Beginning in the 1880s, rooftop restaurants and cabarets emerged as New York’s version of the summer entertainment gardens found in the inexpensive outskirts of European cities. In the absence of such accessible perimeter land, New York City’s ever-taller buildings, with their strengthened foundations, steel framework, and passenger lifts, were developed to provide elevated recreational spots.

New York’s initial roof gardens were located atop theaters, which, before the advent of air conditioning, closed down during the city’s hot summers. Probably the earliest was opened in 1882 on the roof of the Casino Theatre, at Broadway and 39th Street, by the theater’s resourceful manager.

It featured light refreshments, lively musical entertainment, and a few tables and chairs for lounging. Its commercial success quickly spawned imitators along Broadway and elsewhere in the city, notably hotel and apartment-building rooftops that could be converted into garden-like settings offering refreshments and entertainment. The popularity of public dancing led to the conversion of many such sites into cabarets. These alfresco theaters flourished from the early 1880s to the 1920s, when Prohibition, interior cooling systems, and the onset of the Depression combined to render them obsolete.

The European Charles Constantin Joseph Hoffbauer had not visited the United States before a 1903 trip to Rome, where he happened to see photographs depicting New York City at night. These images provided inspiration for his signature canvas Sur les toits. In preparation for the work, which received critical acclaim when exhibited at the 1905 Paris Salon, he created a series of studies, including this one. The scene, though sketchy, reflects the artist’s fascination with the legendary magical quality of nighttime New York as experienced by the urbane people relaxing in a luxurious setting. Hoffbauer’s meticulous working methods entailed the construction of tiny wax models of the diners, tables, and chairs, from which the studies were composed.3 The painting is now in the National Museum in Sydney, Australia.

Hoffbauer was born in Paris, where he studied with Gustave Moreau at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He traveled and painted extensively in Egypt, Greece, Italy, Holland, and England during the early 1900s, and in 1906 came to the United States to execute several commissions. In 1941 Hoffbauer became an American citizen, settling first in California and then in Massachusetts, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Below Picture;
Roof Garden (Study No. 2 for “Sur les toits”)
1904
Charles Constantin Joseph Hoffbauer (1875 -1957)
Oil on canvas, 19 7/8 X 30
Signed lower right: Hoffbauer

The Robert R. Preato Collection