And We Provided Frances Crammer Greenman with a Model

The telephone rang in the Newspaper Room. It was
Francis Crammer Greenman. A friend had just called
from the Library to tell her
that a type she had been looking for for a picture
was sitting in the Newspaper Room.
It was an old man with a beard.

Would the assistant hold him until she got there �
she was six blocks away?
The man had left.
But they thought he had gone to the Magazine Room.
The call was transferred: the man was found
by Reference in our room.
He stayed. She came.
They left together.



From the Daily Happenings log of the New York Public Library Reference Room, June 1952. Submitted by John FitzGerald.

Window in the House of Mirrors, Market Street, 1889

At the top
is a clear-eyed maiden
whose lips smile joy.
Below,
and to the left, framed
in long hair
is a horribly sensuous face,
one
eye closed in a leer
above
thick slobbering lips.

Next, is the stupid fat face
of a glutton. Then comes
the hard cold face
of a woman not much
older than the young girl above,
the fifth
face. In the narrow
ell of the house,
behind her is that embittered
old man with cruel eyes,
his hairy moustache
cushioning bulbous jaws.



A description from a file in Denver Public Library of stone carvings on an old Colorado brothel. Via Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West by Anne Seagraves (1994, Wesanne Publications). 'Cushioned' changed to 'cushioning'. Submitted by Angela Readman.