The Jollity Building

by A.J. Liebling

Hilarious and unsentimental profiles of the heels, boskos and Telephone Booth Indians who live by their wits along Broadway. Running as an entry with 'Yea Verily,' the saintly life of Colonel John R. Stingo

Genres: Nonfiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Abbott Joseph "A. J." Liebling was an American journalist who was closely associated with The New Yorker from 1935 until his death.

Reviews

[Bruce Paley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful portrait of loveable lowlife New York characters from a bygone era hustling for a living. I was born and raised in New York and what I see of the city today from afar suggests it's lost much of its character - and characters too. I was born in 1949, and grew up in the tail-end of the era Liebling writes about, and he brings the people and places alive like few writers can. I remember sitting in the Horn & Hardot Automat on 42nd Street, a large cafeteria where there were no waiters or cashiers and such; rather food and drink were dispensed through small cubby-hole like compartments along the walls, whose doors would open when you deposited your coins. A cup of coffee was 10¢, and you could nurse it for hours undisturbed, as there was no staff to tell you to leave, and the place would be full of all sorts of characters. Occasionally I would buy cups of coffee for a man who called himself "The Beatnik O"and in return he would read me his poetry and tell me stories about people like Jack Kerouac, who he claimed had stolen his work.
It's people like him that Liebling writes about, and his prose is second to none - elegant, eloquent, precise, warm, and witty. Liebling (1904-1963) wrote for The New Yorker, and is always a joy to read, and deserves to be read by a wider, contemporary audience.

[Seán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fans of Joseph Mitchell should cop.