Astor House: We Assist The Boys

We are returning to the north-east corner of the Astor House block, where Broadway meets Astor Road, for a brief visit to the Swan Cafe.

We've seen this photo before, here slightly enhanced to bring out the very little that we see of the Swan Cafe. It was founded sometime in the 1920s and was listed in this location at 86 Broadway all the way to 1947. There are - as far as I can tell - no other photos online that show the cafe.

But a recent search unearthed an unexpected connection - the Swan Cafe specifically advertised to seaman union members in US publications out of San Francisco. We have an ad from "The Voice Of The Federation" a newspaper for the Maritime Federation, a union for longshoremen and seamen.

"We Assist the Boys In Purchases of Goods In Shanghai." - It makes sense that the Swan Cafe is directly advertising to seamen coming out of West Coast cities, as Broadway runs due east from here only one block from the shoreline of the Huang Pu with its many docks.

Thousands of sailors were on shore leave in Shanghai every single day, with lose change jingling in their pockets. Crucially, they would be passing the Swan Cafe at the corner of the massive Astor House before they would ever make it across Garden Bridge into downtown. Catch them before they spend their money somewhere else!

I'm sure the manager, Gus Berg, had good relationships with the curio stores just one block away along Broadway and would hook sailors up with those stores if they were desperate to find a fitting souvenir for their girl back home.