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Holiday Gift Card Offer - Through December 31st



When you purchase a gift card of $100 or more in any of The Palm Restaurants, you will receive 10% of the total value on another gift card. The Palm gift card is a gift for all seasons.

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Caricatures and Cartoons
 
Home : About Us : Caricatures and Cartoons
 

The original Palm Restaurant at 837 Second Avenue is a virtual museum of cartoons and caricatures. Many of the familiar faces drawn on its walls date back to the 1920s when the restaurant was opened by Italian immigrants Pio Bozzi and John Ganzi.

Back in the early days of The Palm, most of the caricatures were drawn using magic marker, charcoal, or pastels. Unfortunately, many of the original colors have faded over time. In 1995 the caricatures were professionally restored to preserve these legendary drawings. Presently, each of the walls in the New York flagship are insured for a half million dollars. The Palm has an affiliation with the American Cartoon Association which holds its annual dinners at The Palm.
In the Beginning: Cartoons for a Meal
 
When Pio Bozzi and John Ganzi first started The Palm, they had no money to decorate. Luckily, their restaurant was located very close to the headquarters of King Features Syndicate, and attracted a large clientele of cartoonists. Often, to pay for a plate of spaghetti, the cartoonists would draw their own creations on the walls of The Palm.

These cartoons can still be seen on the walls of the original Palm, most of which were created by the original artists:

Beetle Bailey - Mort Walker
Popeye - Matt Weil
Little Iodine - Al Scaduto
Noah Numskull - Mac Miller
Batman - Carmine Infantino
Family Circus - Bill Keane
Hi & Lois - Chance Browne
Hagar the Horrible - Chris Brown
Terry and the Pirates - Milton Caniff
Artist Russell Patterson also painted the many portraits of voluptuous women that can be seen throughout the restaurant.
Honoring Thy Customer
 
The caricature tradition was started by King Features artist Jolly Bill Steinke. Legend has it that Jolly Bill spent so much of his free time at The Palm, he often was asked by other regulars to draw their caricatures. Since then, Palm customers from all over the globe have contributed their likenesses to The Palm’s restaurants. Some regulars with heavy travel schedules, like George Bush and Larry King, have their caricatures at more than one Palm.

The oldest Palm caricatures can be seen in the New York flagship restaurant on Second Avenue. On a tour through both floors, you will see the likes of:
 American Legends...
J. Edgar Hoover
Telly Savalas
Jackie Gleason
Apollo 13 Astronaut James Lovell
Frances Ford Coppola
Orchestra Director Arturo Toscanini
1940s Photographer Vic Keppler
Conductor Mitch Miller
Comics Artist Jimmy Hatlo
Artist LeRoy Neiman
Hugh Hefner
Game Show Host Bill Cullen
Political Notables...
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
George Bush

 Sports Heroes...
Tennis stars Pancho Segura and Bobby Riggs
Football legends Phil Simms and Fran Tarkenton
Baseball greats Tom Seaver and Ed Kranepool
Coach Yogi Berra
Hank Greenwald
Boxer Rocky Graziano
Racing legend Jackie Stewart
Mac Miller was the resident caricaturist at The Palm for more than 20 years, drawing all of the restaurant’s likenesses until he died in 1977. Nowadays, artist Bronwyn Bird draws the caricatures.


The Evolution of Palm Caricatures: A Unique Marketing Strategy

The Palm caricatures serve as an effective local marketing tool as well as a signature element of the famous restaurant. Before each restaurant opens, 200-300 local notables are drawn on its walls and new caricatures are added regularly. Each Palm's walls become a "living mural" of thousands of regular and celebrity customers. A Palm regular who is asked permission to draw their caricature submits an 8x10 color photo and a few different facial shots to their local management. After a caricature is complete, the patron is asked to come in and sign his or her caricature. The number of caricatures added each year depends on the clientele. In the New York Palm, where space is limited, approximately five caricatures per year are added to the walls.

Many of the memorable moments at The Palm were made when celebrities visited to sign their caricature. Fred Astaire went so far as to tap dance on the bar at the Los Angeles Palm in celebration of his caricature unveiling.

Mac Miller and the Magazine Cartoonists
By R.C. Harvey

One Wednesday during lunch hour, McGowan Miller, an habitué of a New York cartoonists hangout called the Palm, went over to another cartoonists handout, the Pen and Pencil, on a mission. Every Wednesday was “look day” in New York: on that day, magazine editors received cartoonists in their offices in person, one at a time, for the purpose of looking at the cartoons the cartoonists were offering for purchase that week. Every Wednesday, the magazine cartoonists gathered for lunch at the Pen and Pencil and commiserated among themselves. Miller strolled over on this Wednesday to ask all the magazine cartoonists if they would meet the next Wednesday at the Palm over on Second Avenue, a block or so away.

The Palm’s walls had been decorated over the years by syndicated newspaper cartoonists (Milton Caniff, George McManus, Jimmy Hatlo, Billy DeBeck, Fred Lasswell, and so on); they drew their characters on the walls, and the restaurant made quite a production out of its merry murals.

The Palm had just opened a new upstairs room, and the walls were bare. Mac Miller invited the magazine cartoonists to decorate the walls. Just put up pencil sketches, he said; he, Miller, would paint them afterwards. And the Palm would stand them all to drinks that day and their lunches.

So the next week, they all went to the Palm. They drank and ate. They drank and ate well. And they put pencil sketches on the walls.

The following week, they were all back in the Pen and Pencil. Then Mac Miller came in. Very shame-faced. “I’m embarrassed,” he said. And he explained that the Palm had a new busboy, a kid who didn’t speak English well. And when he came into the upstairs room that the cartoonists had lunched in, he saw the mess on the walls. And he cleaned it all off.

So they all went back over the following Wednesday for another free lunch and drinks. Seemed like the right thing to do.

For more about cartooning and cartoonists–news, history and lore–stay ’tooned at www.RCHarvey.com.
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