hoteldegink

Mulligan

From a source quoted on Wikipedia, here is a contemporary description of Mulligan Stew: "Another traveler present described the operation of making a 'mulligan.' Five or six hobos join in this. One builds a fire and rustles a can. Another has to procure meat; another potatoes; one fellow pledges himself to obtain bread, and still another has to furnish onions, salt and pepper. If a chicken can be stolen, so much the better. The whole outfit is placed in the can and boiled until it is done. If one of the men is successful in procuring 'Java,' an oyster can is used for a coffee tank, and this is also put on the fire to boil. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that California hobos always put a 'snipe' in their coffee, to give it that delicate amber color and to add to the aroma. 'Snipe' is hobo for the butt end of a cigar that smokers throw down in the streets. All hobos have large quantities of snipes in their pockets, for both chewing and smoking purposes. A 'beggar stew' is a 'mulligan,' without any meat."

Thanks bior for the tantalizing description of this delicacy. And thank you cwalter54 for noting the spelling error. We will correct the spelling in the record the next time we update.

Oh, one more thing. Does anyone know the origin of "Hotel de Gink"? One of the hobos has a handmade sign on his cap that says "....Gink" Is it a hobo term as well?

i think gink is another term for hobo-- from historylink.org: "Unemployed and homeless men, known variously as hoboes and "ginks," responded to their condition by organizing work gangs, small businesses, and self-managed hostels in major cities." www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&...

Self-governed homeless institutions, associated with Jeff Davis (pictured elsewhere in Bain Collection), "King of the Hoboes" From a Seattle account (though these pictures are presumably from the New York branch): "One of the most innovative responses to the homelessness of this era was an institution known as the Hotel de Gink, a self-managed lodging house which in its heyday (1913-1915) sheltered and helped provide employment for as many as 1,500 homeless men at a time. Located first in the old Providence Hospital at 4th Avenue and Madison Street (the present-day site of Seattle’s federal courthouse), and later in a large building near the corner of Rainier and Dearborn Avenues, the Hotel de Gink was a bustling endeavor, lively and as novel as its name implies. “Gink” was hobo slang meaning “guy” or “fellow.” The hobo history Knights of the Road recognizes the term as an appellation for fellow hoboes and defines it as a “poor unfortunate." The hotels were the brainchild of Jeff Davis, one of many to be proclaimed “King of the Hoboes." who organized the International Itinerant Workers (IIW), a short-lived labor union more popularly known as the “Hoboes of America." The IIW was a self-consciously patriotic response to the more politically radical Wobblies, or IWW – Industrial Workers of the World." www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&...

Times account of grand opening of New York Hotel de Gink at Worth and Centre Streets, on 1/21/15, with this headline: "HOTEL DE GINK OPENS IN A BLAZE OF GLORY; City Officials and Others, in Evening Dress, See 'King Jeff' Davis Ascend His Throne. GALA NIGHT FOR HOBOES Itinerant Workers Hear Speakers Praise Them, and Actors Once Tramps Give Vaudeville Show." query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20C11FD3E5C13738...

wonderful photo!

İmpressive photo sir

Thanks so much artolog for providing these great links. Please ignore my question on the previous record about the Hotel de Gink, as I now have a much better understanding. We'll add some of the additional information to the record(s) the next time we update.

"King of the Hoboes" See notes under:

So the car is a "Gramm?" The license might be from 1915. Did you notice the ghostly figures in the background?

If you download the high-resolution tiff file at the persistent URL link above, a lot of the details are viewable. It is a 1915 New York license plate, and the Gramm is a truck once made in Lima, Ohio. Here's an ad for the 1912 model: www.scientificamerican.com/media/gallery/9B656E87-DB84-3B... There are two fellows behind Davis on the right, and one on the left.

Same truck in this picture:

this was taken exactly 77 years before I was born