“The place is wide open, but not in the way that New York is wide open–vulgarly, garishly, hoggishly. The business is achieved with an air, almost a grand manner. It is good-humored, engaging, innocent. There is no heavy attitude of raising the Devil. One may guzzle as one will, but one may also drink decently and in order, and shake a leg in the style of Haydn, and lift an eye to a pretty girl without getting knocked in the head or having one’s pocket picked. It is a friendy place, a spacious and tolerant place, a place heavy with strangeness and charm. It is no more American, in the sense that American has come to carry, than a wine festival in Spain or the carnival at Nice.”
H.L. Mencken, “San Francisco: A Memory”
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
An ArtsJournal Blog