FRED AND BILLY

(Continued from August 20, 2011)

Fred Niblo, son of a Civil War veteran, put his horses up on the screen. On the eve of New Year’s Eve in 1925 the fifty-year-old director’s silent adaptation of a biblical novel by another Civil War veteran, Lew Wallace, premiered at New York’s George M. Cohan Theatre, on Broadway and 43rd Street. He may have gotten a good deal on the theater, by the way; he had been Cohan’s brother-in-law, until his wife died. The spectacular set piece of all versions of “Ben Hur” has been the chariot race. Audiences watched enraptured as Ramon Novarro and Francis X. Bushman guided their plunging vehicles at breakneck speed around Rome’s Circus Maximus. The sound of thundering hoofbeats, of course were only in the viewer’s mind.

Which may have been the case ninety-five years previously with another Niblo. According to Charles H. Haswell, writing as The Octogenarian back in 1830, “In July a trotting course was opened on the ground in front of the "Kensington House" of William Niblo, on the east side of the Old Boston Road at Seventieth Street, which he had opened several years before.”

We met William “Billy” Niblo on our last visit to Manhattan, when the entrepreneur re-opened his renovated Niblo’s Garden at Broadway and Prince Street, in today’s SoHo neighborhood. If Haswell was correct Niblo’s flier on the ponies was a rip-roaring non-success. First; none of the readily-available sources make mention of the project, and there’s only a brief mention in one, of a Kensington House, described as being on the East River. No connection is made there with Niblo. Even the location is suspect. In 1830 Prince Street was considered as being practically in the country. Seventieth Street, had it existed, would have been way “out of town”. Even if the transcription misread Seventeenth Street, as I suspect, there’s no further mention of a trotting track, run by anyone, anywhere near the spot. Haswell never mentions it again in the thirty further years he kept an account of the city’s history. So we can probably score one equine success and one failure for the Niblos.

And, in case you’re wondering, no, they were not related. Fred Niblo’s real name was Frederick Liedtke. It’s most likely he took his stage name from the producer. History can be messy,

The 1830s’ sporting crowd would have to travel over to Long Island to watch racing steeds or the newly-popular trotters. But there was plenty else to do in Manhattan, especially if the theater was your pleasure. And here Haswell is a fine guide. Even though James Stuart returns from his travels at the beginning of June he mentions attending the theater only once. But diarist and former mayor Philip Hone can help us fill in some of the blanks.

About the time Stuart was heading for South Carolina, lower Manhattan’s Chatham Garden Theatre, which had failed last year, then been briefly reborn as the American Opera House (for a limited run of three months), opened once again, this time as Blanchard's Amphitheatre. “Under this style very good equestrian performances, with rope-dancing and the like, were offered.” So, if you couldn’t bet on the horses in Manhattan you could at least watch them prance around a ring.

© 2006 David Minor / Eagles Byte

The One, Two, Three Count

August 14, 2004

On April 29, 1937, the headline on a New York Times article read, "Braddock to Train for Bout With Louis In Sumptuous Camp on Lake Michigan". The story was datelined Chicago, but the sumptuous camp was at Grand Beach, Michigan, five miles up the shore from Michigan City, Indiana. James J. Braddock was looking to defend his heavyweight title against 23-year-old contender Joseph Louis Barrow in a bout scheduled for June 22nd. It looked like the match would be held in Chicago, in spite of a pending New York injunction. As Braddock's manager Joe Gould put it, "Braddock will positively defend his title this Summer. Naturally, we hope it will be against Louis in Chicago. However it is necessary that Braddock be established in camp, and regardless where his title defense takes place, he will remain at Grand Beach for at least two months." The Barrow camp seemed to be betting on Chicago as well, for the challenger would go into training at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, 75 miles northwest of the Windy City.

A photograph of the champ and his sparring partners out for an exercise jog shows the three men running downhill toward the camera along a sloping boardwalk. Behind them, atop a ridge, stands an imposing three-story building with a tower on the corner (one of two, actually) stretching off-camera at the other end, all done in mock Tudor, or Pseudy Tudey, architecture, giving the whole structure a vaguely Shakespearean look. Some "camp". This is the Golfmore Hotel. Braddock will rough it in one of the gilded hostelry's 175 guest rooms.

Resort founders Floyd Perkins and George Ely were obviously doing something right. It was their 18-hole golf course that had given the hotel, opened in 1921, its name. Besides golf the resort provided opportunities to go horseback riding, swimming and, in the winter, ski jumping. Soon another nine holes were added in a nearby location. Twice a day trains of the Michigan Central Railroad would pull into the station, near the fourth green, and discharge wealthy sportsmen from Chicago, eager to hit the links. Other resorts opened nearby. The future looked rosy.

Then came October 1929. The hotel struggled to play through, but was forced to close in 1931, after only ten years of operation. It was reincarnated in 1936 with the added attraction of roulette tables, slots and other gaming seductions and it was then that Braddock arrived to train. Another boxer, Max Baer, had trained here earlier in the decade, as had the Golden Gloves team when they prepared for an international match with the Irish Amateur team.

Chicago fight fans were pleased when they learned the New York court challenge had failed; the fight went on, as scheduled, as 60,000 fans paid $700,000 to jam themselves into Comiskey Park.

The New York Times reported the next day, "Loser Carried Unconscious to His Corner After Being Pounded to Canvas." Joe Louis (he dropped the 'Barrow' to fight professionally), the Brown Bomber, became the first black boxer to hold the crown since Great White Hope Jack Johnson took the title in 1908, and would remain champ for a record-breaking twelve years. Michigan governor Frank Murphy banned gambling in 1937.

On November 19, 1939. the Golfmore Hotel burned to the ground.

Back to square one for Grand Beach.

Script 376

(c) 2004 David Minor / Eagles Byte