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Murray Handwerker, 89, Dies; Made Nathan’s More Famous May 15, 2011 tiny.cc/hwce2x |
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Famous Nathan of Nathan's Famous submitted by Megan Neilsen |
Hi there Fearless Leader, Just wanted to let you know that we did buy a package of Nathan's Hotdogs. First ones we have had to eat. They are good!!!!!!!!! Will put them on our grocery list again. Thanks for helping us plan our menu. Grace Hertz |
Quiz #488 Results |
Answers to Quiz #488- August 16, 2015 |
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TinEye Alert You can find this photo on TinEye.com, but the quiz will be a lot more fun if you solve the puzzle on your own. |
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Congratulations to Our Winners! Nathan Spickard Elaine C Hebert Ellen Welker Gus Marsh Debbie Johnson Roger Lipsett Judy Pfaff Cindy Costigan Tom Collins John Thatcher Bob Riopel Jim Kiser Kitty Huddleston Maggie Gould Margaret Paxton Betty Chambers Art Siegel Beth Long Collier Smith Rebecca Bare Tynan Peterson Carol Gene Farrant Peter Norton Gus Marsh Megan Neilsen Milene Rawlinson Grace Hertz and Mary Turner The Fabulous Fletchers! |
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If you have a picture you'd like us to feature a picture in a future quiz, please email it to us at CFitzp@aol.com. If we use it, you will receive a free analysis of your picture. You will also receive a free Forensic Genealogy CD or a 10% discount towards the purchase of the Forensic Genealogy book. |
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How Peter Solved the Puzzle |
I didn't recognize the place, never having been there nor, as far as I remember, having seen a photo, but it seemed to scream Coney Island. The question including "destroyed" immediately suggested WTC, especially since my brain was already in the NY area in association with Coney Island. Looking up "famous frankfurters since 1916" made the rest dead easy, including the map on Nathan's web site with all restaurant locations. Peter Norton |
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Nathan's Famous Hotdogs en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan's_Famous |
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Nathan's Famous History www.nathansfamous.com/story/extended_history = |
Nathan’s Famous was founded by a Polish immigrant, Nathan Handwerker, and his is truly an authentic “only in America story.” He started his business in 1916 with a small hot dog stand in Coney Island, New York. He sold hot dogs that were manufactured based on a recipe developed by his wife, Ida. In the over 96 years that have passed since opening day, Nathan’s has gained worldwide recognition for the unequaled quality and taste of its product. Today, Nathan’s has gained a reputation for being among the highest quality hot dogs in the world. Nathan’s popularity was almost instantaneous, and in its earliest days had legendary characters such as Al Capone, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, and Cary Grant as regular customers. It gained its first international exposure when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt served Nathan’s Famous hot dogs to the King and Queen of England in 1939. Later, Roosevelt had Nathan’s hot dogs sent to Yalta when he met with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Years later, Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, stated that, “No man can hope to be elected in his state without being photographed eating a hot dog at Nathan’s Famous." Politicians, show-business personalities, and sports celebrities are often seen and photographed munching Nathan’s dogs, and heard singing its praises. Barbra Streisand, actually had Nathan’s hot dogs delivered to London, England for a private party. A trip to Nathan’s was the focus of a Seinfeld episode created by comedian Jerry Seinfeld. More recently, the ex-mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani declared Nathan’s the “World’s best hot dog.” Shortly after that, Nathan Handwerker was named to the city’s top 100- joining the ranks of Joe Namath, Irving Berlin, Andrew Carnegie, Joe DiMaggio and others. Even Jacqueline Kennedy loved Nathan’s dogs, and served them at the White House. In his final last will and testament, actor Walter Mathau requested Nathan’s hot dogs to be served at his funeral – they were! The point is Nathan’s is not just a hot dog, it has history and it is Americana! Last year there were over 435 million Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs sold! Today, Nathan’s is sold and enjoyed in all 50 States and sold at over 40,000 food service and retail outlets. |
Nathan's c. 1940 |
Nathan's c. 1950 |
Nathan's c. 1920 |
Nathan's c. 1960 |
Nathan's c. 1980 |
Nathan's menu today |
But what of Nathan himself? Can we confirm the story? The census stuff for him, Ida, and children is straightforward. What about his arrival? It seems it was 7 April 1912 on the Campanello from Rotterdam. That is what his naturalization says, first page |
Murray Handwerker, who transformed his father’s Brooklyn hot dog business, Nathan’s Famous, into a celebrated national fast-food chain, died Saturday at his home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He was 89. His son William confirmed his death. Nathan’s Famous, at Surf and Stillwell Avenues in Coney Island, was opened by Mr. |
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attached (via Ancestry). And this gives us Ida, and Murray who expanded the business. But if I go to the passenger manifests for the Campanello arr 7/8 April 1912 I cannot find him. He doesn't come up on the excellent search facility on Steve Morse's One-step, which is the go-to, but nor do I find him by trawling through all the 100+ |
possible corruption of Nathan Handwerker. Perhaps he reinvented himself. But I know, from previous encounters with the Ellis Island records, that when someone gets naturalized, the date gets stamped on the manifest record as part of the authentication process. I don't have the time or patience to go through again to look for that date pinned to another name ... :-). And what does it really matter? What I did find in the New York |
passenger lists was Nathan and Ida Handwerker, US citizens returning from Bermuda in 1936. Presumably a well-deserved holiday. Thanks, as always, for a fun quiz, Megan Neilsen |
Handwerker’s father and mother in 1916 and soon became an American legend, its name virtually synonymous with hot dogs. Mr. Handwerker spent his childhood at Nathan’s Famous. “I was raised behind the counter of the Coney store,” he told The New York Times in 1986. “My playpen was a 3-by-3 crate the hot dog rolls used to come in.” His father, Nathan, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, and his mother, Ida, had opened the stand with $300 borrowed from the entertainers Jimmy Durante and Eddie Cantor, friends of his father’s who had yet to become stars. Nathan’s sold all-beef hot dogs at a nickel, half of what its Coney Island competitor was charging. “We were the original fast-food operation,” Mr. Handwerker recalled in an oral history, “It Happened in Brooklyn,” by Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer, rereleased in 2009 by SUNY Press. “We called it finger food; you didn’t need a knife and fork. But it was always quality. My father insisted on that.” It was Murray Handwerker who turned the family business from a famous hot dog stand to a famous national chain, which went public in 1968. After returning from World War II Army service, Mr. Handwerker joined Nathan’s Famous in 1946 and, his son William said, “had many ideas of expanding.” In “It Happened in Brooklyn,” Mr. Handwerker recalled returning home with other soldiers in the 1940s and wanting to add other foods to the Nathan’s Famous menu. “I realized the American soldier had been exposed to French food, his tastes had become more sophisticated,” he said. Despite his father’s objections, Mr. Handwerker successfully introduced shrimp and clams to Nathan’s menu. He later added a delicatessen line. There were other disagreements with his father, including one over whether to let restaurant managers have days off during the summer. At the time, Murray Handwerker said, the managers were working seven days a week, and he insisted they be given a day off. The first week, they all got terrible sunburns and could not come into work the next day. “My father gave me hell,” he recalled in “It Happened in Brooklyn.” Mr. Handwerker was born in Brooklyn on July 25, 1921, and graduated from New York University in 1947 with a degree in French. “I loved languages,” he told The Times in 1986, “but the only time I used French was during the old World’s Fair when a lot of French people came to Coney Island for hot dogs.” By the mid-1960s Nathan’s had three restaurants, and Mr. Handwerker, who became president of the company in 1968, oversaw its expansion over the next decade by adding dozens of company-owned restaurants and franchised units. He also published a cookbook featuring Nathan’s Famous recipes. He became chairman in 1971. By the early 1980s, Nathan’s was struggling. Its stock, which had reached $42 in 1971, had fallen to $1 by 1981. Mr. Handwerker was forced to close some of the restaurants and abandon the idea of a franchise that would offer a more limited menu. “Nathan’s forte is supposed to be variety,” he said at the time. The company also ran into trouble with some of its franchisees. The business survived, however, as Mr. Handwerker continued to emphasize its main menu item. “The hot dog,” his son said, “was the mainstay.” Mr. Handwerker ran the business until the family sold its stake to the Equicor Group, a private investment company, in 1987. He then retired to Florida. Mr. Handwerker’s wife, Dorothy, died in 2009. He is survived by his sons, Steven, Kenneth and William; his brother, Sol; and several grandchildren. At the company’s 70th-anniversary celebration near the Times Square Nathan’s in 1986, Mr. Handwerker was being given a hard time by Mayor Edward I. Koch, who complained about the demise of the five- cent hot dog. Grabbing the microphone, Mr. Handwerker explained to the crowd that the five-cent frankfurter went out with the five-cent subway ride. Correction: May 20, 2011 An obituary on Monday about Murray Handwerker, the former chairman of the Nathan’s Famous hot dog chain, misidentified the company whose hot dogs President Franklin Delano Roosevelt served to the king and queen of England when they visited the United States in 1939. They came from Swift & Company, not from Nathan’s. |