1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett

Bar Patterns live fish disported themselves, brought every day in the year from a preserve in upper New York State. Every morning, four or five dozen sparkling trout were dumped alive into the pool, and for luncheon or dinner patrons could select their meal as it swam. If they wished, they could even catch it in a net, provided for this purpose. More than once it proved necessary to convince some insistent individual who 11ad lugged a jag in from the barroom, that trying to land a trout with the hook of his cane, or by spearing it with 'the other end, was not at all de rigeur thereabouts_. At le~st once, a man who had clamored to get into the pmol and play that he, too, was a fish, had to be persuaded that "fish" in his case was a simile for his powers of imbition, not for his aquatic ·accomplishments. Some needed no more of a warning than to be told it was water the fish were swimming in. Certain of the characters who affected the Bar. had habits, or performed rites which used to interest the bartenders and the early-morning drinkers. One of such was the son-in-law of a former governor of New York. Before he went to breakfast in the Men's Caf~, he would stop in the Bar and demand a pony of brafidy. This order he would repeat until six empty glasses stood on the counter in front of him. Then he would put the lot of them into his derby, carefully adjust the latter upon his head, and start dancing, the clink of the glasses making a curious melody. His dance over, he would re– place the glasses on the counter, solemnly pay his check, and then go in for his morning meal. Many an old habitue or employee recalls the pros– perous-looking patron of that part of the hotel, whom [ 61 ]