Episode 5 – Dining like Nero: Murray’s Roman Gardens

In this episode I discussed Murray’s Roman Gardens and its neo-antique interiors. It is wonderfully mad! To appreciate much of what I discussed, I would recommend that you take a look at the promotional materials for the restaurant.

Charles R. Bevington, New York Plaisance: Number One – MDCCCVII. An Illustrated Series of New York Places of Amusement (New York: H. Erkins, 1908).

You can download high resolution images or a whole pdf but here is a gallery of images you can get a sense of what it was like to dine in Murray’s Roman Gardens.

Additional bibliography includes:

Margaret Malamud, “The Imperial Metropolis: Ancient Rome in Turn-of-the-Century New York,” Arion 7, no. 3 (Winter 2000): 64–108.

Margaret Malamud, Ancient Rome and Modern America (Malden, MA; Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).

Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, “Dining like Nero: Antiquity and Immersive Dining Experiences in early Twentieth-Century New York” Classical Outlook. Forthcoming.