1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

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Bar Patte'J1-S and plungers headed by John W. Gates, the fact is, it consisted of a bare dozen men, and Gates was not of them. They constituted, for a time, the entire list of customers claimed by one of the brokerage offices in the Waldorf,-Benkhard & Company,-of which A. H. Cook was manager. So far as known, that office has not been paralleled in several particul,ars. A small stock exchange in itself, it was exclusive. Actually, it had just twelve customers. M9st of them spent the entire Market period-except at luncheon time-in its luxurious chairs, watchingithe ticker, swap– ping jokes, or dealing with one another. It adjoined the old South Cafe, or Grill Room, from which it was en– tered by a door faced with a mirror, not easy for the unfamiliar to locate. For luncheon, all the customers had to do was to come out of that door and sit down at tables, and at the close of the Market they had merely to cross the South Cafe, open another mirror– faced door and find themselves in the Bar. Strangers were not welcome in that office. Anybody who didn't belong quickly found the way ~ut, as a rule-_ Of the exclusive twelve, those whose names are recalled ._ were E. E. Smathers, oil man and race horse owner, and then rated as the best poker player in the United States; "Joe" Elwell, famous later on as the author of "Elwell on Bridge" and whose mysterious murder some years later was one of those events the New York police have never satisfactorily cleared up-or, at least, so far as can be gathered from court records; John A. Drake, betting and race track associate of John W. Gates (both already mentioned); "Pete" Rogers, man-about-town; [ 47]