Even More

From the Indianapolis Star, Apr 14, 1924:

The bill at B. F. Keith's this week
will be headed by Ernie Golden and his
orchestra of ten. Under the directorship
of Mr. Golden, the orchestra will
offer a program of symphonic dance
arrangements novelties and comedy. 

Ernie Golden's band had a radio program over WJZ, New York, at 9:30 pm in the summer of 1924. In 1925 he was on WMCA.

From the  Huntingdon (PA) Daily News, Aug 20, 1924

Democratic Delegates Shook
Slow But Mighty Wicked Feet

Ernie Golden, Musical Director,
Finds Visitors Full of Sentiment
No delegates to the Democratic
Convention were heard to admit
that New York was 'too speedy'
for them, but according to Ernie
Golden, director of the orchestra
at the famous McAlpin 'Hotel,
they had at least to have their
dances slowed up!
"It was the strangest thing,"
Mr. Golden relates, "but I received
hundreds of requests to
slow down the tempo of the
music." I was playing at the fate
New Yorkers demand, which is a
pretty good clip, and the floors
were covered during most of two
weeks with convention visitors.
"They applauded more heartilvy
than New Yorkers, but I noticed
that some of them dropped out
before the dances were over, almost
as if they were winded. To
this minute I don't know whether
that was it, or whether it was
just that they thought more sentiment
could be expressed by slow
music.
"When I asked them what was
the matter, they said they were
used to pieces like 'Maytime'
which really gives the dancer
time to be graceful. When I
played 'Maytime' they were perfectly
happy and, believe me, put
on some wonderful exhibitions oi
dilatory dancing, which had any
New York flapper I ever saw,
beaten a mile."

From the Bridgeport (CT) Telegraph, Jul 20, 1925.

JAZZ UP CHURCH, 

If hymns were played in dance time

and the organ was replaced by the

saxophone and the trombone there

would be no more need for worry

about how to fill empty church pews.

Ernie Golden, director of a hotel

orchestra, asserted from the pulpit

of the West Side Religious Forum

today. His talk on "Better Music

In Religion" was part of the regular

Sunday morningservice.

Golden sfad that jazz will be extinct

in New York within a year

and to illustrate the type of music

that will supersede it his orchestra

played several hymnsto dance

time, the saxophone and trombone

dominating.

From the Kokomo (IN) Tribune, Aug 4, 1925.

JAZZED HYMNS HALTED.

Last week New York newspapers

announced that on Sunday night

hymns in dance time would be put

on the ether from the broadcast-

ing station at the Hotel McAlpin,

of that city. A great deal of curiosity

 was aroused among radio fans

over the country as to how the

syncopated sacred numbers would

sound. It was a curiosity, however,

awakened only to be disappointed.

There was broadcasting

from the Hotel McAlpln station

Sunday evening, all night, but it

did not include any religious compositions

set to fox-trot time.

When the hour for the concert

arrived. Ernie Golden, who was to

have directed the playing of the

jazzed hymns, announced from the

station that it had been decided

because of the feeling of so many

people agalnst it, not to give that

part of the program. He said the

idea of incorporating such a feature

in the Sunday evening pro-

gram had first been suggested to

him by a prominent New York

minister.

It was becoming in the broadcasting

station to omit the feature

when made aware that it would offend

many people and jar the sense

of propriety of many others. It

was prompt and fitting deference

to a considerable wave of public

opinion. The American people are

liberal in thought, but they have

not reached the point where they

are ready to have the things they

have been taught to regard as sacred

subjected to light and frivolous.

if not ribald, treatment. And

particularly would the majority of

them view the use of Sunday evening

for such an end as a deliberate

and insolent flaunting of the

irreverent and sacriligious, whether

intended as such by the promoters

or not.

As for the explanation that the

feature was proposed by a proml-

nent New York ministerwell, the

country has become accustomed to

bizarre and blundering suggestions

from a good many members of the

clergy down there.

**********

More tomorrow.

The McAlpin Hotel.

From Wikipedia

The Hotel McAlpin was constructed in 1912 on Herald Square, at the corner of Broadway and 34th street in Manhattan, New York City by General Edwin A. McAlpin, son of David Hunter McAlpin. When opened it was the largest hotel in the world. The hotel was designed by the noted architect Frank Mills Andrews (18671948). Andrews also was president of the Greeley Square Hotel Company which first operated the hotel.^[1]

Construction of the Hotel McAlpin neared completion by the end of 1912 so that the hotel had an open house on 29 December. The largest hotel in the world at the time, The New York Times commented that it was so tall at 25 stories that it seems isolated from other buildings^[2] Boasting a staff of 1,500, the hotel could accommodate 2,500 guests. It was built at a cost of $13.5 million (nearly 300 million in 2010 dollars ^[3]). The top floor had a Turkish bath and there were two gender-specific floors; women checking into the hotel could reserve a room on the women's only floor and bypass the lobby and check in directly at their own floor. One floor, dubbed the sleepy 16th was designed for night workers so that it was kept quiet during the day. It also hosted a travel agency.^[4]

The McAlpin hosted what may be the first broadcast from a New York hotel in 1920, by singer Luisa Tetrazzini from her room in the hotel. The Army Signal Corps arranged the broadcast, and later, in 1922, the McAlpin became one of the first hotels to link ship-to-shore radios into their phone system.^[5] The hotel would later be the first home of, and give the call letters to, radio stationWMCA in 1925.

In the late 1970s the building was converted to 700 rental apartments. In 2001 the building was converted to condominiums and operates under the name Herald Towers.

Albert