Marie Marchand | |
|---|---|
 Marie Marchandc. early 1930s | |
| Born | (1885-05-17)17 May 1885 |
| Died | 20 February 1961(1961-02-20) (aged 75) |
Marie Marchand (May 17, 1885,Băbeni,Vâlcea County — February 20, 1961,Greenwich Village,New York), known asRomany Marie, was aGreenwich Villagerestaurateur who played a key role inbohemianism from the early 1900s through the late 1950s inManhattan.
Her cafés, which encompassed the functions ofbistro andsalon for the bohemianintelligentsia,[1] were popular restaurants which attracted the core of the Greenwich Village cultural scene,[2] "hot spots for creative types,"[3] which she considered centers for her "circle of thinking people,"[4]: [p.39] the circle which she had sought since 1901 when she arrived in theUnited States fromRomanianMoldavia at the age of sixteen.
Romany Marie's cafés were among the most interesting in New York's Bohemia[5] and had an extensive following.[6] Moresalons thantaverns, they were places for the interchange and pollination of ideas,[7] places of polarity and warmth,[4]: [p.61] successful enterprises which were popular with artists.[8] Many regulars such asinventorBuckminster Fuller[9] andsculptorsIsamu Noguchi[10] andDavid Smith[11] compared them to thecafés ofParis.
Romany Marie herself, who has been described as attractive and unusual, lively and generous, and a Village legend,[2] was a dynamic character[1] who provided free meals to those who needed them[2][12][13][14] and was well known and beloved.[12] She was a former anarchist[1][8] who had attendedEmma Goldman meetings before 1910, while she was still learning English.[4]: [pp.40–41] Although she later distanced herself from anarchism,[1] she was described as prominent in anarchy and socialism byThe New York Times as late as 1915.[15]
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 publicprotests after theWashington 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.[16]
PainterJohn French Sloan was a regular from 1912 until 1935 when he returned toChelsea.[17] His vivid portrait of Romany Marie,[1] painted in 1920, is now in theWhitney Museum of American Art. There are still a number of prints in existence of his 1922 etching,Romany Marye in Christopher Street.[18][19]
PoetEdna St. Vincent Millay wrote the famous quatrain that beginsMy candle burns at both ends,[20] which at the time she called "My Candle" and later re-titled "First Fig,"[21] at Romany Marie's in 1915 or 1916 during a visit withCharles Edison, his fiancée Carolyn Hawkins, and others.
PlaywrightEugene O'Neill was one of many needy artists whom Romany Marie fed when they could not pay for meals.[22]: [p.130] 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.[2]
When visionary architectBuckminster Fuller first visited in the late 1910s with his wife and his father-in-law, thearchitect andmuralistJames Monroe Hewlett, the only people present in the restaurant when they arrived were Romany Marie andO'Neill: "The entire evening was devoted to conversation with those two unique individuals."[23]: [p.74]
SculptorIsamu Noguchi first visited in October 1929.[24] He had been in Paris on aGuggenheim Fellowship and had been working for several months withConstantin Brâncuși,[3][7] who recommended that he visit Romany Marie's when he returned to the United States.[25] Brâncuși—like Marie, of Romanian heritage—was an old friend of hers in Paris and New York;[4]: [p.109] he also visited Romany Marie's withHenri Matisse.
Fuller was living in Greenwich Village by then and was a regular at Marie's. By informal arrangement[7] he delivered lectures in a style he called "thinking out loud" several times per week, which "were well received by a fascinated clientele."[23]: [pp.119–142] He also took on Marie's interior decoration, with shiny aluminum paint and aluminum furniture,[3][10] in exchange for meals.[25] Models of theDymaxion house were exhibited at Romany Marie's, and Fuller and Noguchi were soon collaborating on theDymaxion car.[24]
ArcticexplorerVilhjalmur Stefansson, a regular for many years,[2] also brought fellowExplorers Club members such asPeter Freuchen,Lowell Thomas, and SirGeorge Hubert Wilkins.[4]: [p.110] NovelistFannie Hurst was also a regular,[1] particularly during the years when she and Stefansson were having a long affair.[2]: [p.195] [26]
Stefansson hiredRuth Gruber as a translator of German documents, which he needed for his study of theArctic countries for theWar Department, having met Gruber at Romany Marie's in 1931 or 1932[27] after her return from theUniversity of Cologne at age 20 with herdoctorate. Years later, in 1941, Stefansson met his future wife Evelyn Schwartz Baird at Romany Marie's.[2]: [pp.251–252]
PaleontologistWalter Granger, anotherExplorers Club member, was said to have been equally at home in the "elite chambers" of theAmerican Museum of Natural History as when camped in a field hunting forfossils or hanging out with the bohemians at Romany Marie's.[28]
Museum of Modern Art curatorDorothy Canning Miller was a regular,[29] as was her husbandHolger Cahill,[30] whose selection of paintings fromMark Tobey's 1929 solo exhibition at Romany Marie's was a turning point in Tobey's career.[31]
Lionel Abel, who came to the Village in 1929, was one of those who depended on Romany Marie's generosity.[13]Theodore Dreiser was an occasional visitor; he preferredLüchow's on14th Street.[22]: [p.299] Arshile Gorky met with friends and colleagues at Romany Marie's two or three nights a week.[14]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 anabstract expressionist group[11] which preceded what became known as "The Club."[22]: [p.546]
One of the features of Romany Marie's establishments was the "Poets' Table" where "The Tramp Poet"Harry Kemp[32] held forth with poets and non-poets alike includingPaul Robeson,Edgard Varèse, andMarsden Hartley.[22]: [p.366] 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 histape recorded last wishes, "I want half my ashes to be scattered over the dunes inProvincetown and the other half in Greenwich Village."[32]
The thing is, in the fantastically mixed atmosphere we had, even the misfits and the lonely could get direction because there was nothing mushy or poshy about the atmosphere. Can you imagine in the same night, among the guests,Dreiser andDurant andJohn Cowper Powys, not like celebrities but being themselves? My long-time friend,Vilhjalmur Stefansson, compared it to theColumbia University Library. There, he said, people added volumes to their knowledge; at my place they added friends.
— Romany Marie,[4]: [p.93]
The first location, rented in 1914 near Sheridan Square at 133 Washington Place[1][4]: [pp.16–17, p. 63ff] [20][33] 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 20Christopher Street,[4]: [pp.17–18, p. 68ff] and, from 1923 through the late 1920s, at 1701⁄2Waverly Place.[1]: [p.46]
The eleven locations over the years—"The caravan has moved"[4]: [p.68] was the sign on the door each time with the new address—also included:
Romany Marie Marchand was of Jewish descent, born inNichitoaia,Romania in 1885.[37] Her father was Lupu Yuster and her mother, Esther Rosen, was a Jew.
Marie, her sister Rose (who marriedLeonard Dalton Abbott in 1915), their brother David (the youngest), and their mother Esther (known as Mother Yuster, her portrait was painted byRobert Henri), were all active in theModern Schools (Ferrer Schools) in New York City and inStelton,Piscataway Township, New Jersey.[38] Her sister Rebecca, who followed Marie to the United States, died in her 20's in New York City.
Romany Marie's "centers" for her "circle of thinking people" began in 1912 in their three-room apartment onSt. Mark's Place in theEast Village,[4]: [p.42] and later in their rented house inThe Bronx,[4]: [p.50] before opening in Greenwich Village in 1914.[4]: [p.59]
Her husband Arnold Damon Marchand, also known as A. D. or AD Marchand, was an unlicensed but apparently effectiveosteopath. He once treatedMabel Dodge Luhan's husband Tony Luhan for aslipped disc, in the winter of 1940, when Luhan and authorFrank Waters were visiting New York fromTaos, New Mexico.[39]
AuthorBen Reitman included Romany Marie among the characters in his fictional autobiographySister of the Road (1937),[40] whichMartin Scorsese adapted for the 1972 filmBoxcar Bertha. In the mysteriesFree Love andMurder Me Now (2001), which are set in the Village in the early 1920s duringProhibition, authorAnnette Meyers included both Romany Marie and her husband A. D. Marchand, called Damon, among the characters.[41]
JournalistRobert Schulman, a co-founder of theLouisville Eccentric Observer,[42] was Romany Marie Marchand's nephew.[43] During his youth in New York City he visited her frequently in Greenwich Village. In adulthood, whenever he was in the city, he recordedoral history interviews with her and with many of her devotees. Schulman, whose biography ofJohn 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"[44] in 2006. He died at the age of 91 on January 6, 2008.
[Fuller]: It was probably the last of the really great Bohemian cafés I know of in the world — very much like the Paris of the [19]20s. The Village was loaded then with great artists and great intellectuals, and Marie had by far the best place in town. That's where I carried on and developed my ideas.
[Noguchi]: ... one met a lot of people down there. It was sort of a transfer of the Paris café life to New York in Romany Marie's. She had a real function.
Her place came closer to being a Continental café with its varied types of professionals than any other place I knew.
Her cafe, which bore her name, was a frequent haunt for struggling writers, poets, artists and scientists, who were assured a good meal whether they were able to pay for it or not.
Though signs for her restaurant read 'Romany Marie's Tavern,' Sloan always spelled her name 'Marye.'
Sloan wrote of this print: "All Greenwich Villagers know Romany Marye, who has acted the part of hostess, philosopher, and friend in her series of quiet little restaurants for the past thirty-five years. The etching shows her chatting [center foreground] in her deep comfortable voice to Dolly and myself." Sloan is depicted at the lower right, with the pipe; his wife Dolly is at the lower left.
Her favorite hangout in the thirties was Romany Marie's Cafe, on 8th Street, which served cheap Romanian food and beer and had, at the time, the best salon. There she met Buckminster Fuller, and hung out with Isamu Noguchi and even Vilhjálmur Stefánsson, the Arctic explorer. "At Marie's, people didn't have enough money to get drunk. People just talked and talked and talked," she said. "It was very amusing."
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