Chumley's Menu, an Original

Above is my Navy buddy and cube mate Ray Shultz  opening the door of Chumley's about 1964.  Ray could not do that today, the joint is closed.

Chumley's was speakeasy back in the Roaring 20s and you had to know someone to get in.  It stayed in intact until many years later when a wall caved in.

We were stationed in Lakehurst, New Jersey, and Greenwich Village in the lower part of Manhattan was just a hop, skip and jump away.   We went there a bunch of times over about a two year period.

They want to reopen this year but there are hurdles to jump over and hoops to jump through and probably some building inspectors to "be nice to" before it can be opened again.

See the linked article below:

Chumley's History & Rebirth

I returned  in the early 1970s and brought my wife Anna with me. 

This past week while going through some old forgotten stuff we came across a Chumley's menu that we must have accidentally swiped when we were there then.  Truthfully, we forgot we had it.

The menu texture seem to be the same type of paper used in sketching.   The dimensions of it is 6" x 9.5".  It is folded over and over.  If you unfold every fold you would have about a 24" x 9.5" sheet of paper in front of you.  One side appears to doodles and the other side the printed menu.  

Apparently,  management once placed these sheets of paper as place-mats on tables hoping some of the creative people that patronized the joint would  doodle, which they did.  Then they took them up at the end of the day and carried it to a printer to print the menu on the other side.  Walla!

Chumley's was known to be a magnet for writers and artists.   Here is page by page of the menu.  Some of these original doodles might have been done by someone famous.

Maybe I should take this to the Antique Road Show.  

click on each image to see it better.