by Paul R. Spitzzeri
A few days ago we provided some of the early history of the Imperial Café, which spanned between Spring Street and Broadway between 2nd and 3rd streets, including next to City Hall, in downtown Los Angeles. Now we turn to the period in which the featured object from the Homestead’s holdings, a musical program for the last week of September 1902, was produced and distributed.
For establishments like this, as well as contemporaries like Al Levy’s and the Bristol, music along with a meal (and, of course, a bit of imbibing to boot) was an important part of the operation, a far cry from what generally happens today and, in the case of the Imperial, it is no surprise that owners and operators were Germans, where love of good food, alcohol (especially beer) and music came together as part of the dining experience.
One of the more unusual offerings at the restaurant is what we would call today a multimedia concert, in which “descriptive singer” R. Clinton Montgomery, a baritone, has, as reported in the Los Angeles Record of 27 July 1901, “been engaged to give a series of recitals that will be illustrated by one of the new stereopticon projectors used in New York” and which the paper added, “is the first time this has ever been attempted on the coast.”
It was noted that there was a previous effort in San Francisco by Alfred Roncovieri, who created his own illustrated music program with the American Concert Company, and it was reported that the late conductor Anton Seidl, known for his collaborations with Richard Wagner, “was in favor” of the concept “for the better education of the people in the beauties of descriptive music.”
The Record continued by observing that the illustrations used by Montgomery were from “a series of dissolving views painted by no less a personage than DeWitt C. Wheeler, the New York miniaturist” and whose work with color slides is now included in an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in the Big Apple. The feature concluded by noting that “Montgomery’s voice is a most pleasing barytone [sic] and the descriptive selections will make an event in Los Angeles musical circles.”
Despite innovations like this, another change was in the offing for the Imperial as the Los Angeles Express of 29 August reported that an optical firm was to move and that space “added to the concert room” and the floor of the former raised to match the height of the latter. The men’s dining room was to be moved and the beer parlor placed there and the northern end of the restaurant so “as to throw the entire establishment into one large hall, with the orchestra at one end.” The cost of the new work was pegged at some $15,000.
The Record of 29 October, under the headline of “Imperial Will Be A Beaut,” reported that architect John Paul Krempel, who migrated from Germany at age 25 and recently designed Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis’ notable residence, “The Bivouac,” “has prepared plans for the remodelling” so that “the whole place is to be much enlarged.”
This included more than seventy feet depth of additional space behind a jewelry store, pushing the café westward to Broadway, where there’d previously been just a narrow entrance—this advertised for ladies and families and which was to be switched to the Spring side. Moreover, stated the paper, “the kitchen is to be a model of elegance and will be second to none in the city.” A white-and-gold color scheme was decided upon and upwards of $30,000 was to be expended to “make it one of the handsomest cafes west of Chicago.”
At the dawn of 1902 it was recorded by the Record that Alois Fischer of New York City “has bought the Imperial Cafe, lock, stock and barrel, and is rushing work on the completion and enlarging of the cafe to the limit.” The expansion meant more than doubling the floor space, while the new décor was lauded as making the establishment “one of the largest and most plentiful cafes on the Pacific coast.”
Advertisements in early February for a grand opening on the 8th in the Express, Record and the Times were somewhat more elaborate and eye-catching than before, with one in the first named paper stating that the Imperial was to be “The Finest Family Resort on the Coast,” while one in the last asserted that the eatery was “the most popular family resort because we cater to the best people” while “we furnish the best music and serve the best food.”
Meanwhile, the Express of the 6th reported that the cost of the remodel was well more than double the initial estimate and reached a substantial $40,000, adding that the former bar entrance on Spring now led into a palm garden, while the “gentlemen’s grill room” opened off this as well as the centrally situated auditorium and bandstand, which was also reached by the Broadway entrance. Naturally, the bar was adjacent to the grill, while “the arrangement of private rooms in the gallery which encircles the auditorium is excellent” and were flexible so that they could be opened to create a single banquet hall.”
There was, however, a second grand opening in 1902 and the Record of 26 June, two days ahead of the event, contained an advertisement noting that “since last February, the IMPERIAL CAFE has been undergoing a complete renovation and improvement.” It may be that the previous work was undertaken before Fischer acquired the lease and was not entirely to his liking, so he decided upon further efforts, with the ad remarking,
The skillful handiwork of architects, artists and artisans has been directed toward producing a pleasing and refined atmosphere, which, together with the congenial surroundings—[along with] a cuisine unexcelled in viands and refreshments, and superb music—exemplifies the desire of the management to please a most exacting and select patronage.
A major reason for the latest transformation was due to the fact that “A NOVEL INNOVATION will be two Orchestras that will dispense music, one in the Spring Street entrance and one in the main hall” closer to Broadway. Notably, however, the next day’s edition of the paper stated that the Imperial “has been in the hands of the cabinet-makers and painters for the last eight months.”
In addition to repeating that there would be two orchestral venues, the Record observed that there were “lavish decorations in the way of flowers and ferns [which] will transform the place into a veritable imperial palace of music and laughter.” Moreover, some 5,000 invitations were mailed out “and the management expects to entertain most of the people invited, and has made arrangements accordingly.”
A notable event occurring not long after the grand opening was the entertaining of Samuel Gompers, the British born Jewish cigar manufacturer and labor union leader who founded the powerful American Federation of Labor in 1886 and ran the organization for all but a year until his death in 1924. The stridently anti-union Times offered its critique of Gompers’ appearance at Hazard’s Pavilion, located across the street to the north from Central (6th Street) Park, now Pershing Square and offered that “to nonpartisan listeners, Mr. Gompers was a distinct disappointment as an orator and a reasoner.”
It cited his enthusiasm as more significant “than his diction, voice or magnetic power over an audience,” claiming Gompers had to frequently stop to allow his content to catch up with his excitement, while the paper thought it important to note that “in stature, he is but a pigmy.” The Times seemed to relish the fact that the labor leader spent less time on his announced subject of the benefit of labor unions and more on responding to the commentary of the paper, which it said “consisted of personalities, sarcasm, ridicule and straight denial, and could hardly be considered a reply.”
The Times did allow that the nearly two hour address before some 2,000 audients was “received with sympathetic applause throughout” and that it “was what would be accorded the greatest living ‘union’ leader,” with the quotation marks purposeful as the paper then averred that his speech was “a war talk.” The account ended with the observation that “the Gompers party repaired to the Imperial Café, where they were banqueted by local union leaders,” and that the group was to visit the Rancho Santa Anita of “Lucky” Baldwin before heading for San Francisco and a return to New York City.
Just prior to the period covered in the program, the Record of 18 September remarked that “the success of the operatic and Strauss concerts at the Imperial” led musical director Peter J. Frank to state that there would be “only Wagner and Hungarian numbers” at an upcoming set of performances. Commenting that this change “will be relished by the music-lovers who attend these concerts,” the paper concluded by opining that Frank “has the nearest approach to a permanent concert orchestra,” notwithstanding the near decade in which a symphony orchestra existed under the baton of Harley Hamilton, “and his success is encouraging to both the managers and himself.”
The following Thursday night was advertised in the Record as a “Souvenir Program” and a special program highlighting “home talent” through an enlarged orchestra under Frank’s direction. As for the featured printed program, it included the offerings for Saturday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, including works by Ferdinand von Suppé, Victor Herbert, Johann Strauss, and Louis F. Gottschalk (this latter part of a famous family of composers and singers), and those for remaining days including some of those composers and others.
Works involved marches, cake walks, overtures, skirt dances, intermezzos, a “Chilian” dance, a “Danse des Sultanes,” and others, with two intermissions during the course of the performances. The special 25 September program of “Compositions by Home Talent” included ten pieces, comprising a Hawaiian march, Cuban dance, two cake walks (these originated with Black slaves in the South but were often composed by whites utilizing racist stereotypes), a mazurka, the “Land of Sunshine” march, a Mexican dance, and a California serenade.
The “Hawaiian Blend” march composer was Abraham F. Frankenstein (1873-1934), a Jewish composer and musician who was best known for writing the music, from Angel City clothing store owner Francis B. Silverwood’s lyrics, for “I Love You, California,” which was debuted from famed opera singer Mary Garden and has long been the state song, though few know this. Musician Edward C. Kammermeyer, whose son was a character actor in Hollywood, contributed the racist cake walk “Kinky Heads”, while T. Herbert Ince, who gave mandolin lessons and wrote pieces performed in Angel City park concerts, wrote an even more blatant one disgustingly titled “Joyous N—–s”.
John Musso, a native of Italy and musician who led a mandolin quartet in town as early as 1891, played the bass and harp, and wrote for and performed in the orchestras of Catalina Island and theaters from the mid-Nineties, including two owned by impresario Oliver Morosco, the Burbank and the Morosco, wrote the Cuban dance called “Hermosa” and the Mexican dance, the name of which was not given. Musso resided in South Pasadena for many years and also performed in the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra and, in 1923, wrote a funeral march that he directed be played at his own funeral, which took place four years later.
Three pieces were presented by Leo Sutor, a native of Germany whose name is underlined in pencil, suggesting that he or someone he knew was present and wrote the markings. The longtime liquor and wine merchant (see below), who was also an accountant and investment broker during his career and who occasionally had works performed in band concerts at Eastlake (Lincoln) Park, wrote a mazurka called “Swazi Love Tales,” which hints at more racist content, as well as that “Land of Sunshine” march and “Gentle Persuasion,” deemed a California serenade.
Advertisements in the program are also of interest and include three from the well-known Bartlett Music Company, which was adjacent to the Imperial on Broadway; wine and liquor merchant Henry J. Woollacott, whose manager was Sutor and who has been highlighted here in a previous post; crockery and glassware dealer Samuel Meyer; jeweler and watchmaker Carl Entenmann, a Spring Street neighbor of the café; and the Sirena Cuban cigar, costing two for a quarter, but deemed “worth more.”
While we’ve covered the program and the year in which it was produced, we’re going to return with a final part three which will deal with the subsequent and oft-turbulent history of the Imperial, including various owners, legal issues such as liquor license problems and the establishment’s reputation as a haven for vice. So, be sure to check back for that!