GIGGLE SNORTOn that score, I make it breasts 6, horses 4
With 5 references to his todger....
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Against All Odds: A Gilded Age Romance
- Thread starter Barbaria1
- Start date
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- humour punishment romance sex
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
'Todger'... I looked aftter that word in a dictionary of horse racing terms.
Did not find it, there!
Finally, I managed to enlarge my English vocabulary again!
Hugin&Munin
Presenter Of Images
Todger ? Never heard tis word before. But Mr. Google knows everything.On that score, I make it breasts 6, horses 4
With 5 references to his todger....
I think there are more euphemisms for 'penis' than I've had hot dinners. But 'todger' is up there among my favourites!
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Scullery, todger,....just a few new words I recently learned. Once more, it is demonstrated what an educational platform CF is.
A footnote to Chapter 2.
Although a fashionable part of New York City in the early part of the 19th century, the lower Manhattan district known as the Bowery was in decline by the time of the American Civil War with saloons, brothels, flophouses, missions and street gangs displacing mansions, respectable shops and eateries. By the 1890s when Stan paid his visit to Rose Callahan’s House of ill repute to enjoy the pleasures of a night with the incomparable Brigid, the Bowery had become the city’s principal center of prostitution.
Crowds along the "Bowery at night," c. 1895 painting by William Louis Sonntag, Jr.
Although a fashionable part of New York City in the early part of the 19th century, the lower Manhattan district known as the Bowery was in decline by the time of the American Civil War with saloons, brothels, flophouses, missions and street gangs displacing mansions, respectable shops and eateries. By the 1890s when Stan paid his visit to Rose Callahan’s House of ill repute to enjoy the pleasures of a night with the incomparable Brigid, the Bowery had become the city’s principal center of prostitution.
Crowds along the "Bowery at night," c. 1895 painting by William Louis Sonntag, Jr.
windar
Teller of Tales
I have been called a codger, but never a todger.'Todger'... I looked aftter that word in a dictionary of horse racing terms.
Did not find it, there!
Finally, I managed to enlarge my English vocabulary again!
saloons, brothels, flophouses and missions-all of life's essentials in one place! No wonder Stan hangs out there!
M
montycrusto
Guest
Had to look that up, to see if it was pronounced “flofoozes”
Never heard or read before from this background.
Chapter 3.
Barbara leaned against the passenger deck railing of the Jersey City Ferry as it cast free from its moorings facing the Pennsylvania Railroad’s mammoth iron-and-glass canopied Jersey City terminus. She could feel the decking shake and shudder beneath her feet as the steam ferry’s engine ramped up. Above in the wheelhouse, the helmsman could be seen setting course for the fifteen minute crossing to the Cortlandt Street Ferry Terminal on the Manhattan side of the North River.
A warm afternoon breeze tugged gently at her stylish broad-brimmed, ostrich-feather-tipped bonnet, which she wore tilted well forward on her head, as was the fashion of the day. A gull swooped by and squealed shrilly.
She was enjoying herself. It was good to be free of the confines of the train. It also felt good to be standing up rather than sitting, for her bottom was still smarting from the thrashing she’d received the night before at the hand of her father.
She had known the moment he had returned to their Pullman compartment after dispatching poor Jeremy to a fate unknown that her worst fears had been realized. He had been furious with her … unwilling to accept any excuses … including her assurances that she and Jeremy had not had sufficient time to consummate ‘the act’. And much to her dismay, it had turned out that his dreaded pearl-handled tawse, with its fearsome split leather tails, had not been stowed in their checked luggage as she had hoped.
She knew she was in for it. Best to get it over with. Dutifully she had complied with his demand that she stretch herself out face-down on the rumpled sheets of the compartment’s lower berth. And she raised no fuss when he slid the lower half of her nightgown up her backside to lay her ass cheeks bare.
To prevent her from crying out and disturbing the other passengers, he had told her to bury her face in a pillow, which she did. And to present his tawse with a more inviting target, he had taken a second pillow, from the berth above, and slipped it beneath her hips.
It was hardly the first time she had submitted to a thrashing at his hand. Her father was a strict disciplinarian who, above all, saw himself as guardian of her virtue, reminding her almost daily of his expectation that she “save herself” for marriage. And, moreover, that it be a marriage that met his full approval. On several occasions back in Duluth, he had disciplined her for brazenly flaunting herself at young men, none of whom had even the faintest chance of meeting her father’s standards of approval.
And so it was that she had acquiesced without complaint to this brutal thrashing of her bared bottom, biting her lip and flinching at each stroke, focusing her mind as a distraction on Jeremy and how indescribably good was the pleasure of riding his manhood … for as long as it had lasted.
Thirteen strokes in all … that’s how many she had endured … what father referred to as a baker’s dozen. It had hurt. No denying that. But she was used to it. And besides, they had arrived in New York. Her life was about to change.
Her heart quickened with excitement, as she gazed across the broad expanse of river, teaming with so much activity … there were ferries, barges, tugs and larger vessels of all sizes and descriptions. And gracing the far shore was the great city’s burgeoning skyline of high rise buildings.
She had read in a magazine that the ‘New York World Building’, commissioned and completed just a couple of years earlier, in 1890, was the city’s tallest. And she was easily able to identify it, standing tall and surrounded by other towers under construction.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” said her father, sidling up quietly to her side.
“It ain’t Duluth,” she murmured.
“Very true,” he agreed. There wasn’t a trace of the previous night’s anger in his voice. Indeed, he had been in a chipper mood since earlier in the day when they had breakfasted and lunched together onboard the train. She had, understandably, refrained then from reciprocating his good cheer, but was willing to do so now.
“Where will we be staying tonight, father?”
“I’ve booked us a suite at the Plaza Hotel. near Central Park at the end of what they call ‘millionaires’ mile’. The Plaza is the city’s newest and grandest hotel. And here’s something of interest for you. It’s not far from this incredible version of a French chateau that Vanderbilt had custom built just to please his wife, Alva. You’ve got to see it to believe it! Money makes anything possible, Barbara.”
“This is definitely not Duluth!” Barb laughed, playfully poking her father in the ribs. “I can see that we are going to be living your dreams. Will we have a place of our own near the Vanderbilts?”
“Ahhh, I’m working on that. There are some interesting possibilities. But for the time being we shall occupy a luxury suite at the Plaza.”
“And how much will that cost?”
“Forty dollars a night plus amenities.”
“That’s outrageous!”
“We can afford it, and besides we want to make just the right impression. This has to be done right. We want to be noticed by all the right people, Barbara.”
“Uh huh. We’ll see.”
By that time, the ferry was maneuvering to dock in its usual Manhattan shore slip, and they broke off their conversation in order to prepare for disembarkation. High above the iron and glass ferry terminal building the face on the clock tower showed 3:15.
“How do we get to the hotel, and where’s our luggage?” puzzled Barbara when they emerged from the terminal and were confronted with the sheer chaos of the street scene before them. Travelers, porters, street vendors, loiterers, horse drawn carts, wagons and cabs appeared to be everywhere, and everything seemed to be set in frenzied motion, driven by some invisible animating energy. And it was noisy too. People were shouting. Horses were snorting. The bell on a nearby trolley car was clanging incessantly and an elevated train was rumbling through the Ninth Avenue and Cortlandt Street station.
“Do we take a train?” asked Barbara, gauging the two-blocks of traffic, mud and horse dumg that would have to be negotiated in order to reach the sloped-roof elevated station, which she thought looked very much like a little house on iron stilts.
“No, my dear. Not for us. We’ll hire a cab,” snorted her father, raising a hand to signal the driver of a nearby Hansom cab.
And that was to be a new experience! She looked skeptically at the tall two-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle as its driver guided it to the curb.
From high on his perch behind the cab, the driver tipped his woolen flat cap, and reached for a lever to release the side door so they could board. Helped by her father, Barbara scrambled onboard, carefully minding her long skirt. Her father followed, turning to communicate with the driver through the flapped hatch cut into the back of the cab.
“Where to, guv?” said the driver, his working class English origins immediately apparent.
“Plaza Hotel,” responded her father in a clipped tone.
“Bob’s your uncle. That your daughter, guv? Right pretty she is, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Barbara flushed.
Her father abruptly closed the flap.
The ride to the hotel took them through the heart of the city. But by that time, for Barbara, it was all a blur. A sleepless night had taken its toll, and she slumped against her father’s shoulder, unperturbed by the rocking, stop-and-go movements of the cab.
And, so it was that she woke with a start when the cab came to an abrupt halt and the driver called down through the hatch, “Plaza Hotel, guv!”
“How much?”
“Seventy-five cents.”
“Keep the change, said her father evenly, handing a greenback dollar through the hatch. Moments later, the cab door sprung open and the two Moore’s alighted on the sidewalk facing the elegant facade of the eight-stories-tall hotel. Taking his daughter by the arm, James J. Moore strode purposely through the oversized entrance … the top-hatted and liveried doorman springing into action just in time to open the door for them.
The entrance opened directly into the hotel’s cavernous and ornately decorated grand lobby. As they passed along on the red carpet runner leading to the front desk, Barbara craned her neck to take in the gold and white sculptured ceiling with its cherubic figures cavorting around oval-shaped frescoes of reclining nudes.
But on reaching the front desk, her attention was quickly diverted to the strikingly handsome young man behind it, who looked up from whatever he was doing, smiled pleasantly and greeted them with, “Good afternoon. Welcome to the Plaza. How may I help you?”
“Reservation for James J. Moore,” responded her father, resting the palms of his hands on the desktop, leaning slightly forward and scrutinizing the man intently. Barbara wondered whether her father had expected the clerk to know who he was on sight and was perturbed by the perceived slight.
“Ahhh, yes, of course. We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Moore. A four-room luxury suite for you and … uh … your … uh … lovely daughter, correct?”
The clerk’s dark slicked-back hair and animated eyes, along with a full sensuous mouth bracketed by what she thought were the most adorable smile lines, gave him a pleasantly expressive face that she found immediately attractive. The badge on his lapel read “M. Pellegrino.” He’s Italian, she thought, recalling something she had once read that claimed that Italian men rated highly as lovers. She wondered about the “M” … Marco or Mario perhaps? She intended to find out at the first opportunity.
“If you could just sign here, Mr. Moore …,” continued ‘M. Pellegrino’ officiously as he slid a guest ledger in front of her father, “I will summon a bell boy to escort you and your daughter up to your suite. I am sure that you will find it most suitable. It’s on the eighth floor with a fine view over Central Park. Your luggage, of course, will be brought up promptly … just as soon as it arrives.”
Barbara watched with amusement as he delivered his little speech to her father, because his eyes were on her the whole time, and as her father leaned forward to sign, the clerk gave her a wink and pursed his lips in an imitation of a kiss.
She reciprocated with a tight-lipped, sultry smile, coupled with a provocative shifting of her hips that she had long ago perfected standing before a mirror in her bedroom back in Duluth, noting with satisfaction his raised eyebrows response. Things were definitely looking up … Jeremy completely forgotten.
The bellboy turned out to be as unattractive as M. Pellegrino was attractive. Short and corpulent, and wearing an ill-fitting uniform, he introduced himself as ‘Elmer’. On the elevator ride to the eighth floor, he attempted to ingratiate himself with Barbara by casting lop-sided leers in her direction from where he stood behind her father’s back.
To put him in his place, she made certain to step hard on his foot with the curved heel of one of her button boots as she passed by him to exit the lift. He grimaced but recovered quickly enough to respond with a sharp flat-handed pat on her ass.
Her father must have noticed, because he stiffed the little turd when it came time to dispense a tip.
Alone in their suite, father and daughter undertook a quick inspection tour, and found that the suite was even more sumptuously appointed than she had imagined possible. The two bedrooms were each graced by a massive four-poster bed, made up with the finest of linens. And each had its own private bath. In addition there were two sitting rooms, one with a gas-fired fireplace set against a wall of intricately carved mahogany woodwork, the other with large, leaded glass windows overlooking Central Park.
As promised, their luggage arrived and in good time. They set about unpacking and settling in, meeting in the sitting room with the fireplace prior to going downstairs for dinner in the hotel dining room.
“A couple things now before we go down, Barbara,” he said to her, leaning with one arm over the fireplace mantle and looking very serious.
“I’m listening.”
“Now that we are here, there’s much to do. Over the next few weeks we will be dividing our time between finding a suitable place to reside and making our presence felt here by all the right people. And in the latter case, that includes finding you a suitable beau. I’ve already made some discreet inquiries, and can tell you that there are currently some very notable eligibles who might be quite suitable. Through my contacts, arrangements are being made for us to meet each of them socially.”
“Oh really, father!”
“Yes really, Barbara. And here’s the thing. I want you to take this seriously. And that means behaving yourself and making a proper impression.”
“Don’t I always?”
“Debatable, Barbara. Oh, and one last thing. That Wop of a desk clerk downstairs is strictly off limits!”
“Really, father!”
Barbara leaned against the passenger deck railing of the Jersey City Ferry as it cast free from its moorings facing the Pennsylvania Railroad’s mammoth iron-and-glass canopied Jersey City terminus. She could feel the decking shake and shudder beneath her feet as the steam ferry’s engine ramped up. Above in the wheelhouse, the helmsman could be seen setting course for the fifteen minute crossing to the Cortlandt Street Ferry Terminal on the Manhattan side of the North River.
A warm afternoon breeze tugged gently at her stylish broad-brimmed, ostrich-feather-tipped bonnet, which she wore tilted well forward on her head, as was the fashion of the day. A gull swooped by and squealed shrilly.
She was enjoying herself. It was good to be free of the confines of the train. It also felt good to be standing up rather than sitting, for her bottom was still smarting from the thrashing she’d received the night before at the hand of her father.
She had known the moment he had returned to their Pullman compartment after dispatching poor Jeremy to a fate unknown that her worst fears had been realized. He had been furious with her … unwilling to accept any excuses … including her assurances that she and Jeremy had not had sufficient time to consummate ‘the act’. And much to her dismay, it had turned out that his dreaded pearl-handled tawse, with its fearsome split leather tails, had not been stowed in their checked luggage as she had hoped.
She knew she was in for it. Best to get it over with. Dutifully she had complied with his demand that she stretch herself out face-down on the rumpled sheets of the compartment’s lower berth. And she raised no fuss when he slid the lower half of her nightgown up her backside to lay her ass cheeks bare.
To prevent her from crying out and disturbing the other passengers, he had told her to bury her face in a pillow, which she did. And to present his tawse with a more inviting target, he had taken a second pillow, from the berth above, and slipped it beneath her hips.
It was hardly the first time she had submitted to a thrashing at his hand. Her father was a strict disciplinarian who, above all, saw himself as guardian of her virtue, reminding her almost daily of his expectation that she “save herself” for marriage. And, moreover, that it be a marriage that met his full approval. On several occasions back in Duluth, he had disciplined her for brazenly flaunting herself at young men, none of whom had even the faintest chance of meeting her father’s standards of approval.
And so it was that she had acquiesced without complaint to this brutal thrashing of her bared bottom, biting her lip and flinching at each stroke, focusing her mind as a distraction on Jeremy and how indescribably good was the pleasure of riding his manhood … for as long as it had lasted.
Thirteen strokes in all … that’s how many she had endured … what father referred to as a baker’s dozen. It had hurt. No denying that. But she was used to it. And besides, they had arrived in New York. Her life was about to change.
Her heart quickened with excitement, as she gazed across the broad expanse of river, teaming with so much activity … there were ferries, barges, tugs and larger vessels of all sizes and descriptions. And gracing the far shore was the great city’s burgeoning skyline of high rise buildings.
She had read in a magazine that the ‘New York World Building’, commissioned and completed just a couple of years earlier, in 1890, was the city’s tallest. And she was easily able to identify it, standing tall and surrounded by other towers under construction.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” said her father, sidling up quietly to her side.
“It ain’t Duluth,” she murmured.
“Very true,” he agreed. There wasn’t a trace of the previous night’s anger in his voice. Indeed, he had been in a chipper mood since earlier in the day when they had breakfasted and lunched together onboard the train. She had, understandably, refrained then from reciprocating his good cheer, but was willing to do so now.
“Where will we be staying tonight, father?”
“I’ve booked us a suite at the Plaza Hotel. near Central Park at the end of what they call ‘millionaires’ mile’. The Plaza is the city’s newest and grandest hotel. And here’s something of interest for you. It’s not far from this incredible version of a French chateau that Vanderbilt had custom built just to please his wife, Alva. You’ve got to see it to believe it! Money makes anything possible, Barbara.”
“This is definitely not Duluth!” Barb laughed, playfully poking her father in the ribs. “I can see that we are going to be living your dreams. Will we have a place of our own near the Vanderbilts?”
“Ahhh, I’m working on that. There are some interesting possibilities. But for the time being we shall occupy a luxury suite at the Plaza.”
“And how much will that cost?”
“Forty dollars a night plus amenities.”
“That’s outrageous!”
“We can afford it, and besides we want to make just the right impression. This has to be done right. We want to be noticed by all the right people, Barbara.”
“Uh huh. We’ll see.”
By that time, the ferry was maneuvering to dock in its usual Manhattan shore slip, and they broke off their conversation in order to prepare for disembarkation. High above the iron and glass ferry terminal building the face on the clock tower showed 3:15.
“How do we get to the hotel, and where’s our luggage?” puzzled Barbara when they emerged from the terminal and were confronted with the sheer chaos of the street scene before them. Travelers, porters, street vendors, loiterers, horse drawn carts, wagons and cabs appeared to be everywhere, and everything seemed to be set in frenzied motion, driven by some invisible animating energy. And it was noisy too. People were shouting. Horses were snorting. The bell on a nearby trolley car was clanging incessantly and an elevated train was rumbling through the Ninth Avenue and Cortlandt Street station.
“Do we take a train?” asked Barbara, gauging the two-blocks of traffic, mud and horse dumg that would have to be negotiated in order to reach the sloped-roof elevated station, which she thought looked very much like a little house on iron stilts.
“No, my dear. Not for us. We’ll hire a cab,” snorted her father, raising a hand to signal the driver of a nearby Hansom cab.
And that was to be a new experience! She looked skeptically at the tall two-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle as its driver guided it to the curb.
From high on his perch behind the cab, the driver tipped his woolen flat cap, and reached for a lever to release the side door so they could board. Helped by her father, Barbara scrambled onboard, carefully minding her long skirt. Her father followed, turning to communicate with the driver through the flapped hatch cut into the back of the cab.
“Where to, guv?” said the driver, his working class English origins immediately apparent.
“Plaza Hotel,” responded her father in a clipped tone.
“Bob’s your uncle. That your daughter, guv? Right pretty she is, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Barbara flushed.
Her father abruptly closed the flap.
The ride to the hotel took them through the heart of the city. But by that time, for Barbara, it was all a blur. A sleepless night had taken its toll, and she slumped against her father’s shoulder, unperturbed by the rocking, stop-and-go movements of the cab.
And, so it was that she woke with a start when the cab came to an abrupt halt and the driver called down through the hatch, “Plaza Hotel, guv!”
“How much?”
“Seventy-five cents.”
“Keep the change, said her father evenly, handing a greenback dollar through the hatch. Moments later, the cab door sprung open and the two Moore’s alighted on the sidewalk facing the elegant facade of the eight-stories-tall hotel. Taking his daughter by the arm, James J. Moore strode purposely through the oversized entrance … the top-hatted and liveried doorman springing into action just in time to open the door for them.
The entrance opened directly into the hotel’s cavernous and ornately decorated grand lobby. As they passed along on the red carpet runner leading to the front desk, Barbara craned her neck to take in the gold and white sculptured ceiling with its cherubic figures cavorting around oval-shaped frescoes of reclining nudes.
But on reaching the front desk, her attention was quickly diverted to the strikingly handsome young man behind it, who looked up from whatever he was doing, smiled pleasantly and greeted them with, “Good afternoon. Welcome to the Plaza. How may I help you?”
“Reservation for James J. Moore,” responded her father, resting the palms of his hands on the desktop, leaning slightly forward and scrutinizing the man intently. Barbara wondered whether her father had expected the clerk to know who he was on sight and was perturbed by the perceived slight.
“Ahhh, yes, of course. We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Moore. A four-room luxury suite for you and … uh … your … uh … lovely daughter, correct?”
The clerk’s dark slicked-back hair and animated eyes, along with a full sensuous mouth bracketed by what she thought were the most adorable smile lines, gave him a pleasantly expressive face that she found immediately attractive. The badge on his lapel read “M. Pellegrino.” He’s Italian, she thought, recalling something she had once read that claimed that Italian men rated highly as lovers. She wondered about the “M” … Marco or Mario perhaps? She intended to find out at the first opportunity.
“If you could just sign here, Mr. Moore …,” continued ‘M. Pellegrino’ officiously as he slid a guest ledger in front of her father, “I will summon a bell boy to escort you and your daughter up to your suite. I am sure that you will find it most suitable. It’s on the eighth floor with a fine view over Central Park. Your luggage, of course, will be brought up promptly … just as soon as it arrives.”
Barbara watched with amusement as he delivered his little speech to her father, because his eyes were on her the whole time, and as her father leaned forward to sign, the clerk gave her a wink and pursed his lips in an imitation of a kiss.
She reciprocated with a tight-lipped, sultry smile, coupled with a provocative shifting of her hips that she had long ago perfected standing before a mirror in her bedroom back in Duluth, noting with satisfaction his raised eyebrows response. Things were definitely looking up … Jeremy completely forgotten.
The bellboy turned out to be as unattractive as M. Pellegrino was attractive. Short and corpulent, and wearing an ill-fitting uniform, he introduced himself as ‘Elmer’. On the elevator ride to the eighth floor, he attempted to ingratiate himself with Barbara by casting lop-sided leers in her direction from where he stood behind her father’s back.
To put him in his place, she made certain to step hard on his foot with the curved heel of one of her button boots as she passed by him to exit the lift. He grimaced but recovered quickly enough to respond with a sharp flat-handed pat on her ass.
Her father must have noticed, because he stiffed the little turd when it came time to dispense a tip.
Alone in their suite, father and daughter undertook a quick inspection tour, and found that the suite was even more sumptuously appointed than she had imagined possible. The two bedrooms were each graced by a massive four-poster bed, made up with the finest of linens. And each had its own private bath. In addition there were two sitting rooms, one with a gas-fired fireplace set against a wall of intricately carved mahogany woodwork, the other with large, leaded glass windows overlooking Central Park.
As promised, their luggage arrived and in good time. They set about unpacking and settling in, meeting in the sitting room with the fireplace prior to going downstairs for dinner in the hotel dining room.
“A couple things now before we go down, Barbara,” he said to her, leaning with one arm over the fireplace mantle and looking very serious.
“I’m listening.”
“Now that we are here, there’s much to do. Over the next few weeks we will be dividing our time between finding a suitable place to reside and making our presence felt here by all the right people. And in the latter case, that includes finding you a suitable beau. I’ve already made some discreet inquiries, and can tell you that there are currently some very notable eligibles who might be quite suitable. Through my contacts, arrangements are being made for us to meet each of them socially.”
“Oh really, father!”
“Yes really, Barbara. And here’s the thing. I want you to take this seriously. And that means behaving yourself and making a proper impression.”
“Don’t I always?”
“Debatable, Barbara. Oh, and one last thing. That Wop of a desk clerk downstairs is strictly off limits!”
“Really, father!”
A few background notes to Chapter 3.
In the late 19th century rail lines approaching New York City from the west terminated on the Jersey shore of the North River (aka the Hudson). Disembarking passengers crossed over to Manhattan by ferry. The Pennsylvania Railroad, on which JJ Moore and Barbara traveled, terminated at a place called Paulus Hook within an immense iron and glass canopied structure known as Jersey City Station. Passengers then made the River crossing via the Jersey City Ferry, which took them to the ferry line’s Cortlandt Street Station in lower Manhattan, located two blocks west of the Ninth Avenue Elevated’s Cortlandt Street Station. The site of the Elevated station was in the parcel of land acquired in the early 1970s for the construction of the World Trade Center.
The horse-drawn carriage known as a Hansom Cab was developed and patented in England in 1834 by Joseph Hansom. The cab, pulled by a single horse, was a highly maneuverable vehicle, ideal for navigating the crowded thoroughfares of big Victorian-era cities. By the time that Barbara and her father hailed one to convey them to the Plaza Hotel, the Hansom Cab had become the most common means of private personal conveyance in New York City.
By the late 19th century a stretch of New York’s Fifth Avenue had become popularly known as “millionaire’s row” for the stretch of opulent mansions that lined it, built by rich New Yorkers like the Vanderbilts and The Astors. Small wonder then that a status-seeking J J Moore wished to acquire a property there. Most famous was the one built at 660 Fifth Avenue by William K Vanderbilt to create for his well-pampered wife Alva the French Renaissance-style home of her dreams, including a ballroom large enough to be attended by all of high society. Known popularly as “the petit chateau” it became one of the city’s best known landmarks until it fell to the wreckers’ ball in 1926.
In the late 19th century rail lines approaching New York City from the west terminated on the Jersey shore of the North River (aka the Hudson). Disembarking passengers crossed over to Manhattan by ferry. The Pennsylvania Railroad, on which JJ Moore and Barbara traveled, terminated at a place called Paulus Hook within an immense iron and glass canopied structure known as Jersey City Station. Passengers then made the River crossing via the Jersey City Ferry, which took them to the ferry line’s Cortlandt Street Station in lower Manhattan, located two blocks west of the Ninth Avenue Elevated’s Cortlandt Street Station. The site of the Elevated station was in the parcel of land acquired in the early 1970s for the construction of the World Trade Center.
The horse-drawn carriage known as a Hansom Cab was developed and patented in England in 1834 by Joseph Hansom. The cab, pulled by a single horse, was a highly maneuverable vehicle, ideal for navigating the crowded thoroughfares of big Victorian-era cities. By the time that Barbara and her father hailed one to convey them to the Plaza Hotel, the Hansom Cab had become the most common means of private personal conveyance in New York City.
By the late 19th century a stretch of New York’s Fifth Avenue had become popularly known as “millionaire’s row” for the stretch of opulent mansions that lined it, built by rich New Yorkers like the Vanderbilts and The Astors. Small wonder then that a status-seeking J J Moore wished to acquire a property there. Most famous was the one built at 660 Fifth Avenue by William K Vanderbilt to create for his well-pampered wife Alva the French Renaissance-style home of her dreams, including a ballroom large enough to be attended by all of high society. Known popularly as “the petit chateau” it became one of the city’s best known landmarks until it fell to the wreckers’ ball in 1926.
Brigid, one of Ireland's great saints, and a pre Christian goddess as well. I think Stan's lady fits the bill.
On that score, I make it breasts 6, horses 4
With 5 references to his todger....
Is he suggesting Stan is hung like a . . . . . . ?
Very engaging episode which, along with Barb's opener, sets the tone nicely.
Phew!
This reminds me of that scene in Ripping Yarns - Murder at Moorstones Manor:
Lady Chiddingfold to the doctor, regarding her distressed daughter
"Is there anything you can do?"
"Well, I rubbed some Vick on her chest"
"Did that help?"
"Yes . . . yes it did, thank you"
Am I detecting a pattern here?
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
A detail that drew my attention : 'New York World Building'. Never heard of before.
Looks a bit like a Capitol Building on a pedestal.
Another detail that drew my attention : 'no complaint'. Is that really Barbara Moore that says so!? The virtue of a strong father's hand becomes apparent!
Mr. Moore booked the Cruxton Suite?
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
A 'Master-baker's' dozen, clearly ...
What an excellent description, really captures a scene of the times
Ungrateful hussey ... another spanking on the horizon if young Miss Barbara is not careful
I don't drink coffee, I take tea, my dear
I like my toast done on one side
And you can hear it in my accent when I talk
I'm an Englishman in New York
Loving this already Barb ...
M
montycrusto
Guest
Machiavelli? Moriarty? Mussolini? Not Monty, surely?
Migoz2
Senator
Maurice?Machiavelli? Moriarty? Mussolini? Not Monty, surely?
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I'm sure that the mere suggestion of the thought hadn't even begun to contemplate the notion of crossing her mind!
M
montycrusto
Guest
Nice little HHGG reference thereI'm sure that the mere suggestion of the thought hadn't even begun to contemplate the notion of crossing her mind!
You are one hoopy frood