18/09/13 Jazz Age Club | The Magnificent Murrays Roman Gardens

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The Magnificent Murray’s Roman Gardens, New YorkThe eight-storey edifice that was Murray’s Roman Gardens in New York created by John L. Murray,could be described as the first themed restaurant and certainly it became one of the city’s most famouseateries.

An interior photograph of the main dining room at Murray'sRoman Gardens

The Irish born John L. Murray was born in 1865 and started his restaurant business at Columbus Avenue and104th Street, later going to Broadway and 100th and then Broadway and 34rd Street before opening his famedresort. His company was the United States Realty and Restaurant Company composed of Henry L. Erkins,Fredrick Meyer and Walter Rich and backed by JB Duke and JB Cobb of the United Tobacco Company. Murrayobtained a twenty-one-year lease on a building that had been a hotel at 228 West 42nd Street and announcedrather elaborate and unique plans with a vast $400,000 renovation budget for a new restaurant that opened in late1908.

The project was part of a frenzy of activity in New York that took place from the 1890s through to 1912 asnightlife flourished along Broadway. New, luxurious restaurants such as Bustanoby’s, Churchill’s, Maxim’s,

18/09/13 Jazz Age Club | The Magnificent Murrays Roman Gardens

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Rector’s, Reisenwebers and Murray’s, to name but a few, became known as ‘lobster palaces’ because of theirelegant décor, which imitated European regal and imperial splendour, impeccable service and excellent cuisine,which favoured late-night lobster suppers.

The Roman temple and barge feature in Murray's RomanGardens

The design for Murray’s was the vision of architect Henry L. Erkins. He remodelled and whitewashed the rathersombre two-storey façade with pillars and vine festoons in a French style reproducing the décor of the ancienthotel of Cardinal de Rohan of Paris in Caen stone.

The main restaurant on the third floor was reached by a marble stairway flanked by winged lions in marble and ablack and gold mosaic foyer. For the interior décor Erkins decided to create a Romanesque vision akin to a villain Pompeii. Indeed, it was called a ‘Pompeian Garden’ and was a vast open court with colonnades and pillars oneach side, festooned with vines and floral decor. It had the illusion of being an open-air garden since the ceilingwas decorated to look like a blue sky with twinkling electric lights as stars, supplemented by the effect of movingclouds and an artificial moon.

The décor was extravagant with mock Roman sculpture and statuary. There was a cobbled floor, latticework,relief sculptures, pergolas, a full-size Cleopatra barge and a 30-foot-high marble fountain crowned with a classicalRoman temple designed by Stanford White for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with brilliantly colored glassmosaic tile panels of swags of fruit topped by lions’ heads.

Overlooking the garden was a mezzanine with two further rooms with elaborate three-dimensional murals withEgyptian, Libyan and Greek themed décor. On the fourth, fifth and sixth floors Murray added more private diningrooms with similar décor including a room in the Gothic style and a Dragon room that modeled itself on theImperial Gardens in Peking. There were also 24 luxurious bachelor apartments.

18/09/13 Jazz Age Club | The Magnificent Murrays Roman Gardens

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Another interior view of the main dining room in Murray'sRoman Gardens

The resort oozed sensuality and luxury with its exotic wall paintings featuring imagery of nude goddesses andnymphs. For example, in the foreground of a trompe l’oeil vista of the Bay of Naples, seen as if from the verandaof a great Pompeian mansion, a woman fresh from bathing stretched her glorious naked figure.

It was described as the largest eating-place in the world with seating for 5,000 diners, although one wonderswhere 5,000 diners could have been placed. When one of the leading observers of Broadway life heard of therestaurant to accommodate 5,000 he said ‘New Yorkers only want to go to places where they can’t get a table.’

One of the innovations of the restaurant was it that it was planned to be waiter-less. Murray had been thinking forsome time of how to do away with the nuisance of having a waiter hovering while you discussed private affairswith friends. So in the new restaurant the idea was that you gave your order on entering. When seated, thecourses would appear on the centre of the table from the serving room beneath. But whether this was instigated asa feature is not known and was certainly not visible in the main ‘Pompeian’ dining room.

Whatever the debate over seating the new restaurant was a huge success and the opulence of the décor greatlyadmired but was the cuisine any good? At first dining was the main pre-occupation, so presumably the menu wasoutstanding, but as the dancing craze took hold in 1912, Murray’s, like all New York restaurants, was forced tochange. In April 1912 a small scale cabaret was inaugurated that featured the creation of a small dance floor,music from a 12 piece orchestra and a show with the ‘turkey trot’ dancers Andre and Hazel Murray, allcontinuing until 4am.

Egyptian bas relief in the 'Peacock Room' at Murray's RomanGardens