The price of oysters

Given New Yorkers' historic love of oysters, chronicled at length by the writer Mark Kurlansky, I thought I might investigate the price of oysters 150 years ago. It wasn't my recent blog about Whole Foods finally coming to the Bowery or the vastly lower prices of seafood in nearby Chinatown that piqued my curiosity. Instead, it was the news that the New York Times has opened its archive dating back to 1851. So I decided to search for oysters. One of my search results yielded a fascinating article about the extension of Albany Street in lower Manhattan. However, when I read the abstract, I was rather surprised it was pegged at 3,133 words; such discursiveness on that subject seemed to be exceedingly gaseous—or was it simply that whatever fascinating contraption scanned this article of March 2, 1854, also included articles on the same page? Turns out both cases were true. Excerpt: "Mr. Peter G. Cutler was about to commence an argument against the proposed measure, when a young lawyer on the other side asked what interest he represented. Mr. C. said that he would not submit to interrogatories, which had no other object than to interrupt." So there, Mr. C.

What does this have to do with the price of oysters? The article following that turgid prose about Albany Street—a miserable little street even to this day—was titled "Removal of the Dead," commencing thusly: "Another meeting of persons opposed to the removal of the dead from the Methodist burial ground, corner of First street and Second avenue, was held in Hermitage Hall, corner of Houston and Allen-streets, Tuesday evening. The attendance was as usual, quite large." (side note: NYC.com has nice links to the remaining tiny cemeteries of that area.) It seems "Mr. Wm. Gurney spoke at length in condemnation of the attempted removal of the bodies from the burying-ground. The question, he said, was a great moral one. He regarded the act as unchristian and barbarous." Comment: there wasn't much press about a recent unchristian act, the second desecration of the Third Cemetery of the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue, Shearith Israel, on West 21st St near Sixth Avenue, due to negligent contractors at a neighboring high-rise.

But about those oysters! I kept reading through these two lengthy columns of text, coming eventually to a headline worthy of today's New York Post: "Smash-Up—A chaise, driven by Dr. Purple, (Editor of the New-York Journal of Medicine and Collateral Sciences,) came in violent collision with a dray at the corner of Nassau and Ann-streets yesterday forenoon. The Doctor's vehicle was completely demolished, but no personal injury was sustained." Call it collateral damage or purple haze, if you will. Below that was a bit about "Obstructing Sidewalks—Dirty Streets," something that has never gone out of fashion in Manhattan. This writer declaims: "I am also constantly appealed to in relation to the filthy condition of the streets and the present uncertain method of collecting the ashes and garbage."

Finally, to the oysters. So noting "little change in prices has taken place since last week's quotations" (see photo, above), it seems clams were a better deal than oysters that week. As per usual, the cheaper bottom-feeding fish represented a good value, while the prices of cranberries, spinach and beets were rather dear at the end of winter in 1854.

In truth, I really didn't care about the price of oysters. Instead, I wanted to find out how many fascinating topics could be quickly researched. The Graf Zeppelin came to mind, and I soon learned about a Parachute Drill Held on Zeppelin: "Dr. Eckener, commander on the Graf Zeppelin, en route to the United States, walked into the salon of the ship Thursday afternoon as the passengers were dancing merrily to the tunes of a phonograph and, striking a serious attitude, said: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I have had news to impart to you. We must return to Friedrichshafen. There is some trouble with the motors, but there is no danger. Remain calm.' ... The announcement came as a thunderbolt out of a clear sky to the passengers, who were not aware of any difficulty with the motors." Great stuff, right?

Compare and contrast: What about the equipment situation of our army during another war, the Civil War? From Sunday, October 13, 1861: "Horse Department of the Army. How horses are bought and cared for. There are at present here eleven thousand of these useful animals, and three thousand mules, many of them clustered close together, and none of them thriving over well from such dense companionship." Suffice it to say, I think I covered the topic of humanely-raised meat in my recent blog about Whole Foods finally coming to the Bowery, so I'll drop this subject. Though I might add, please: there is a vast conspiracy afoot in Congress to ban the sale of horse meat—mostly exported to Europe given our domestic distaste for it—an obvious hyperreaction and typical obfuscation of the true politics of the slaughterhouses and hen-houses of this vast nation.

Many 19th-century articles concerned the wrecks of steamships and passenger ships. I didn't bother searching for ambergris, as Melville's Moby-Dick contains more than enough on that tedious subject. But one article titled "A Water-Logged Wreck" caught my eye. The headline alone suggests a better script than that of Titanic: "An American Brig Caught in a Cyclone—The Provisions All Spoiled—Terrible Sufferings of the Crew—Eleven Perish from Hunger and Thirst—The Captain Alone Survives". We learn all manner of horrifying details, viz. "The Captain, who had been a man of 235 pounds, was found an emaciated skeleton, and whom discovered in the forecastle of his wrecked ship, weighed less than 120 pounds. The sufferings he endured for over three months cannot be told." Of course, the sufferings are told. Moreover, you need not retrieve an entire article to get the gist of a harrowing tale of 19th-century seafaring. Another fine example concerns the "Particulars of the Loss of the Steamship North America, &c." from Wednesday April 1, 1852. The Correspondence of the New-York Daily Times, some 1919 words, declares: "You will hear by this mail of the disastrous wreck of the fine steamship North America. She sailed from San Juan del Sur on the evening of the 23d, and at 11 o'clock on the night of the 27th, went ashore about 55 miles south of Acapulco, on the long sand beach which commences some seventy miles below here." All this makes for far more interesting reading than the Sunday Styles section or the cruise ship listings in the Sunday Travel section. Perhaps these dispatches were the forerunner of the Friday Escapes section? As in: escapes from a sinking ship, far more dramatic than being marooned at JFK's JetBlue terminal (which has a sushi bar serving oysters) during a snowstorm.

I guess before I conclude with a mention on Otto von Bismarck—specifically, an article titled "The War in Scheswig—Retreat of the Danes"—that I deeply admire the style of this 19th-century newspaper: "A late telegram says that the Austrians had attacked the Danes before Flensburg, and the Prussians cut them off on the right. The Danes, in retreating, lost great booty and many prisoners." A bit less graphic than the melee at Abu Ghraib, no? The New York Times archive is truly extraordinary, well worth a visit.

Tags:   cyclone, graf zeppelin, moby dick, new york times, otto von bismarck, oysters, whole foods

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Posted on 3/16/2007 ( Permanent Link )
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