Rismont Restaurant and Tea Room’s neon sign. Image from Pencil Points, December, 1931.

The Rismont Restaurant and Tea Room, on the ground floor of the Bricken Casino Building offered a modernistic setting for a quick bite to eat in the early 1930s. By the late 1920s the Manhattan’s garment industry had encroached upon the theatre district. And the wonderfully Moorish style Casino Theatre standing on the southeast corner of Broadway and 39th Street since 1883 had to go.

Casino Theatre in 1900, on the southeast corner of Broadway and 39th Street. Colorized photo from Facebook.

In 1930 the Casino Theatre met the wrecking ball. And up went the Bricken Casino Building (1931). Designed by Ely Jacques Kahn (1884 – 1972) in a stepped back, wedding cake style. The 407 foot, 35 story, black granite, white brick building was typical of the modern mid-sized skyscrapers going up just below Times Square at that time.

The Bricken Casino Building (center left), circa 1932, Ely Jacques Kahn, architect. Image from the New York Public Library Digital Collections.

In a small portion of the ground floor, along Broadway, the Rismont Restaurant and Tearoom opened up. Original plans called for a restaurant in a traditional style. With restaurant competition being high in that section of town, the new restaurant needed to have an edge. And the person the provide the edge that restaurant would need was artist and industrial designer John Vassos (1898 – 1985).

John Vassos, 1929. Image from Heritage Auctions.

In the late 1920s and new field started developing in the United States, Industrial Design. And John Vassos was among the members in this new profession that included, Norman Bel Geddes, Gilbert Rhode, Walter Dorwin Teague, Raymond Loewy and Henry Dreyfuss.  Vassos, born in Romania to Greek parents, spent most of his childhood and young adulthood in Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey. During the First World War he served on the side of the Allies and immigrated to the United States in 1919. Settling in Boston, he attended the Fenway Art School and worked as an assistant to Joseph Urban. After moving to New York City in 1924, Vassos set up his own studio.  Here he created window displays for stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Wanamaker’s as well as advertisements for Packard Motors Cars.

1932 John Vassos mock up for a Packard Motor Car advertisement. Image from the Smithsonian.

Publisher E. P. Dutton hired Vassos in 1927 to do illustrations for an edition of Oscar Wilde’s Salome. These illustration’s are perfect examples of Vassos’ graphic style, bold and somewhat forbidding.

Vassos, as well as being an artist and industrial designer also had a strong interest in psychology. This led to his 1931 book Phobia in which he illustrated many types of fears people were suffering from in modern life. His wife Ruth wrote the text to accompany his striking pictures.

The cover of Phobia. Image from thornbooks.com.

And, believe it or not, this interest in psychology influenced Vassos’ design for the Rismont Restaurant and Tea Room.

The Rismont Restaurant & Tea Room

Exterior photograph of the Rismont. Photograph by Peyser and Patzig, from Pencil Points, December, 1931, Pg. 889.

His psychological interests informed his design for the Rismont. Writing about the Rismont in the architectural magazine, Pencil Points he said this about the exterior:

“As you look from the street  into the restaurant, you get a feeling of space and openness – due to the lighting and the fact that the windows have not been closed in but are clear glass giving full vista of the interior. Human beings, like moths, are attracted by light, so I even went further and put a shaft of light between the front doors” – Pencil Points, December, 1931, Pg. 896.

According to Vassos the shape of the space was ugly and difficult. There was no visual interest in the funnel-shaped room. So to create interest Vassos divided the room into three “light sections”. Then he treated the counter and soda fountain as a separate unit.

Looking toward the rear of the funnel-shaped room from the entrance. Photograph by Peyser and Patzig, from Pencil Points, December, 1931, Pg. 890.

Above the soda fountain counter, Vassos created a “light beam”. Running almost the entire length of the counter, the lights inside were behind opaque glass, diffusing the light and casting no shadows. Also inside this “light beam” Vassos placed the air cooling and purifying system.

The soda fountain and “light beam”. Image from Broadcast News, February, 1934, Pg. 19.

For lighting the majority of the room, Vassos employed indirect lighting. On the four structural columns he placed perpendicular troughs of lights. Made of aluminum, the light bulbs inside bounced the light back onto the plaster of the column and not directly into the room. The Indirect lighting turned the solid column into what Vassos called “a shaft of light”.

Rismont interiror. View from just inside the entrance looking towards the lunch counter. Note the column the aluminum troughs. Photograph by Peyser and Patzig, from Pencil Points, December, 1931, Pg. 891.

To divide the small room into three sections, Vassos employed semi-circular aluminum troughs on the ceiling. Filled with bulbs, these troughs cast an even spread of light over the section.

Looking toward the rear from the middle of the room. This gives a good view of the semi-circular ceiling troughs. Photograph by Peyser and Patzig, from Pencil Points, December, 1931, Pg. 890.

The wall sconces represented a very stylized, modernistic stem, leaf and bud. The dark wood of the candy counter was broken up by two bands of aluminum. And topping off the glass counter Vassos designed two almost futuristic lights. Supported by two metal bars, the frosted glass shade was sandwiched between metal ends and two glass discs.

The Rismont candy counter, with detail of counter lamps and wall sconce. Photograph by Peyser and Patzig, from Pencil Points, December, 1931, Pg. 894.

Vassos employed a soothing color scheme inside the restaurant. The overall palette was three shades of beige. A Spanish Rose fabrikoid with black buttons covered the seats. Using three legs, Vassos made the seats comfortable for sitting for short periods of time, this way people would not linger therefore creating more turnover. The black formica top tables rested on three rolled aluminum tube legs.  The benches were a combination of walnut on aluminum bases.

Looking toward the front of the restaurant. Photograph by Peyser and Patzig, from Pencil Points, December, 1931, Pg. 891.

By early May, 1931 the Rismont threw open its doors. And on May 6th, Vassos hosted a party for his friends inside the new restaurant. The reviews in the papers were not what he expected. Beverly Smith wrote this in the New York Herald-Tribune –

Designer Lures Literary Folks to Soda Fountain. Invitations Call Post-Modern Parlor Bar and All It Squirts is Tea, Syrup.

In the corridor of a newly-erected skyscraper at 1410 Broadway late yesterday afternoon, a mysterious murmur was heard. There was a rising buzz, the faint sound of crackling laughter. Within, in a post-modernistic setting, more than a hundred authors and critics sat in their chairs, stood at the bar or shouted compliments at each other. Those persons inside were veterans of a hundred literary teas, but when they looked about and saw where they were, there was a natural, human panic. 

They saw, with tragic clearness, for the first time, that they were trapped in a soda fountain. No way out, except a narrow door opening onto Broadway. 

New York Herald-Tribune, May 7, 1931 Pg. 17. 

Ten days later the New York Herald-Tribune “Turns With a Bookworm” column featured another less than flattering critique of the restaurant –

This modern art is too much for us . . . We went to a small party given by Dutton’s and John Vassos for a preview of the Rismont tearoom-restaurant because Mr. Vassos designed it. It was all aluminum what-nots and sealing wax upholstery and three-cornered chairs. There was a large eagle ornament on the bar, which we thought was made of glass, and it proved to be ice; and this discovery, combined with the spectacle of Bill Benét sitting on a three-cornered chair not much bigger than a matchbox, so discomposed us that we backed into a freshly painted wall. And a strange but good looking gal fell right off another three-cornered chair with a loud crash . . .

It’s simply not fair what these artists are doing, for we realize at last that they are doing it on purpose, and stand by laughing heartily after they’ve suspended a crystal cake-stand from the ceiling and told us it’s a chandelier. 

New York Herald-Tribune, May 17, 1931 Pg. J15.

The Rismont, looking toward the front and the candy counter and cashier desk. Photograph by Peyser and Patzig, from Pencil Points, December, 1931, Pg. 894.

A point Vassos made in his article in Pencil Points regarding the need for customer turnover was this –

There was one extremely important thing to be borne in mind. This is probably one of the most expensive restaurants per foot of floor space in the world. And the only way it could be made a paying proposition was to be able to serve a great many people quickly. In other words the place had to be attractive and comfortable, but it had to be so planned that people would not be tempted to lounge. Therefore , the benches are wide enough – but not too wide – and the customer realizes after eating his or her luncheon that the place to smoke one’s cigarette is outside.

Pencil Points, December, 1931, Pg. 896.

Unfortunately the Rismont would not be around long. For whatever reason, too much competition, the deepening of the depression or the place was just too small to turn a reasonable profit, by the autumn of 1933 it was gone. The space occupied by the Rismont Restaurant and Tearoom had been replaced by M. Walker and Sons clothiers.

Anthony & Chris (The Freakin’ ‘Tiquen Guys)

Sources

The New York Herald-Tribune

Pencil Points