5k menus from the New York Public Library’s Buttolph Collection (1880-1920)
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Re: 5k menus from the New York Public Library’s Buttolph Collection (1880-1920)
#2Interesting, these really old menus would not look too out of place at a restaurant today.
Re: 5k menus from the New York Public Library’s Buttolph Collection (1880-1920)
#3Interesting, these really old menus would not look too out of place at a restaurant today.
And the other way around too - it sounds like you could have had a very similar dining experience as today. It always amazes me how very little difference there is between past people's lifestyles and ours. I know this on a factual level, but being presented with a tiny peek into the past like this is always very humbling to me.
Re: 5k menus from the New York Public Library’s Buttolph Collection (1880-1920)
#4I am curious which of these places still exist today, as some menus depict the building. It would've be nice to have additional historical information.
Re: 5k menus from the New York Public Library’s Buttolph Collection (1880-1920)
#5The ice cream flavors are more meaningful those days. Nowadays they have every possible combinations like the weird "green chilly ice creams"
Re: 5k menus from the New York Public Library’s Buttolph Collection (1880-1920)
#6I see everything is CENTS! I was like what on earth who is paying $250 for a ham sandwich???
Re: 5k menus from the New York Public Library’s Buttolph Collection (1880-1920)
#7dupe (kinda), Yesterday, 9 comments
Re: 5k menus from the New York Public Library’s Buttolph Collection (1880-1920)
#8Interesting that many of them lead with clams or oysters. (Perhaps this is still a thing at high-end restaurants, but to have them listed so frequently and prominently is completely foreign to me.)
Re: 5k menus from the New York Public Library’s Buttolph Collection (1880-1920)
#9would be nice to be able to link to an individual menu.
cool collection, just harder to share some specific ones with friends.
Re: 5k menus from the New York Public Library’s Buttolph Collection (1880-1920)
#10Many of these, from the mid 1800’s, would have been printed on a press with metal letters.
A modern open font that might match the style is Old Standard TT.
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Old%2BStandard%2BTT
I was curious how these were made back then and what modern fonts might look best.