House and Garden 
York row and find themselves 
in a dim-lit and quaintly ap¬ 
pointed apaitment with sanded 
floor, rough-hewn oaken beams, 
and the furniture that once 
graced the down-town beef¬ 
steak parties. 1 he apartments 
are lighted at night solely by 
candles set in curious old can¬ 
dlesticks of brass, pewter and 
silver plate. Fine old pewter 
tankards, heirlooms in Mr. 
Miller’s family, cups and mugs 
of many curious patterns, odd 
pipes, and distinctive decora¬ 
tive bits of many kinds help to 
give character to the place. 
The kitchen, scarcely eight feet 
square, is paved with cobbles. 
The stove is of the old ten plate 
pattern; it dates back to 1785. 
From the main apartment 
opens a vault entered by a low arched 
door, and here are stored some of the richest 
old liquors in New York. 
When Mr. Miller gives a beefsteak party, 
as he does occasionally in the autumn and 
winter, his guests eat bread and steak with¬ 
out knives or forks and drink October ale 
drawn directly from the wood; heavy old 
wooden stools serve in lieu of tables, and the 
guests are seated on the rough-hewn settles 
and quaint wooden chairs of the host’s own 
manufacture. 
Only a careful examination of the place can 
reveal to the guests the odd variety of cup¬ 
boards, closets and corners that it contains. 
The heating apparatus is concealed in what 
looks like a succession of tiny closets just 
below the ceiling. There is a photographic 
dark room admirably appointed. There is 
a cabinet of curios collected by the proprietor 
in his youth. There are tiny leaded windows 
letting a dim light sift in from the street by 
day, and low rough oaken doors opening 
upon unexpected passages. The stairway 
is a quaint irregular affair with slender un¬ 
painted hand rail and an Alaskan deity staring 
from the newel post. Every board that goes 
to make the wainscoting of the walls was care¬ 
fully chosen and properly tinted. Altogether, 
the apartments are probably the quaintest 
and most strongly characteristic of any in 
New York. 
One of the most famous of New York grill¬ 
rooms is that of the Hotel Astor at Broad¬ 
way and Forty-fourth Street. This apart¬ 
ment occupies a large part of the basement 
of the hotel. It is long and low with groined 
ceding and arched entrances. The decora¬ 
tive effect is obtained by the free use of 
pictures and figures having a special relation 
to the West of this continent. Gigantic 
antlered heads of moose and other wild crea¬ 
tures are disposed about the room, and there 
are large and small busts of American 
Indians displayed, usually well up toward the 
ceding. 
Ranged along the side walls are framed 
pictures of scenes in the far West. 1 hese 
are so numerous as to give character to the 
room. The apartment is one of the show 
places of the town, and is a favorite resort 
with visitors from the West. A man from 
Colorado criticised the general scheme of 
decoration as out of keeping with the charac¬ 
ter of the room, which suggests not the 
Indian tepee, but rather the Mission archi¬ 
tecture of old Catholic days on the Pacific 
Coast. 
269 
