1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

PART II Many Schools in Ohe N OT FAR from the spot where the Indian chief who sold Henry Hudson the Island of Manhattan coined the expression, "Here's how!" when he tackled the bottle of rum that the crafty Britisher-temporarily a Dutchman-threw after his twenty-four dollars to bind the bargain; not far from that spirituous spot, in later years, arose a mighty hotel. In one of its great halls, dis– ciples, if not descendants, of the noble red man were wont to assemble every afternoon, and to preface, as well as con– clude, with his utterance on that merporable occasion, deals which caused the original New York real estate speculation to dwindle to the proportions of a fly-speck. What some of those men did, under the influence of a just-ended session of the Stock Exchange, of the news– ticker that kept discharging its tape into a waste-basket, and possibly-and probably--of what was dispensed in that hall by a dozen talented bartenders, helped make American history. Men staked fortunes there; they formed pools; th.~y plotted to corner markets. For years [II)