Upper Manhattan, with clam broth

[505–501 West 207th Street, Inwood, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

With the exception of the Cloisters, Upper Manhattan is a mystery to me, as are the 1940s. So I went exploring at 1940s.nyc and came back with the photograph above. I chose it for the shadow of the El, the rugged brick street, and the delightful unexpectedness of the commercial sequence: the Tally-Ho, a bar and grill with various prohibitions (click to enlarge and notice the NO on the sign), followed by Roy’s Clam Broth House and City Tire Stores. Clam Broth House was once a thing: Hoboken had a celebrated one. Here, have a menu. And a New York Times article. And some more history.

And now back to Upper Manhattan.

The 1940 telephone directory lists the Tally-Ho Bar and Restaurant at 505 West 207th. No listings for Roy or City Tire. Today Google Maps now shows the entire block as no. 501. It’s a similarly shaped building that houses a clothing store and a barber shop. Cole Thompson at My Inwood has written the surprising history of this block from 1911 to 2016.

Before leaving Upper Manhattan, I have to mention Billy Strayhorn’s “U.M.M.G.,” named for the Upper Manhattan Medical Group, the home of Duke Ellington’s physician Arthur Logan.

And I have to wonder: when I found this photograph last night, after about two minutes of browsing, how did the Internets know that Elaine and I had bought a bottle of Snow’s Clam Juice (juice is just another name for broth) earlier in the day? We used our clam juice in a pot of gumbo that will see us through the next two or three days.

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)