I’m finishing up my second week at the New York Public Library archives. The first week, I looked at scrapbooks and scripts and sheet music at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center. That would be the research library in closest proximity to Lincoln Center. Probably my single favorite find in the time I’ve spent here is the Hippodrome Usher’s Gazette, a biweekly newsletter published by the uniformed boys who helped Hippodrome patrons to their seats.
There are rosters of former employees in the Hall of Fame, poems written extolling the Hippodrome shows and mocking some of their coworkers who’ve gotten in trouble, even serialized adventure stories. I’ve only run across two issues so far, but they’ve got such Progressive Era boyish charm. I want to figure out what running the Hippodrome felt like for people onstage, designers and musicians, and the front of house staff like the guys who put out this paper. Glad there’s something left of their daily experience, as aw-shucks and constructed as it might be. Even if I am kind of imagining them as newsies from the musical.
Page one of the Hippodrome Usher’s Gazette