[Menu] Tall Drinks and Short Snorts. Rough Rider Room. Hotel Roosevelt, New York

New York: Roosevelt Hotel, or Hilton Hotels, 1953. NA. Near Fine. A cocktail menu that evokes the derring-do heroism of the 26th U.S. President with the die-cut shape of a Western saddle, just the type that Theodore Roosevelt rode from San Juan Hill to the Governorship of New York State, the Vice Presidency of the U.S. and the White House, all in the space of three years. The menu was for the restaurant in the Roosevelt Hotel that opened in 1924 on Madison Avenue and 45th Street, named in TR's honor (not FDR, who was a public figure by then, but had yet to be elected Governor, let alone President). The restaurant, the Rough Rider Room, had a wraparound mural that depicted Roosevelt's Rough Riders charging and fighting in the Spanish-American War, and this menu built on the theme. The shape also seems somehow fitting for a cocktail menu inasmuch it hints at fun to be had, and maybe also, drinking like a real man. The dimensions of this shaped, die cut folded glossy card are irregular, of course, but the maximum dimensions when closed are 27 by 20 cm, and when opened, the width extends to 40 cm. We have located other menus from the Rough Rider Room, but not cocktail menus, nor shaped menus like this one. The Hotel Roosevelt, having become rundown, closed its doors in 2020, in part a casualty of the economic dislocations caused by Covid. More recently was used by the city to shelter migrants. We could precisely date the menu because the date in printed, albeit in very small print. The cocktails seem more or less the standard ones of the day -- they aren't given names inspired by the Rough Riders, in other words. With just a half dozen exceptions, though, all the drinks are under $1, even for most of the premium Scotches. Light wear to the cover, with the glossy glassine surface blistering in a small area, a flattened crease on the back, a touch of soiling, none the least bit disconcerting. (Inventory #: 20519)