Romany Marie
Encyclopedia
Marie Marchand known as Romany Marie, was a Greenwich Village
restaurateur
who played a key role in bohemianism
from the early 1900s through the late 1950s in New York City
's Manhattan
.
and salon
for the bohemian intelligentsia
, were popular restaurants which attracted the core of the Greenwich Village cultural scene, "hot spots for creative types," which she considered centers for her "circle of thinking people," the circle which she had sought since 1901 when she arrived at the age of sixteen in the United States
from Romania
n Moldavia
.
Romany Marie's cafés were among the most interesting in New York's Bohemia and had an extensive following. More salon
s than tavern
s, they were places for the interchange and pollination of ideas, places of polarity and warmth, successful enterprises which were popular with artists. Many regulars such as inventor Buckminster Fuller
and sculptors Isamu Noguchi
and David Smith
compared them to the café
s of Paris
.
Romany Marie herself, who has been described as attractive and unusual, lively and generous, and a Village legend, was a dynamic character who provided free meals to those who needed them and was well known and beloved. She was a former anarchist who had attended Emma Goldman
meetings before 1910, while she was still learning English. Although she later distanced herself from anarchism, she was described as prominent in anarchy and socialism by The New York Times as late as 1915.
She became a leader in Greenwich Village, and not only among the habitués of her own establishments. For example, in June 1921, when there were public protest
s after the Washington Square Association brought charges against "the tea rooms and dancing places of the village" for immorality, The Times credited a local pastor's letter of approval to ‘Dear Romany Marie’ as the turning point in the crisis.
was a regular from 1912 until 1935 when he returned to Chelsea
. His vivid portrait of Romany Marie, painted in 1920, is now in the Whitney Museum of American Art
. There are still a number of prints in existence of his 1922 etching, Romany Marye in Christopher Street.
Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay
wrote the famous quatrain that begins My candle burns at both ends, which at the time she called "My Candle" and later re-titled "First Fig," at Romany Marie's in 1915 or 1916 during a visit with Charles Edison
, his fiancée Carolyn Hawkins, and others.
Playwright Eugene O'Neill
was one of many needy artists whom Romany Marie fed when they could not pay for meals. She was said to have kept O'Neill alive during 1916 and 1917 by feeding him regularly in her kitchen when he was an alcoholic.
When visionary architect Buckminster Fuller
first visited in the late 1910s with his wife and his father-in-law, the architect
and mural
ist James Monroe Hewlett, the only people present in the restaurant when they arrived were Romany Marie and O'Neill
: "The entire evening was devoted to conversation with those two unique individuals."
Sculptor Isamu Noguchi
first visited in October 1929. He had been in Paris on a Guggenheim Fellowship
and had been working for several months with Constantin Brâncuşi
, who recommended that he visit Romany Marie's when he returned to the United States. Brancusi—like Marie, of Romanian heritage—was an old friend of hers in Paris and New York; he also visited Romany Marie's with Henri Matisse
.
Fuller was living in Greenwich Village by then and was a regular at Marie's. By informal arrangement he delivered lectures in a style he called "thinking out loud" several times per week, which "were well received by a fascinated clientele." He also took on Marie's interior decoration, with shiny aluminum paint and aluminum furniture, in exchange for meals. Models of the Dymaxion house
were exhibited at Romany Marie's, and Fuller and Noguchi were soon collaborating on the Dymaxion car
.
Arctic
explorer
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
, a regular for many years, also brought fellow Explorers Club members such as Peter Freuchen
, Lowell Thomas
, and Sir George Hubert Wilkins. Novelist Fannie Hurst
was also a regular, particularly during the years when she and Stefansson were having a long affair.
Stefansson hired Ruth Gruber
as a translator of German documents, which he needed for his study of the Arctic countries
for the War Department
, having met Gruber at Romany Marie's in 1931 or 1932 after her return from the University of Cologne
at age 20 with her doctorate
. Years later, in 1941, Stefansson met his future wife Evelyn Schwartz Baird at Romany Marie's.
Paleontologist
Walter Granger
, another Explorers Club member, was said to have been equally at home in the "elite chambers" of the American Museum of Natural History
as when camped in a field hunting for fossil
s or hanging out with the bohemians at Romany Marie's.
Museum of Modern Art
curator Dorothy Canning Miller
was a regular, as was her husband Holger Cahill
, whose selection of paintings from Mark Tobey
's 1929 solo exhibition at Romany Marie's was a turning point in Tobey's career.
Lionel Abel
, who came to the Village in 1929, was one of those who depended on Romany Marie's generosity. Theodore Dreiser
was an occasional visitor; he preferred Luchow's
on 14th Street
. Arshile Gorky
met with friends and colleagues at Romany Marie's two or three nights a week. David Smith
hung out at Romany Marie's and other establishments with Gorky, Joseph Stella
, John D. Graham
, Willem de Kooning
, Stuart Davis
and others who briefly formed an abstract expressionist
group which preceded what became known as "The Club."
One of the features of Romany Marie's establishments was the "Poets' Table" where "The Tramp Poet" Harry Kemp
held forth with poets and non-poets alike including Paul Robeson
, Edgard Varèse
, and Marsden Hartley
. Nearly half a century after Kemp's first visit in 1912, Romany Marie's was the first stop on the 1960 pilgrimage his friends undertook according to his tape recorded
last wishes, “I want half my ashes to be scattered over the dunes in Provincetown
and the other half in Greenwich Village.”
The wide variety of explorers, philosophers, scientist
s, visionaries
, and other artist
s and intellectual
s who were regulars at Romany Marie's included:
Her extensive following included many others, both notable and non-notable, such as:
From 1915 through 1923, Romany Marie's was in a tiny house at 20 Christopher Street
, and, from 1923 through the late 1920s, at 170 Waverly Place.
The eleven locations over the years—"The caravan has moved" was the sign on the door each time with the new address—also included:
who was born in Moldavia
in the mid-1880s. The family name was Yuster, which has also been spelled Youster.
Marie, her sister Rose (who married Leonard Dalton Abbott
in 1915), their brother David (the youngest), and their mother Esther (known as Mother Yuster, her portrait was painted by Robert Henri
), were all active in the Modern Schools
(Ferrer
Schools) in New York City and in Stelton, Piscataway Township, New Jersey
.
Romany Marie's "centers" for her "circle of thinking people" began in 1912 in their three-room apartment on St. Mark's Place
in the East Village
, and later in their rented house in The Bronx
, before opening in Greenwich Village in 1914.
Her husband Arnold Damon Marchand, also known as A. D. or AD Marchand, was an unlicensed but apparently effective osteopath
. He once treated Mabel Dodge Luhan
's husband Tony Lujan for a slipped disc
, in the winter of 1940, when Lujan and author Frank Waters
were visiting New York from Taos, New Mexico
.
Author Ben Reitman
included Romany Marie among the characters in his fictional autobiography Sister of the Road (1937), which Martin Scorsese
adapted for the 1972 film Boxcar Bertha
. In the mysteries Free Love and Murder Me Now (2001), which are set in the Village in the early 1920s during Prohibition
, author Annette Meyers included both Romany Marie and her husband A. D. Marchand, called Damon, among the characters.
Journalist
Robert Schulman, a co-founder of the Louisville Eccentric Observer
, was Romany Marie Marchand's nephew. During his youth in New York City he visited her frequently in Greenwich Village. In adulthood, whenever he was in the city, he recorded oral history
interviews with her and with many of her devotees. Schulman, whose biography of John Sherman Cooper was published in 1976, published his biography of "that bohemian aunt... with little regard for profit but with central regard for giving unconventional and creative people a place at little cost to talk, think, perform and ponder" in 2006. He died at the age of 91 on January 6, 2008.
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
restaurateur
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
who played a key role in bohemianism
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
from the early 1900s through the late 1950s in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
Romany Marie's cafés
Her cafés, which encompassed the functions of bistroBistro
A bistro, sometimes spelled bistrot, is, in its original Parisian incarnation, a small restaurant serving moderately priced simple meals in a modest setting. Bistros are defined mostly by the foods they serve. Home cooking with robust earthy dishes, and slow-cooked foods like cassoulet are typical...
and salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
for the bohemian intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
, were popular restaurants which attracted the core of the Greenwich Village cultural scene, "hot spots for creative types," which she considered centers for her "circle of thinking people," the circle which she had sought since 1901 when she arrived at the age of sixteen in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
from Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
.
Romany Marie's cafés were among the most interesting in New York's Bohemia and had an extensive following. More salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
s than tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....
s, they were places for the interchange and pollination of ideas, places of polarity and warmth, successful enterprises which were popular with artists. Many regulars such as inventor Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
and sculptors Isamu Noguchi
Isamu Noguchi
was a prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces,...
and David Smith
David Smith (sculptor)
David Roland Smith was an American Abstract Expressionist sculptor and painter, best known for creating large steel abstract geometric sculptures.-Biography:...
compared them to the café
Café
A café , also spelled cafe, in most countries refers to an establishment which focuses on serving coffee, like an American coffeehouse. In the United States, it may refer to an informal restaurant, offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches...
s of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
Romany Marie herself, who has been described as attractive and unusual, lively and generous, and a Village legend, was a dynamic character who provided free meals to those who needed them and was well known and beloved. She was a former anarchist who had attended Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
meetings before 1910, while she was still learning English. Although she later distanced herself from anarchism, she was described as prominent in anarchy and socialism by The New York Times as late as 1915.
She became a leader in Greenwich Village, and not only among the habitués of her own establishments. For example, in June 1921, when there were public protest
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...
s after the Washington Square Association brought charges against "the tea rooms and dancing places of the village" for immorality, The Times credited a local pastor's letter of approval to ‘Dear Romany Marie’ as the turning point in the crisis.
Habitués
Painter John French SloanJohn French Sloan
John French Sloan was an American artist. As a member of The Eight, he became a leading figure in the Ashcan School of realist artists. He was known for his urban genre painting and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often through his window...
was a regular from 1912 until 1935 when he returned to Chelsea
Chelsea, Manhattan
Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The district's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, 30th Street to the north, the western boundary of the Ladies' Mile Historic District – which lies between the Avenue of the Americas and...
. His vivid portrait of Romany Marie, painted in 1920, is now in the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
. There are still a number of prints in existence of his 1922 etching, Romany Marye in Christopher Street.
Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
wrote the famous quatrain that begins My candle burns at both ends, which at the time she called "My Candle" and later re-titled "First Fig," at Romany Marie's in 1915 or 1916 during a visit with Charles Edison
Charles Edison
Charles Edison was son of Thomas Edison to Mina, businessman, Assistant and then United States Secretary of the Navy, and served as the 42nd Governor of New Jersey.-Biography:...
, his fiancée Carolyn Hawkins, and others.
Playwright Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
was one of many needy artists whom Romany Marie fed when they could not pay for meals. She was said to have kept O'Neill alive during 1916 and 1917 by feeding him regularly in her kitchen when he was an alcoholic.
When visionary architect Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
first visited in the late 1910s with his wife and his father-in-law, the architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
and mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
ist James Monroe Hewlett, the only people present in the restaurant when they arrived were Romany Marie and O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
: "The entire evening was devoted to conversation with those two unique individuals."
Sculptor Isamu Noguchi
Isamu Noguchi
was a prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces,...
first visited in October 1929. He had been in Paris on a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
and had been working for several months with Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
, who recommended that he visit Romany Marie's when he returned to the United States. Brancusi—like Marie, of Romanian heritage—was an old friend of hers in Paris and New York; he also visited Romany Marie's with Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
.
Fuller was living in Greenwich Village by then and was a regular at Marie's. By informal arrangement he delivered lectures in a style he called "thinking out loud" several times per week, which "were well received by a fascinated clientele." He also took on Marie's interior decoration, with shiny aluminum paint and aluminum furniture, in exchange for meals. Models of the Dymaxion house
Dymaxion house
The Dymaxion House was developed by inventor and architect Buckminster Fuller to address several perceived shortcomings with existing homebuilding techniques. Fuller designed several versions of the house at different times, but they were all factory manufactured kits, assembled on site, intended...
were exhibited at Romany Marie's, and Fuller and Noguchi were soon collaborating on the Dymaxion car
Dymaxion car
thumb|The Dymaxion car designed by inventor–architect [[Buckminster Fuller]].The Dymaxion car was a concept car designed by U.S. inventor and architect Buckminster Fuller in 1933. The word Dymaxion is a brand name that Fuller gave to several of his inventions, to emphasize that he considered them...
.
Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
explorer
Exploration
Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Vilhjalmur Stefansson was a Canadian Arctic explorer and ethnologist.-Early life:Stefansson, born William Stephenson, was born at Gimli, Manitoba, Canada, in 1879. His parents had emigrated from Iceland to Manitoba two years earlier...
, a regular for many years, also brought fellow Explorers Club members such as Peter Freuchen
Peter Freuchen
Peter Freuchen, born Lorenz Peter Elfred Freuchen was a Danish explorer, author, journalist and anthropologist.-Biography:...
, Lowell Thomas
Lowell Thomas
Lowell Jackson Thomas was an American writer, broadcaster, and traveler, best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia famous...
, and Sir George Hubert Wilkins. Novelist Fannie Hurst
Fannie Hurst
Fannie Hurst was an American novelist. Although her books are not well remembered today, during her lifetime some of her more famous novels were Stardust , Lummox , A President is Born , Back Street , and Imitation of Life...
was also a regular, particularly during the years when she and Stefansson were having a long affair.
Stefansson hired Ruth Gruber
Ruth Gruber
Ruth Gruber is an American journalist, photographer, writer, humanitarian and a former United States government official.-Early life:...
as a translator of German documents, which he needed for his study of the Arctic countries
Territorial claims in the Arctic
Under international law, no country currently owns the North Pole or the region of the Arctic Ocean surrounding it. The five surrounding Arctic states, Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark , are limited to an exclusive economic zone of adjacent to their coasts.Upon ratification...
for the War Department
United States Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department , was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army...
, having met Gruber at Romany Marie's in 1931 or 1932 after her return from the University of Cologne
University of Cologne
The University of Cologne is one of the oldest universities in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany. The university is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, an association of Germany's leading research universities...
at age 20 with her doctorate
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
. Years later, in 1941, Stefansson met his future wife Evelyn Schwartz Baird at Romany Marie's.
Paleontologist
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
Walter Granger
Walter W. Granger
Walter Willis Granger was an American vertebrate paleontologist who participated in important fossil explorations in the United States, Egypt, China and Mongolia.-Early life and career:...
, another Explorers Club member, was said to have been equally at home in the "elite chambers" of the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
as when camped in a field hunting for fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s or hanging out with the bohemians at Romany Marie's.
Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
curator Dorothy Canning Miller
Dorothy Canning Miller
Dorothy Canning Miller was an American art curator and one of the most influential people in American modern art for more than half of the 20th century...
was a regular, as was her husband Holger Cahill
Holger Cahill
Edgar Holger Cahill was the National Director of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration during the New Deal.-Biography:...
, whose selection of paintings from Mark Tobey
Mark Tobey
Mark George Tobey was an American abstract expressionist painter, born in Centerville, Wisconsin. Widely recognized throughout the United States and Europe, Tobey is the most noted among the "mystical painters of the Northwest." Senior in age and experience, Tobey had a strong influence on the...
's 1929 solo exhibition at Romany Marie's was a turning point in Tobey's career.
Lionel Abel
Lionel Abel
Lionel Abel was an eminent American playwright, essayist and theater critic. His first success was a tragedy, Absalom, staged off-Broadway in 1956. It was followed by three other works of drama, before he turned to criticism...
, who came to the Village in 1929, was one of those who depended on Romany Marie's generosity. Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
was an occasional visitor; he preferred Luchow's
Luchow's
Lüchow's was a restaurant located at 110 East 14th Street at Irving Place near Union Square in Manhattan, New York City, with the property running clear through the block to 13th Street...
on 14th Street
14th Street (Manhattan)
14th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The street rivals the size of some of the well-known avenues of the city and is an important business location....
. Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
met with friends and colleagues at Romany Marie's two or three nights a week. David Smith
David Smith (sculptor)
David Roland Smith was an American Abstract Expressionist sculptor and painter, best known for creating large steel abstract geometric sculptures.-Biography:...
hung out at Romany Marie's and other establishments with Gorky, Joseph Stella
Joseph Stella
Joseph Stella was an Italian-born, American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America. He is associated with the American Precisionism movement of the 1910s-1940s....
, John D. Graham
John D. Graham
John D. Graham was a Ukrainian-born American Modernist / figurative painter.He was born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky in Kiev, Ukraine...
, Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
, Stuart Davis
Stuart Davis (painter)
Stuart Davis , was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.-Biography:He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt...
and others who briefly formed an abstract expressionist
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
group which preceded what became known as "The Club."
One of the features of Romany Marie's establishments was the "Poets' Table" where "The Tramp Poet" Harry Kemp
Harry Kemp
thumb|rightHarry Hibbard Kemp was an American poet and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as "the "Vagabond Poet, the Villon of America, the Hobo Poet, or the Tramp Poet," and was a well-known popular literary figure of his era, the "hero of adolescent Americans."-Life and...
held forth with poets and non-poets alike including Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
, and Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.-Early life and education:Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine, where his English parents had settled. He was the youngest of nine children. His mother died when he was eight, and his father remarried four years later to Martha...
. Nearly half a century after Kemp's first visit in 1912, Romany Marie's was the first stop on the 1960 pilgrimage his friends undertook according to his tape recorded
Tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...
last wishes, “I want half my ashes to be scattered over the dunes in Provincetown
Provincetown, Massachusetts
Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,431 at the 2000 census, with an estimated 2007 population of 3,174...
and the other half in Greenwich Village.”
The wide variety of explorers, philosophers, scientist
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
s, visionaries
Visionary
Defined broadly, a visionary, is one who can envision the future. For some groups this can involve the supernatural or drugs.The visionary state is achieved via meditation, drugs, lucid dreams, daydreams, or art. One example is Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century artist/visionary and Catholic saint...
, and other artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
s and intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s who were regulars at Romany Marie's included:
- Leonard Dalton AbbottLeonard Dalton AbbottLeonard Dalton Abbott was an English-born American publicist, politician, and freethinker. Originally a socialist, Abbott turned to libertarian anarchism in the first decade of the 20th century. He is best remembered as a leader of the so-called "Modern School movement" of those years.-Early...
- Lionel AbelLionel AbelLionel Abel was an eminent American playwright, essayist and theater critic. His first success was a tragedy, Absalom, staged off-Broadway in 1956. It was followed by three other works of drama, before he turned to criticism...
- George BellowsGeorge BellowsGeorge Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".-Youth:Bellows was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio...
- Maxwell BodenheimMaxwell BodenheimMaxwell Bodenheim was an American poet and novelist who was known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians. His writing brought him international fame during the Jazz Age of the 1920s.-Biography:...
- Constantin BrâncuşiConstantin BrancusiConstantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
- Holger CahillHolger CahillEdgar Holger Cahill was the National Director of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration during the New Deal.-Biography:...
- Alexander CalderAlexander CalderAlexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
- E. E. CummingsE. E. CummingsEdward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
- Jo DavidsonJo DavidsonJo Davidson was an American sculptor of Russian-Jewish descent. Although he specialized in realistic, intense portrait busts, Davidson did not require his subjects to formally pose for him; rather, he observed and spoke with them...
- Stuart DavisStuart Davis (painter)Stuart Davis , was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.-Biography:He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt...
- Lee De ForestLee De ForestLee De Forest was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use...
- Arthur DoveArthur DoveArthur Garfield Dove was an American artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter.-Youth and education:...
- Theodore DreiserTheodore DreiserTheodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
- Marcel DuchampMarcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
- WillWill DurantWilliam James Durant was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant and published between 1935 and 1975...
and Ariel DurantAriel DurantAriel Durant was the co-author of The Story of Civilization.-Biography:Durant was born in Proskurov as Chaya Kaufman to Ethel Appel Kaufman and Joseph Kaufman. The family emigrated to the United States in 1901. She met her future husband, Will Durant, while a student at Ferrer Modern School in...
- Buckminster FullerBuckminster FullerRichard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
- Arshile GorkyArshile GorkyArshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
- John D. GrahamJohn D. GrahamJohn D. Graham was a Ukrainian-born American Modernist / figurative painter.He was born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowsky in Kiev, Ukraine...
- Walter W. GrangerWalter W. GrangerWalter Willis Granger was an American vertebrate paleontologist who participated in important fossil explorations in the United States, Egypt, China and Mongolia.-Early life and career:...
- Marsden HartleyMarsden HartleyMarsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.-Early life and education:Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine, where his English parents had settled. He was the youngest of nine children. His mother died when he was eight, and his father remarried four years later to Martha...
- Sadakichi HartmannSadakichi HartmannCarl Sadakichi Hartmann was a critic and poet of German and Japanese descent.Hartmann, born on the artificial island of Dejima, Nagasaki and raised in Germany, became an American citizen in 1894. An important early participant in modernism, Hartmann was a friend of such diverse figures as Walt...
- Robert HenriRobert HenriRobert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School in art.- Early life :...
- Fannie HurstFannie HurstFannie Hurst was an American novelist. Although her books are not well remembered today, during her lifetime some of her more famous novels were Stardust , Lummox , A President is Born , Back Street , and Imitation of Life...
- Burl IvesBurl IvesBurl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....
- Orrick Glenday JohnsOrrick Glenday JohnsOrrick Glenday Johns was an American poet and playwright and was part of the literary group that included T. S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway. He was active in the Communist Party....
- Harry KempHarry Kempthumb|rightHarry Hibbard Kemp was an American poet and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as "the "Vagabond Poet, the Villon of America, the Hobo Poet, or the Tramp Poet," and was a well-known popular literary figure of his era, the "hero of adolescent Americans."-Life and...
- Rockwell KentRockwell KentRockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer.- Biography :Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York, the same year as fellow American artists George Bellows and Edward Hopper...
- Willem de KooningWillem de KooningWillem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
- Alfred KreymborgAlfred KreymborgAlfred Francis Kreymborg was an American poet, novelist, playwright, literary editor and anthologist.-Early life and associations:...
- Walt KuhnWalt KuhnWalt Kuhn was an American painter and was an organizer of the modern art Armory Show of 1913, which was the first of its genre in America.-Biography:Kuhn was born in Brooklyn, New York City...
- George LuksGeorge LuksGeorge Benjamin Luks, was an American realist artist and illustrator. His vigorously painted genre paintings of urban subjects are examples of the Ashcan school in American art.-Early life:...
- Gjon MiliGjon MiliGjon Mili was an Albanian-American photographer best known for his work published in Life.-Biography:Born to Vasil Mili and Viktori Cekani in Korçë, Albania, Mili came to the United States in 1923. In 1939, Mili landed a job as a freelance photographer for Life...
- Edna St. Vincent MillayEdna St. Vincent MillayEdna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
- Dorothy Canning MillerDorothy Canning MillerDorothy Canning Miller was an American art curator and one of the most influential people in American modern art for more than half of the 20th century...
- Isamu NoguchiIsamu Noguchiwas a prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces,...
- Eugene O'NeillEugene O'NeillEugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
- Paul RobesonPaul RobesonPaul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
- Boardman RobinsonBoardman RobinsonBoardman Robinson was a Canadian-American artist, illustrator and cartoonist.-Early years:Boardman Robinson was born September 6, 1876 in Nova Scotia, Canada. He spent his childhood in England and Canada, before coming to Boston in the first half of the 1890s...
- John French SloanJohn French SloanJohn French Sloan was an American artist. As a member of The Eight, he became a leading figure in the Ashcan School of realist artists. He was known for his urban genre painting and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often through his window...
- David SmithDavid Smith (sculptor)David Roland Smith was an American Abstract Expressionist sculptor and painter, best known for creating large steel abstract geometric sculptures.-Biography:...
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- Joseph StellaJoseph StellaJoseph Stella was an Italian-born, American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America. He is associated with the American Precisionism movement of the 1910s-1940s....
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- Eudora WeltyEudora WeltyEudora Alice Welty was an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published...
Her extensive following included many others, both notable and non-notable, such as:
- Carlos ChávezCarlos ChávezCarlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six Symphonies, his Symphony No...
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Locations
The first location, rented in 1914 near Sheridan Square at 133 Washington Place on the third floor of a four story building, was reached by climbing one outside staircase and two inside staircases.From 1915 through 1923, Romany Marie's was in a tiny house at 20 Christopher Street
Christopher Street (Manhattan)
Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th St. to the west of its intersection with 6th Ave. The Stonewall Inn is located on Christopher Street, and, therefore, the street was at the center of New York's...
, and, from 1923 through the late 1920s, at 170 Waverly Place.
The eleven locations over the years—"The caravan has moved" was the sign on the door each time with the new address—also included:
- 15 Minetta Street, on a branch—"only a surveyorSurveyingSee Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
could find it"—of tiny Minetta Lane.
- 49 Grove Street, next to the Thomas PaineThomas PaineThomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
building at 59 Grove which held the Marie's Crisis restaurant, named for its owner Marie Du Mont and Paine's CrisisThe American CrisisThe American Crisis was a series of pamphlets published from 1776 to 1783 during the American Revolution by 18th century Enlightenment philosopher and author Thomas Paine. The first volume begins with the famous words "These are the times that try men's souls". There were sixteen pamphlets in total...
pamphlet.
- 40 West 8th Street (St. Mark's PlaceSt. Mark's Place (Manhattan)Saint Mark's Place is a street in the East Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is named after St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery on 10th Street at Second Avenue. St. Mark's Place, which is a section of 8th Street, runs from Third Avenue to Avenue A...
).
- 64 Washington Square South (West 4th StreetWest 4th Street (Manhattan)West Fourth Street runs east-west through most of eastern and central Manhattan and then turns north at Sixth Avenue to intersect with West 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th Streets in Greenwich Village...
).
- The basement of the Hotel Brevoort on the northeast corner of Fifth AvenueFifth Avenue (Manhattan)Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The section of Fifth Avenue that crosses Midtown Manhattan, especially that between 49th Street and 60th Street, is lined with prestigious shops and is consistently ranked among...
and 8th Street where Fifth Avenue originates at Washington SquareWashington Square ParkWashington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
.
Biography
Romany Marie Marchand was a Jewish Romanian AmericanRomanian American
A Romanian American is a citizen of the United States who has significant Romanian heritage. For the 2000 US Census, 367,310 Americans indicated Romanian as their first ancestry, while 462,526 persons declared to have Romanian ancestry...
who was born in Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
in the mid-1880s. The family name was Yuster, which has also been spelled Youster.
Marie, her sister Rose (who married Leonard Dalton Abbott
Leonard Dalton Abbott
Leonard Dalton Abbott was an English-born American publicist, politician, and freethinker. Originally a socialist, Abbott turned to libertarian anarchism in the first decade of the 20th century. He is best remembered as a leader of the so-called "Modern School movement" of those years.-Early...
in 1915), their brother David (the youngest), and their mother Esther (known as Mother Yuster, her portrait was painted by Robert Henri
Robert Henri
Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School in art.- Early life :...
), were all active in the Modern Schools
Modern School (United States)
The Modern Schools, also called Ferrer Schools, were United States schools, established in the early twentieth century, that were modeled after the Escuela Moderna of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, the Catalan educator and anarchist...
(Ferrer
Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia
Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia was a Spanish Catalan free-thinker and anarchist....
Schools) in New York City and in Stelton, Piscataway Township, New Jersey
Piscataway Township, New Jersey
The township consists of the following historic villages and areas: New Market, known as Quibbletown in the 18th Century, Randolphville, Fieldville and North Stelton...
.
Romany Marie's "centers" for her "circle of thinking people" began in 1912 in their three-room apartment on St. Mark's Place
St. Mark's Place (Manhattan)
Saint Mark's Place is a street in the East Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is named after St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery on 10th Street at Second Avenue. St. Mark's Place, which is a section of 8th Street, runs from Third Avenue to Avenue A...
in the East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
, and later in their rented house in The Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, before opening in Greenwich Village in 1914.
Her husband Arnold Damon Marchand, also known as A. D. or AD Marchand, was an unlicensed but apparently effective osteopath
Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine
Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine is the application of the distinct osteopathic philosophy, structural diagnosis and use of Osteopathic Manipulative Technique in the diagnosis and management of the patient. OMM takes into account the physical and mental health of a patient, and how either aspect...
. He once treated Mabel Dodge Luhan
Mabel Dodge Luhan
Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan , née Ganson was a wealthy American patron of the arts. She is particularly associated with the Taos art colony.-Early life:...
's husband Tony Lujan for a slipped disc
Spinal disc herniation
A spinal disc herniation , informally and misleadingly called a "slipped disc", is a medical condition affecting the spine due to trauma, lifting injuries, or idiopathic, in which a tear in the outer, fibrous ring of an intervertebral disc allows the soft, central portion A spinal disc herniation...
, in the winter of 1940, when Lujan and author Frank Waters
Frank Waters
Frank Waters was an American writer. He is known for his novels and historical works about the American Southwest...
were visiting New York from Taos, New Mexico
Taos, New Mexico
Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico, incorporated in 1934. As of the 2000 census, its population was 4,700. Other nearby communities include Ranchos de Taos, Cañon, Taos Canyon, Ranchitos, and El Prado. The town is close to Taos Pueblo, the Native American...
.
Author Ben Reitman
Ben Reitman
Ben Lewis Reitman was an American anarchist and physician to the poor . He is best remembered today as radical Emma Goldman's lover.Reitman was a flamboyant, eccentric character...
included Romany Marie among the characters in his fictional autobiography Sister of the Road (1937), which Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
adapted for the 1972 film Boxcar Bertha
Boxcar Bertha
Boxcar Bertha , director Martin Scorsese's second film, is a loose adaptation of Sister of the Road, the fictionalized autobiography of radical and transient Bertha Thompson as written by Ben Reitman...
. In the mysteries Free Love and Murder Me Now (2001), which are set in the Village in the early 1920s during Prohibition
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
, author Annette Meyers included both Romany Marie and her husband A. D. Marchand, called Damon, among the characters.
Journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
Robert Schulman, a co-founder of the Louisville Eccentric Observer
Louisville Eccentric Observer
The Louisville Eccentric Observer is a free weekly newspaper , distributed every Wednesday in over 800 locations throughout the Louisville, Kentucky area, including areas of southern Indiana...
, was Romany Marie Marchand's nephew. During his youth in New York City he visited her frequently in Greenwich Village. In adulthood, whenever he was in the city, he recorded oral history
Oral history
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews...
interviews with her and with many of her devotees. Schulman, whose biography of John Sherman Cooper was published in 1976, published his biography of "that bohemian aunt... with little regard for profit but with central regard for giving unconventional and creative people a place at little cost to talk, think, perform and ponder" in 2006. He died at the age of 91 on January 6, 2008.
External links
- Romany Marie's Tavern podcastPodcastA podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
link on John SloanJohn French SloanJohn French Sloan was an American artist. As a member of The Eight, he became a leading figure in the Ashcan School of realist artists. He was known for his urban genre painting and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often through his window...
's New York, Delaware Art MuseumDelaware Art MuseumThe Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 works. The museum, was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the artist Howard Pyle and is now celebrating its centennial...
.