This sounds kind of hilarious because a bris is Jewish and a baptism is Christian. So he belongs to two religions...? Sometimes a husband and wife might follow two different religious traditions -- but later we learn his wife is from the Philippines, and "Robert Stuart" doesn't sound much like a Jewish name. So maybe he's joking, or maybe he likes having religious ceremonies for fun...? Hard to say.

Means appearance or manner, in this context.

A neighborhood of Manhattan -- historically home to large populations of immigrants from Eastern Europe.

This sounds very specific but I have trouble imagining it. Perhaps someone more familiar with old New York accents might be able to imagine what she's talking about.

Jewish coming-of-age ceremony for boys

A Jewish ceremony in which a baby boy is circumcised (cut off the foreskin of the penis)

Meaning, "is tradition becoming fashionable again?"

Sounds very specialized.

To be honest I'm not sure what these look like, just because I don't know as much clothing terminology as other people might. It makes it sound to me like someone who dresses flamboyantly but not too flamboyantly.

The male actor in this very old-fashioned comedy sitcom from the 1950s:

Not exactly sure what he means by this... right now we associate Brooklyn with artists and hipsters but this piece was written in 1995, and the city was very different then.

A film adaptation of the novel Little Women by the 19th century author Louisa May Alcott -- a novel that I think of as mostly being popular among girls in their early teens.

From a more recent film adaptation of Little Women:

The popular, extremely violent film by Quentin Tarantino.

The fact that he's "against" violence on film reinforces the feeling that Robert is not a very masculine guy -- and also sounds weirdly conservative, like something an older or middle-aged woman might believe.

Psychotherapy in which a group of people meet with a therapist and share their private matters. It says something about Robert's personality that group therapy is the type of therapy he likes most.

Just a note: in American culture there's a stereotype that well-educated, affluent, intellectual-type people might go to a therapist not because they have serious mental illness but simply to talk about the difficulties of life.

(Or, another way to look at this is, that type of person might be more likely to perceive their own struggles as "psychological problems" and seek a therapist for help with them. This leads to a broad perception that among intellectual types, everyone is seeing a therapist.)

This list of receptionists gives me the impression that the type of people who'd work as receptionists at Robert's hair salon might be struggling artists who need a source of income.

Reading the beginning of this paragraph, one might start to infer that Robert is gay -- then you discover he has a wife, and conclude he just must be a very emotionally sensitive straight man.

A high-pitched musical sound -- generally we speak of birds or flutes as trilling.

Gushing can describe the sound of a loud rush of water, and can also describe someone enthusiastically talking about something.

Religious belief, but not organized religion -- this makes me think of personal religious belief. Makes me think of "New Age" spiritual beliefs -- like people getting interested in Eastern mysticism, like yoga, Buddhism, meditation, etc in the wake of the 1960s counterculture movement.

An idea out of Freudian psychoanalysis -- the notion that children are at war with their parents and trying to replace them, as in the myth of Oedipus.

This suggests that Robert must be familiar with the world of psychology and psychotherapy.

a hair product

As the the current of a river. This metaphor is inviting the reader to image the flow of conversation at Robert's hair salon as a swift-flowing river.

Radio programs where listeners call in and talk to the host as part of the broadcast.

I'm guessing this referes to talk shows in which people confess very personal, intimate things.

A forum can mean a gathering to exchange ideas -- like an academic conference -- and also originally mean the public gathering place in ancient Roman cities, like a public plaza.

These are just well-known landmarks that someone in New York City would be familiar with.

A symposium is also another word for a salon of the intellectual kind. The word goes back to ancient Greek, where it originally meant a party.

A salon has two meanings in English: a) an intellectual gathering; b) an upscale barbershop (place to cut your hair). This is a play on both meanings.

An Italian-sounding name.

A little cushioned bench that runs along the wall.

Refers here to a "bayou": A bayou is a marshy area of very slow-moving creeks where plants grow directly out of the river (also called a mangrove). It is strongly associated with the American South and in particularly rural Louisiana and Cajun culture. I imagine it as a place full of alligators and old ramshackle houses, where people fish off of boats.

This is in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a pretty fancy neighborhood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_West_Side

I think this means she told Robert a lot about herself.

Someone who believes in Nietzsche's philosophy. (I've never heard of anybody actually describing themself in this way -- it sounds pretty odd to me.)

A famously good-looking actor.

This reveals Robert's political leanings -- he's a Democrat (left-wing) not a Republican (right-wing).

To "be macrobiotic" means to follow a macrobiotic diet. It's a "fad diet" -- a diet that was briefly popular for a time among health-conscious people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet

These things have basically nothing in common except that they cover a vast range of topics and many of them are quite personal.

This way of delicately alluding to sex is rather witty--this is one of those moments where you get a sense of White's personality and his sense of humor.

Clotheslines.

Around this time, these poor immigrant neighborhoods were famous for having lots of clothes out drying everywhere on clotheslines:

White is jokingly contrasting this outdoor "garden party" of poor immigrants to the actual garden parties held by rich people living in beautiful country houses with green lawns.

The point is, these immigrants seem to be having a lot more fun, and seem in a better mood, than rich people at garden parties. White's tone here is gently mocking.

Here's what one might imagine one of those fancy garden parties looking like:

The neighborhood of Manhattan that White is in right now. The Lower East Side for many decades was crowded with recent immigrants from poor European countries. We can assume that the people White describes here are immigrants.

Images of the Lower East Side during this period:

This kind of folding chair, which one could take out for a picnic on the lawn:

A dancing hall. "Cotillion" is a word for a kind of social dancing (ballroom dancing) that sounds very old-fashioned to me, and rather fancy.

Many of the immigrants who came to the U.S. at this period of time were from Italy.

Kids getting into trouble--like joining gangs, robbing, stealing etc.

An infamous mental hospital quite close to the Bowery.

Homey, friendly, down-to-earth.

An outdoor party. I normally think of an "garden party" as something that rich, elegant people would hold -- so its use to describe outdoor gathering of poor people is surprising and interesting.

Wooden crates used to transport oranges.

This is a lovely use of personification: "candid" means blunt and honest and usually describes a way of speaking. (A "candid opinion," for example.) Here, "candid light" invites the reader to imagine that these unshaded lightbulbs cast "honest light" -- light that reveals both the beautiful and the ugly, the public and the private.

Sobriety has two meanings here: 1) seriousness, and 2) not being drunk, staying clear of alcohol.

Gin mill = a bar or saloon.

This is a very old-fashioned sounding word. I've never heard anyone talk about going to a "gin mill" today.

Just from the word, you can tell it's a cheap and low-class kind of place.

Flophouses refer to cheap shabby hotels where people can "flop" (i.e. fall into bed) for a night, provide the absolute minimum accomodation for the absolute minimum cost.

The word has a negative connotation -- to call somewhere a flophouse is to say it is a bad place. It's also a dated word -- it's not used much in contemporary English.

A flophouse room in 1890s New York:

Here the "barker" means the tour guide who is standing on the tour bus narrating the things the tourists are seeing.

"Drained" means to drink, here; "release" means liberation, something that frees someone.

Means "standing guard." This metaphor encourages the reader to imagine the bottle standing like a guard next to the sleeping bum's head, keeping watch over him.

His belongings; his personal possessions.

Short for the "Elevated Railroad" -- an aboveground subway system that used to run over New York City streets.

In this old photo of the Bowery you can see the El:

The Bowery is a street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan that in the late 19th and early 20th century became notorious as a "bad neighborhood," crowded with drunks, bums (homeless people), prostitutes, and other members of the lowest stratum of society, and full of bars, "flophouses" (cheap hotels), and other establishments catering to these kinds of people. It was known as "Devil's Mile."

The homeless people living on the Bowery were often referred to as "Bowery bums."

Bowery bums:

Free as in you don't have to pay for it.

Shadows of people. This probably refers to couple kissing secretly off in the trees.

"Moving well" means "selling well" in this context. (It's the kind of language someone in business to describe how well their goods are selling.) This means that vendors are selling a lot of popsicles tonight to people in the park.

To be faithful to one's lover.

He's not actually singing -- he's playing the melody of a popular song with these lyrics. It's a love song.

Slightly out of tune with the trumpet player.

The Queen Mary is the name of a ship. With a name like that it's probably an ocean liner:

"Announcing her intentions" is personification. He means the Queen Mary blows its horn, announcing its intention to leave.

Trumpet player.

A cornet is an instrument quite similar to a trumpet:

"Running lights" just means the lights you see on planes flying at night.

I've never heard of this band. Given the context I imagine it might be a jazz band.

A stage with a shelter over it shaped like a shell, used for outdoor performances:

"Mall" here refers to a big, long green field in a public place, not a shopping mall.

The couple having their second drink.

Not really sure what this means--it's not a very commonly used phrase nowadays. I'm guessing it means they're not arguing emotionally anymore; maybe he's given up.

A common idiom. This is a poker metaphor: "Hand" as in a hand of cards (the cards you're holding in your hand). To overplay one's hand means to bet too much money because you overestimate the strength of your hand.

mixes alcoholic drinks (cocktails)

Refers to the detail, mentioned earlier, that people in the older generation used to give sweet iced tea to babies to drink.

Nowadays, it would be seen as a bit irresponsible and unhealthy to give such a sugary, caffeinated drink to babies.

River in Alabama.

Means drinking several glasses. To "drain" a drink is to drink it quickly.

This sounds like a lot

Fahrenheit -- this is cold.

A "drive in" restaurant was a restaurant in which one would eat in one's car, sitting in the parking lot, and waitstaff would come out and serve you while sitting in your car.

Drive-ins and drive-throughs (where you pick up your food from a window while in your car) are seen as emblematic of 1950s America. Drive-throughs are still common. Drive-ins are not.

A kind of inexpensive wine sold in a restaurant.

I have no idea why he can't go to Disney World. Maybe there was some controversy at that time related to Disney World that made Southern Baptist churches proclaim it sinful to go to Disney World? Beats me.

Things that would be seen as sinning by religious people. "Southern Baptist" is the religious denomination he belongs to, common in the American South.

Vernacular / colloquial pronunciation of "curse"

A type of drinking glass with Flintstones cartoon characters on it, mass-produced for children during the 1960s:

Glass jars used for canning (preserving food at home). Mason jars are seen as "folksy" and "unpretentious," something used by ordinary people. (Also very nostalgic, now.)

A type of old-fashioned crystal glass, made with crystal that contained lead. This is no longer done, because lead is poisonous. Someone who possessed antique leaded crystal is probably someone who is wealthy. It sounds like an heirloom, something that would be passed down within a family.

"Porch" refers to the wooden porch in front of a house, facing the street. Americans often think of sitting on the front porch and talking with neighbors as something one did in the "old days," back when the pace of life was slower and people had tighter ties to their local communities:

Wry humor--the point being that having to deal with these two unpleasant aspects of the climate was something all Southerners have in common.

All of these images meant to evoke the particular class of rich, aristocratic Southerner called "planters," the type of rich white family that would have owned a plantation and slaves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planter_class

"White gloves," "mint juleps" (a type of cocktail) and "harp music" represent the kind of things that planters would have had and seen as elegant and refined. The "veranda" and the "hall" evoke a traditional plantation house (a style of mansion).

"Scion" means descendant (usually in the context of a long bloodline, like the scion of a royal family).

Hospitality, warmth, and friendliness to strangers are often seen as representative of Southern culture, as is a slow pace of living. There's even a phrase, "Southern hospitality," referring to a code of moral conduct demanding that one be warm and generous with guests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_hospitality

to take away from the restaurant

Fried catfish is also very symbolic of the American South.

Called catfish because of the "whiskers" on their faces:

Newspapers articles.

Famous American TV host and actress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Lucci

Honestly I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

It means "I'm serious," "I'm playing this game for real."

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Game%20Face

Pitchers and mugs made out of pewter are seen as particular old-fashioned. They are objects of nostalgia, and might be sold in antique stores.

Ironic tone. Normally the phrase "drawing as many as" would be using to describe a high number.

Ironic tone. The implication is that only in a place like Alabama would people take sweet iced tea this seriously.

The American national holiday, also called Independence Day, celebrating independence from Britain in 1776. Fourth of July is often celebrated with picnics and cookouts (outdoor cooking) and, of course, watching fireworks.

Name of an Alabama newspaper.

"Hands of time" implies the hands of a clock. So this means to "stop the clock" -- to stop time.

The southern coast of Alabama. Alabama is one of the states that is seen as the most "southern" of the South -- also called the "Deep South."

Alabama:

Homemade hard liquor (a bit like vodka or baijiu). It's often associated with the Prohibition era (when alcohol was banned in the United States), during which people made illegal liquor in backyard stills.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine

A green weed once cooked and eaten in the rural South. When raw, it is poisonous; it must be boiled three times to be eaten. It is a "survival food" -- people ate it because they had no other options. Also called "pokeweed" or "poke sallet."

https://www.southernthing.com/how-did-toxic-poke-salad-plant-become-a-southern-staple-2594239813.html

(I did not know any of this and had to research this on the Internet!)

A true believer in something is someone very faithful to a cause or principle or idea. "True believer" can also mean someone very religious.

(In other words, all tea was sweetened and served in this way. "Tea" was assumed to mean sweet iced tea.)

Cane sugar is rougher, less refined sugar. So seen as more traditional and less modern.

Ordinary speech.

We say that glasses full of cold beverage with water droplets condensing on the outside are "sweating":

Glass jars used for pickling cucumbers. In American culture, pickling, like canning, is an activity associated with traditional folk life and generally viewed with nostalgia. Someone in the habit of making pickles (rather than buying them at the store) probably would have many extra glass jars lying around, which might also be used to brew iced tea.

A gallon is a lot -- these are big jars!

A commond brand of bottled water.

Also called "sweet tea," sweet iced tea in American culture is symbolic of the American South. From Wikipedia:

"Sweet tea is regarded as an important regional staple item in the cuisine of the Southern United States.[6] The availability of sweet tea in restaurants and other establishments is popularly used as an indicator to gauge whether or not an area can be considered part of the South." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_tea

To me this implies that speakeasies would have used to be dark places. Perhaps because this would have made it harder to see they were doing something illegal. Now liquor is legal, but the owner still keeps the place dark, perhaps because it's cheaper that way.

Intone means to chant, to say in a musical-sounding monotone, the way a priest would utter a blessing or prayer.

This encourages the reader to imagine the sound of the fans as the chant of a priest praying for coolness.

A speakeasy refers to an illegal bar during Prohibition, the period in the 1920s and 30s when alcohol was banned in the United States. Speakeasies were secret bars, without signs on the street.

I'm guessing this means that this place used to be a speakeasy and is now just a bar, since when this essay wasy written (1948) liquor was legal again.

A prohibition-era speakeasy:

An Irish-sounding surname.

Quickly and automatically -- as if he hasn't actually been listening to the story.

Cheap, low-quality pipes.

Clay pipes:

Corncob pipes are pipes whose bowl is made from a corn cob. A cheap and "rustic" sort of pipe, the kind we might imagine a farmer making by hand:

Farmer with corncob pipe:

Refers to a tankard. I think of this as a very, very old-fashioned kind of mug, the kind people used in taverns hundreds of years ago. It was probably already an old-fashioned thing when this essay was written in 1940.

"Crusty" means grumpy, and is often used to describe old people, particularly old men. Literally, "crusty" means having a hard crust; a person with a hard crust would have a grumpy and cynical sort of personality.

Means the main part of the clientele -- most of them. Also the people who support the place, as the spine (backbone) supports the body.

This is "God be with you," pronounced in a vernacular / dialect fashion. This way of spelling the words to reflect a dialect pronunciation is called eye dialect.

"God be with you" is a way of saying farewell. One one level, Kelly is just saying goodbye; but on another level it feels to me like he's saying, "God protect you" -- since we get the sense from this preceding paragraph that the men might die at any moment and not come in the next morning.

This is an interesting and powerful metaphor.

"Insulated" means to protect against change in temperature. A thermos (insulated bottle) is one that will keep liquid hot.

"the dreadful loneliness of the old" means the dreadful loneliness of old age, of being old.

Just as their coats insulate them against the cold, the ale they've just drunk insulates them against the dreadful loneliness of old age.

Colloquial / vernacular. In formal English it should be "you are making."

"Making enough noise to wake the dead" is a common way of exaggerating the loudness of something.

Sea creatures that grow on a rock's surface.

"Ain't" is vernacular English, used in informal speech and often associated with the speech of rural areas.

From the way Kelly talks we can tell he is of a lower social class.

"Old man XXX" is a friendly way of referring to someone.

Ryan is a common Irish first name.

Paddy's Day is short for St Patrick's Day, a holiday in the U.S. celebrating Irish culture and heritage. Nowadays there are still St Patrick's Day parades in major cities. (This holiday is often one on which people will drink heavily.)

Timed him to see how long he slept.

Makes the place too hot.

Run as fast as possible

Grab quickly

To move slowly and tentatively in a way that is trying not to attract attention.

An old-fashioned prank that involves burning or heating someone's foot while they're sleeping.

To walk unsteadily, as if about to fall.

Roasting potatoes in the embers of a wood fire.

In this 1996 article in the New York Times, readers recall roasting mickeys in their childhood.

I think this means they burn the wood or other packing material from boxes used to transport goods. I'm not totally sure.

I don't know why they'd do this -- I'm guessing either to stay warm or just as a form of mischief.

"Stickball" is a game kind of like baseball that I think of as often being played by kids in urban settings in the past, during times when kids didn't have many other forms of entertainment.

It sounds like the kind of thing that old people might tell nostalgic stories about -- though there are probably not many elderly people who still remember playing stickball.

The way Mitchell says it, it implies that there many streets on the East Side totally "dominated by kids" -- children who spend their days playing in the street.

I get the sense from the way Mitchell puts this that he has a deep familiarity with this part of the city.

This guy is not serious; we can tell this is the kind of old guy who just gets stuck on one story and likes to tell it over and over again.

Note that the pronouns at the beginning of the sentences are omitted. This is a colloquial way of speaking in English -- more formally, we'd say "I figure I could kill," but he drops the "I," so it's just "Figure I could kill..."

At this point in time automobiles were pretty new, so this guy probably views automobiles as a new technology.

Sheepshead Bay is the part of Brooklyn that's farthest away from Manhattan. It takes about an hour on the subway to get from Sheepshead Bay to Manhattan.

Flophouses refer to cheap shabby hotels where people can "flop" (i.e. fall into bed) for a night, provide the absolute minimum accomodation for the absolute minimum cost.

The word has a negative connotation -- to call somewhere a flophouse is to say it is a bad place. It's also a dated word -- it's not used much in contemporary English.

A flophouse room in 1890s New York:

As in, "steady customers." In modern English we often call regular customers of a place "regulars," as in, "he's a regular at that noodle joint" or "the waitress knows all the regulars by name."

To move slowly, dragging one's feet against the ground.

This paragraph describes what might happen in a typical day at McSorley's.

This paragraph gives a physical description of the interior.

This paragraph describes the atmosphere in McSorley's.

to give something "a lick and a promise" means to do it quickly and with as little effort as possible, hoping that it'll turn out okay (hence the "promise"). More info here.

In those days most people wore hats, and it was considered polite to remove your hat when you went indoors. So we can see that "rude" behavior is tolerated, even welcomed, at McSorley's.

The stove-top.

Writes fast, without much regard to whether it can be read clearly.

So we can tell that he either is not very educated or doesn't much care about the appearance of the menu.

Here we can here Kelly's voice and get a sense of how he talks and his personality. This sounds like a proverb -- a piece of Kelly's wisdom.

German pickled cabbage. Another dish from a different European ethnic group.

Goulash is a simple, traditional Hungarian stew. The fact that it's sold in McSorley's probably reflects the ethnic character of the neighborhood, with many immigrants from various places in Europe.

"Well cooked" doesn't mean tasty; it means cooked a lot. This implies that it may be overdone.

The shelf over a fireplace:

A bucket for holding a small supply of coal:

Folding screen for creating a separate space within a room:

An interior courtyard with no way out to the street.

Bent.

The flat part of an old coal- or wood-burning stove where you could put something to keep it warm:

The Bowery is a street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan that in the late 19th and early 20th century became notorious as a "bad neighborhood," crowded with drunks, bums (homeless people), prostitutes, and other members of the lowest stratum of society, and full of bars, "flophouses" (cheap hotels), and other establishments catering to these kinds of people. It was known as "Devil's Mile."

The homeless people living on the Bowery were often referred to as "Bowery bums."

Bowery bums:

Old photo of the Bowery, where you can see the Elevated Railroad (the "El") that used to run over it:

Ale served hot, like tea. Very few people still drink beer like this.

Kelly, nicknamed "The Floorwalker," is mentioned earlier in the part of the story omitted here. He's a customer who spends most of his days in the bar and serves as a kind of volunteer waiter, as the bar has no formal waitstaff.

Kelly is a common Irish name.

And old-fashioned wood-burning stove. It's called a "belly stove" because it bulges in the middle, like a belly:

The "Elevated" is short for the elevated railroad (sometimes called "the El") which used to run over the Bowery.

In other words, the stove is just like those that provide head in a subway station. Therefore, probably a cheap, standard kind of stove.

A kind of mica -- used as glass in antique lamps and coal stoves. I don't know much about it but it sounds old-fashioned.

To believe in something means to take it seriously and have faith in it. This word choice has a slightly comic effect. It makes it sound like the customers are philosophers or priests, for whom sitting down is an important principle or way of life.

Brittle and fragile, usually used to describe structures that are in danger of falling down. It's an onomatopoetic word -- it sounds like creaking.

In other words, this is not the kind of place people come for a "quick drink." They come to sit down and stay for a while.

Panels on the bottom of the wall:

"Shored up" means propped up to keep from falling down. This implies that the bar is in bad condition and could easily fall down, so it's been reinforced with iron pipes.

In other words, only five people can sit together at once at the bar.

In other words, the things that confer status and prestige in outside society don't confer prestige in McSorley's.

Overals are the kind of denim pants that these guys are wearing. Often worn by manual labors such as mechanics, because they're tough and keep their clothes from getting dirty.

A famous old chain of department stores, mentioned earlier. You can tell from the interior that it was a fancy place.

Old photos of Wanamaker's:

A famous old department store chain.

Old photos of Wanamaker's:

This feels funny and very true because probably many of the kinds of people who end up in Bellevue, the mental hospital, are drunks and bums, exactly the kind of people who drink at McSorley's. The psychiatrist is implying that drinking at McSorley's is just as beneficial for these people as the treatment they get in the hospital.

A doctor at the mental hospital down the street from McSorley's.

The sawdust spread on the floor (see earlier note)

Beer that has dripped out of the ale pump.

A pump for pouring ale, like you might see in a bar today. "Brassbound" means covered in brass.

A balm is a medicinal paste spread on the skin to cure pain or irritation. The word is often used metaphorically to describe something that calms or alleviates pain.

Steady = a frequent customer

An affectionate, joking way of referring to an old man.

This list of INCREDIBLY specific details basically just shows that there's a ton of stuff on the walls and many many details to notice on the walls. It seems to reflect something about Old John's interests: famous episodes in history and current events, sports, etc. but overall the effect is just to overwhelm the reader with details to create the feeling of a teeming multitude of memorabilia.

Panels on the bottom of the wall:

This reinforces the feeling that Old John has a strange obsession with the deaths of presidents ... why? We don't know. This just shows me that Old John was an obsessive and eccentric sort of guy.

Old-fashioned printing techniques.

A lithograph:

This is weirdly specific. It gives me the sense that Old John was interested in history and current events, but it's also kind of random. Why these specific stories and not others? Hard to say.

Tammany bosses refers to a group of powerful men who dominated the politics of New York City in 19th and early 20th century. Nowadays, Tammany Hall is mainly remembers as corrupt and crooked politicians who dominated the politics of the city -- see the cartoon below picturing Boss Tweed, the most notorious Tammany boss. But they remained in power by winning the votes of recent immigrants, which is perhaps by Old John hangs portraits of them.