“You vill each be assigned a station of twelf to feefteen tables. You vill be completely responsible for taking care of efery detail of your station. You vill haff a boy who vill report to you whose job it is to remove empty glasses and dishes and sveep up. Your job is to please the customer, of course, but to also encourage them not to linger once they haff finished eating. The more people ve can seat at each table the more money ve vill make, and the more money you vill make as vell. You cannot be rude to people, of course, but you are expected to know about efery attraction of this Exposition so that you can talk about each with great enthusiasm so as to encourage your customers to get up and go on their vay once they haff finished eating. Your job is to feed them and see to their thirst, then politely get rid of them.”
And so, on and on went his spiel, doling out details on personal cleanliness, proper behavior, the system for submitting orders, and much more.
Junior was feeling quite overwhelmed even before Schutkeker had finished, but apparently other faces too revealed the same emotion to the speaker.
“Don’t vorry. I know all these details seem to be very complicated and confusing, but you vill see that once the action begins, common sense vill lead you to do many of these tings natürlich. So now, you vill all follow me to the kitchen so I can introduce you with the cooks and the methods for submitting and picking up your orders.”
As the crowd followed him, Schutkeker continued talking.
“Unless told to do so, such as in times of great crowding, you vill not encroach upon another vaiter’s tables. Anyone caught taking tips from a table that is not his own vill be fired, once the Exposition Police haff finished vit you. There vill be no tolerance for bad behavior of any kind. Just remember, there are a hundred men vaiting to take over your place here, just vaiting for you to fail. You must not eat any of the food that people leave on their plates. You vill be fed a light lunch in the middle of your shift, but it must be eaten next to the kitchen vhere the customers vill not see you.“
Junior liked Schutkeker, and although out of earshot others referred to him caustically by his permutation, Junior was invited to call him Gus, which he did. Schutkeker, a man free of false airs or superior attitude whom everyone else took to calling Shit-Kicker, in turn answered to the Big Boss, Herr Fritz Mueller, who was a much more stern taskmaster than he. Mueller too had lectured the group about honesty, citing the newly-installed invention, the cash register, as a necessary antidote to what had been so prevalent and widespread in days past.
“This machine vill keep you honest. I vill not be loosink my shirt on this enterprise!” Mueller bellowed to his employees. “Ve are all hier to make money!”
After that first long day, Junior’s head spinning with dos and don’ts and rules and regulations, he politely declined the invitation of some of his fellow waiters to explore the Midway with them in favor of visiting the Electricity Building. The Exposition, with its unprecedented lighting scheme and a host of new inventions powered by electricity, had newly energized Junior’s interest in the stuff. Making his way he passed the Photographer’s studio, his other passion, taking mental note of exploring that building thoroughly as soon as possible as well.
This is going to be the greatest year of my entire life, he thought to himself.
Many buildings had not as yet installed their exhibits at this late date and some buildings were still being constructed.
Haughty Canada, submitting a last-minute design for a national building smaller than any other at the Pan, no bigger than a cottage actually, was given an appropriate spot on which to erect it: adjacent to the livestock barns in the farthest corner of the grounds. Canada had made herself the laughing stock of the Exposition if not the entire country, ours as well as her own.
“Serves ‘em right,” chuckled Jim Sullivan when reading the Canuks’ complaints about the stench and the dark-side-of-the-moon building location in the newspaper.
As he entered the Electricity Building’s cavernous space, five hundred feet in length, a strange and beautiful apparition assaulted Junior’s eye, much like love at first sight. Lighted bulbs spelled out in giant letters GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY on the upper wall, the building’s under-roof decorated with festive striped swag extending prettily from the center of the roof toward the outer walls. Here in the northwest corner of the Electricity Building was installed the Niagara Falls transformer plant, with a capacity of five thousand horse-power, the purpose of which was to transform the power delivered from Niagara Falls to a lower voltage so that it could be used for distribution about the grounds to operate the million lights, the Electric Fountain and the other electrical appliances.
A handrail guided Junior past a diminutive single-story classic Greek Headquarters building erected on the exhibition floor. Hypnotized by the equipment beyond it, he zoomed right past the odd structure with nary a glance.
A double row of nineteen ultra-modern transformers, all painted a glossy forest green, stood sentinel on the left like some regiment of steel soldiers from another world, while behind them along the wall loomed the massive switchboard by which the distribution of the current for the splendid illumination of the grounds was accomplished. The scene captured Junior’s imagination instantly, both for its magnitude and the intensity of the currents handled. A narrow striped carpet acted as a pathway leading visitors on a walk though a massive round section of steel pipe, a field ring for the Niagara Falls Power Co., weighing 33,200 lbs. and manufactured by the Bethlehem Steel Co., then on through the rest of the building past all the electricity exhibits.
The development of electrical power was fully illustrated in a very comprehensive manner. Working models of many of the great power plants were on exhibition. Most noteworthy in the historic exhibit were the elementary dynamos and lamps and motors of just two decades previous, looking now as if something from the Stone Age in their crudeness and jerry-rigged appearance.
Comparing the historic exhibits, which appeared glaringly primitive to the extreme, with the finished and effective machinery of the modern section, Junior was enlightened with the startling velocity with which the world had moved in matters electrical during the previous two decades. The advances that had been made in less than twenty years laid out right there in front of his eyes boggled his mind, and at that moment he realized that Electricity was the Future, and that he was determined suddenly to be a part of this new age.
Toward the end of the hall he was excited to see an exhibition where visitors were able to watch the telephone girls at work. The switchboard was a part of the Buffalo Bell Telephone Company’s system and the entire procedure of calling “Central” and getting the desired connection was shown in full view and carefully explained, clearing up any mysteries that might have remained in his mind about how it all worked.
His head bursting with ideas and new information, Junior was surprised finding himself turning the lock on the front door at No. 16 Hamburg Street.
So distracted was he that he didn’t recall a single detail about making his way back home.
Inside the Electric Building: the transformers at the General Electric Exhibit.
May 20, 1901
Opening Day At
The Pan American Exposition
Excited children were up and running around the Sullivan homes on Hamburg Street while outside it was still pitch-black. The oldest kid, the Alderman himself, was more excited than any of the others, as he had been an instigator of the exposition scheme and had enthusiastically boomed the enterprise far and wide whenever provided any opportunity.
He climbed out of bed as Annie moaned, “Already?”
He stepped into his trousers. He parted the curtains and allowed the glow of the Buffalo Furnace Co. across the street to invade the room. Annie opened her eyes to the reddish light and wondered for the thousandth time if she would ever live to see the day they could move away from this hell-hole forever.
The wind was rushing down from the north, pushing all the smoke and
stench to the south, allowing a rare morning when it was possible to actually stick one’s head out the window and breathe in the fresh morning air if a person had a mind to. The only odor present was a fine one; it came from the grain elevators to the north, where the delicious scent of toasting oats filled the air.
As the sun rose it did not show its brilliant face, for it was a gloomy leaden day. This did nothing to daunt the population of the Sullivan homes nor of the city itself from the intoxicating prospect of the stupendous spectacle that lay ahead.
The Alderman had arranged for his own and his brother’s families to have a prime viewing spot of the opening promenade inside the grounds just over the Triumphal Bridge. It was over that bridge inside the exposition proper, its span anchored by four absolutely massive colonnades topped with giant heroic sculptures of rearing horses and majestic figures, that the parade of exposition dignitaries would enter the grounds.
All the family members were present except for Junior, who was required to be at his station at the Pabst Pavilion.
“Junior’s the lucky one,” moaned Nellie as she stood in the chill breeze waiting for the procession to begin. She huddled against her mother for warmth and looked around to see what handsome boys she might view as Hannah and Annie gabbed excitedly and the kids made no effort to contain themselves; they wanted in, now. But they would have to endure the pompous procession of dignitaries first.
“Finally!” sniffed Nellie as the distant sounds of the 74th Regiment Band could be heard at the far end of the bridge. A sea of black top hats appeared, those belonging to Vice President Roosevelt, Exposition President Milburn, Mr. Scatcherd, Mayor Diehl, Fingy Conners and all the rest of the cream of society who led the way. These were followed by other important people, men and women, who had worked long and hard to bring this day to reality; the architects, decorators, landscape designers, colorists and planners. Following them were the aldermen in derbys and bowlers, a jovial gaggle of fellas joking and laughing together, in contrast to the more dignified and serious top hats who had preceded them.
Alderman Sullivan was easy to pick out of the otherwise indistinguishable crowd of dark suited, bow tied, cane-leaning aldermen and others by his massive orthopedic shoe and characteristic limp. As he passed his families, they cheered for him.
“Yay, Papa!” shouted his brood, led by the deepening voices of his eldest, Thomas and Daniel.
JP saw them from afar and waved excitedly only to have his attention stolen by something of greater interest at that particular moment: the camera man from the Thomas Edison Moving Pictures Company filming the parade, with him in it. He poked Alderman John Kennedy.
“Hey Jack! Look! It’s the moving picture people! How grand!” laughed the animated politician, looking directly into the camera lens. “We’ll have to go to the Edisonia Theater together to view ourselves when it’s exhibited!”
Kennedy smiled disingenuously and said, “Yep, it’s a corker all right, JP.”
The dignitaries were followed by the 74th Regiment Marching Band, then by battalions of feather-capped admirals and other military men on horseback with sabres displayed, followed by columns of marching troops with rifles held to their right shoulders, pointed toward the heavens. There was much more to come, but the kids could no longer be contained, and they dragged their mothers away, into the hornet’s nest of opening day bedlam where far more interesting attractions awaited.
The crowd numbered 101,687, making it the second largest opening attendance in the history of expositions. The restaurants were immediately packed end to end, creating a demand regrettably unanticipated. Despite meticulous preparations at the Pabst Pavilion, the Alt Nuremberg, and all the other dozens of beer halls, eateries and cafés, nothing approaching this volume of demand had been predicted. Cooks and waiters fell over one another in the pandemonium and many restaurants ran out of food entirely as early as 6 p.m. and had to close, their managers cursing the heavens for their being so short-sighted. They cried salty tears as the dollars flying out of visitors pockets landed into better-prepared competitors’ laps rather than their own. Others made a practice of admitting a certain number of customers and then locking the doors, as hungry patrons made to wait their turn were becoming aggressive and abusive, shouting and cursing at diners sitting and enjoying their meal, screaming at them to hurry it up.
To the Sullivans, as they wandered wide-eyed across the Grand Esplanade munching popcorn balls, the exposition looked exactly like the painted pictures of it had promised, and then some. The gorgeousness of coloring on the fanciful Mediterranean-Renaissance style buildings, which provided the Pan its appellation The Rainbow City, as well as the lighting and fountain effects which had been so vividly portrayed previously only on paper, had now come to glorious life. The surging laughing crowds that artists had depicted in their illustrations and now jamming the buildings and pavilions were, it turned out, accurately represented.
At about 2 p.m. the sun finally came out, darting between the swiftly passing cumulus clouds, counteracting the chill breeze. The flowers and trees and formal gardens of tulips and daffodils were in full bloom along the curving walkways of the Grand Court, which was bordered by all the important buildings and cut down the middle by the gigantic lagoon and its spewing fountains. There were other ways of entry, but the approach to the exposition from across the Triumphal Bridge revealed a triumph of vision and design, planning and commitment to hard work by the many thousands who brought the fantasy land into being. The thirty-seven story Electric Tower straight ahead stood sentinel at the farthest end of the esplanade.
It was from the rise of the bridge that Hannah and Annie, now joined by the Alderman, gathered all the children at dusk, along with thousands of other spectators having the same idea, to view the birth of the illumination.
“When will it begin?” squealed the Alderman’s ten year old Mazie, pulling at her mother’s dress, ever anxious.
“Mazie, you calm yourself down or I’ll take you directly home!” scolded Annie.
“Oh mother, don’t be silly! You won’t neither! You’d never miss seein’ the show!” snorted the little brat, as Annie exchanged knowing looks with Hannah.
“Now Mazie, you do not speak in that tone to your mother, do you hear me?” scolded the Alderman.
Mazie hung her head in pretended shame and softly said, “Yes, Papa.”
Suddenly as a murmur arose, a dull glow appeared on the crowns of the many small pillars all around the grounds, followed by a stream of light climbing swiftly up the dome of the Temple of Music and then trickling down the other side, leaving a fiery path.
A moment later, lines of fire, indistinct, rose-colored, flecked across all the great buildings, followed by a soft, faint glow bursting suddenly on the magnificent Electric Tower, giving the vast pillar the illusion of a gigantic oven through which a fire gleamed. The intensity of the illumination increased slowly, the lights changing color from pink to a warm bright yellow almost imperceptibly. And then, a giant searchlight blasted into illumination from atop the tower and began scanning the entire exposition grounds.
The crowd throughout the site, but especially those gathered on the Triumphal Bridge, could not contain their wonder at this unprecedented display of electric magnificence and burst into cheers involuntarily, their excitement echoed by other throngs gathered in other parts, all eyes fixed on the Grand Esplanade.
The Alderman was tired. He would have preferred to begin heading home at that point, but the children were in such a state of excitement that he knew he would find no peace once at home. Besides, his leg was throbbing and he needed to sit down.
“Let’s go eat!” he announced to the hungry throng.
“Yay!” they cheered in response.
“Let’s go see Junior at the Pabst, why don’t we?” snarkily suggested his sister. “We can have fun makin’ him wait on us.”
“We’ll do no such thing,” announced the Alderman. “Reservations await us much closer at the resta
urant in the Electric Tower! It is seven stories up in the sky, and the view is magnificent. I’ve already seen it.”
“Oh boy!” shouted one and all, as the limping politician, his leg pulsing dully, hopped along to try and keep up.
“Is the same menu available in the Garden restaurant as in the main Tower restaurant, asked the Alderman as they were greeted by the maître d’hôtel.
The man, dressed in a tuxedo, responded, “No Alderman. The Garden restaurant has a more abbreviated version, because the space is so much smaller up there.”
“Well, children, if we are going to eat as well as I feel the need to in my famished state, we’ll be dining right here. Look how elegant it is!” he said, holding up the black menu with silver scrolling. “And look at that magnificent view out over the fountains!”
Indeed, situated only about eight feet above ground level, the Electric Tower restaurant was huge, with a menu to match.
A hue and cry went up from the children. Hannah and Annie did nothing to stop it.
“We want to go up in the elevator!” little Anne demanded. The others chorused in.
“So do we, JP,” said Annie as Hannah nodded.
“All right,” he groaned. “The Garden restaurant it shall be.”
That’ll be twenty-five cents,” announced the elevator attendant.
“Whew!” said the Alderman. “It costs the same to ride the elevator as it did to see the entire exposition? Well, lucky for me I have my aldermen’s pass. Here it is, sir.” The pass allowed free admission to everything.
“Fine, Alderman Sullivan, but the pass is good only for you personally, not for the entire group.”
He looked at all the anxious, expectant faces, quickly calculated the cost weighed against the animosity he would suffer if he denied his kin this once-in-a-lifetime family adventure, gulped hard, pried open his creaking change purse and counted out two dollars and seventy-five cents. It almost made him faint. The elevator ride up to the seventh level made him even queasier, but once they’d been seated and he’d had a few sips of wine, he calmed.
Fingy Conners & The New Century Page 20