Greetings From Yesteryear

Collector badge requirement 1: Start a collection or add to one you have already started

After an un-delicious breakfast of potato pancakes (more like large, flat Tater Tots) in a diner in the New Yorker Hotel, Tom and I went upstairs to the Metropolitan Postcard Club’s meeting in search of vintage postcards with interesting messages to add to my collection.

A friendly and well-informed vendor sat me down at her table, turned a long box of postcards around, and handed it to me backwards.

“Here,” she said. “I hope you have patience.”

My favorite find of the day was this 1908 postcard of Coney Island with the simple message: “We expect to go to Madison Square Roof Garden to spend the evening before starting home. –John.” Not the most detailed account, but I liked the mention of the roof garden for its place in history. The Madison Square Garden that the terse John was set to visit in June 1908 was the city’s second version, located in Madison Square Park and designed by celebrated architect Stanford White. It was in the very roof top garden itself where White was murdered in 1906 by his former mistress’ husband, millionaire Harry Thaw, setting in motion the “trial of the century.” All that in a single-sentence note from a long-ago tourist. That’s what makes my new hobby so fun.