In the hustle-bustle of Times Square, amidst all the
theatres and street performers, sits Sardi’s restaurant.
Vincent Sardi Senior and his wife Eugenia
opened the restaurant in 1927 with some funding from the Schubert brothers who
were theatre magnates at the time, and who were keen to have a well-respected
dining venue as part of their theatre on West 44th Street. Before long, Broadway performers flocked to
the venue for pre and post-theatre show celebrations.
In fact, Sardi’s was the birthplace of the
famous Tony Awards, named after actress and director Antoinette Perry. After Perry’s death in the late 1940s, her
partner was eating lunch at Sardi’s when he came up with the idea of an award
to be given in her honour and so for many years afterwards, Sardi’s hosted the
announcement of Tony Award nominations.
And whether you stop there for a drink after work, or enjoy a pre- or post-theatre meal, Sardi’s is perhaps most famous for the 1,300 caricatures of
show-business celebrities that line its walls.
A few years after the restaurant opened, Vincent Sardi Senior engaged a
Russian refugee named Alex Gard to draw caricatures of the most celebrated
Broadway performers of the day to decorate the walls and attract
customers. The deal was that Gard would
receive one restaurant meal for every drawing he completed, and Gard got to
work. When Vicent Sardi’s son took over
the restaurant in 1947, he tried to change the terms of Gard’s contract. But Gard refused, and he continued to draw
the caricatures in exchange for meals until his death a year later. Artists came and went over the years, but the
restaurant’s current caricaturist is Richard Baratz, a banknote and certificate
engraver who lives in Pennsylvania.
But
did you know that in order to deter thieves and unscrupulous souvenir hunters,
when the caricatures are done, the originals go in a valut and two copies are
made? One copy goes to the subject of
the drawing, and the other is hung on the wall of Sardi’s. I wonder where Kermit hung his?
