob Ruppert’s old Central Opera House, then in a Broadway office building, then for years on West 125th Street, then here. Improved ourselves with each jump. At present we are in A-1 financial condition. Let us knock wood. We have 400 members. Have around three dozen out-of-town members, mostly from Jersey. They make the U.L. their headquarters when in town. A few who live in distant points go to great trouble and expense to come to Lit. Nights, just for the companionship, etc. Members good about helping each other find employment. Club gives freely to charities for the needy deaf. Has equipped many deaf athletic teams. I could sit here and write until far in the night, but have given you the main facts, and my fingers are tired, and you will have to excuse me. Pleased to have met you.’

  After I had finished reading this, I wrote a note to Mr Frankenheim, thanking him, and then we shook hands. I got my hat and started to leave, but he grabbed my elbow and escorted me to the soft-drink machine in the billiard room. We had Coca-Colas and shook hands all over again. Then I left. The red-haired man followed me out of the room. In the hall he asked me, ‘Was Mr Frankenheim telling you about the Union League?’

  I said, ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Are you interested in the deaf?’ he asked.

  I told him that I planned to write an article about the club.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘the Union League is a wonderful organization, but it isn’t the only deaf club in the city by any means. It’s the biggest, but there are dozens of others. If you’re interested, I could tell you about some of them.’ I suggested that we go somewhere and have a drink, and he said, ‘Downstairs in this building there’s a place called Larry’s Café. We could go there.’

  We went downstairs to Larry’s, which was a typical Eighth Avenue saloon, stood at the bar, and ordered Tom Collinses.

  ‘My name is Jack Fitzsimmons,’ said the red-haired man. ‘I’m a proofreader. I work in a big job-printing plant in Brooklyn. I have a lot of deaf friends and I’m a sign-language interpreter. That’s my hobby. My parents were deaf and I learned the signs from them. Practically all deaf clubs have honorary hearing members who know the signs and act as interpreters. I hold honorary membership in a small deaf club in Brooklyn, but I’ll tell you about that later. If a deaf person has to go to court, or is called to the income-tax bureau, or wants to take out citizenship papers or a marriage license, or the like of that, he usually asks his organization’s interpreter to go along and help him out. Like myself, most of these interpreters picked up the signs from their parents. The children of deaf parents are an interesting group in themselves. Helen Menken, the actress, is one. I don’t know if she can sign, but I do know she does a lot of good propaganda work for the National Association of the Deaf, which has a chapter in the city. It isn’t a social organization. It fights laws which interfere with the rights of the deaf to drive automobiles, and it has an impostor bureau, which investigates beggars who claim to be deaf and often aren’t, and it has a nomenclature committee, which writes to newspapers when they use unpleasant phrases like “deaf and dumb,” and it acquaints employers with the special capabilities of deaf workers, and it does a lot of things like that. By the way, how do you like this saloon?’

  I said
that I liked it all right.

  ‘Nothing unusual about it,’ he said, ‘except that it’s a hangout for the deaf. Gets more deaf trade than any other saloon in the city. On Union League meeting nights it’s crowded. The owner is a fellow named Laurence Blau. He takes an interest in the deaf. He has a son named Sheldon, who tends bar at night. Sheldon knows finger spelling. I guess he’s the only bartender in town who does. When you were upstairs in the club, did you happen to notice a shoeshine man?’

  ‘Yes, I saw him,’ I said.

  ‘Well, his name is Hughie Schmidt. To amuse himself, Hughie teaches hearing people how to converse with the deaf. He taught Sheldon. He also taught one of the cops on the beat, Henry O’Connor of the West Fifty-fourth Street station. When the Union League runs a big affair, the arrangements committee always gets in touch with the station house and asks that O’Connor be detailed to keep order. Not that they really need a cop. The deaf are very orderly and there aren’t many drunks among them. It’s just a custom. O’Connor is a patient man, and Hughie was able to teach him quite a little sign language, as well as finger spelling.’