666 Cough Syrup

666 Cough
I was curious about the sign showing 666 Cough Syrup in this Batavia/New Chambers Street photo
shorpy had a picture with 666, here are some comments

Roberts Remedies No. 666
I stumbled upon your website while researching a bottle that I found recently. It is an old bottle with a cork stopper and the label (mostly intact) for Roberts Remedies No. 666 from the Monticello Drug Co. It sold for 50 cents. I found the "General Directions" interesting:
One teaspoonful in water every three hours until it acts well, then three times a day. As cure for Malaria, One Tablespoonful in water every three hours for three days, then three times a day for eight weeks. CHILDREN IN PROPORTION TO AGE.
You may scoff at the name, but 666 cough syrup is still hugely popular in the black community. A lot of white people have no idea what it is. The first time someone asked for it at the drug store I work for, I had no clue
Uh, it was actually, uh, probably around the early 1900s, and, uh, one of the founders of the company, apparently they used to write a number of prescriptions at that time, for quinine in Florida for malaria and things, and it was a prescription number, that's all.

Times Square 1943

The recent new year's post mentioned the Globe Theater which is pictured here. See shorpy for more info on this photo

Mott Street: 1905

from shorpy along with the comments below

All of the buildings in this picture from the Port Arthur Restaurant north to the church are still standing. The church is the Roman Catholic Church of the Transfiguration, which was built as a Lutheran church in 1801, and bought by the Catholics in 1853. The Wing On Wo & Co. imports shop, seen about midway up the block with the heavily leaning sign, is still in operation, although it is now across the street opposite the church.
As for the name of the Port Arthur restaurant, it certainly would have been quite topical at the time. The Russo-Japanese war was ended at the Portsmouth Peace Conference of 1905. Teddy Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering the peace. The 1904 battle and siege of Port Arthur were the most famous military actions of that war. The Port Arthur is no more, but the building still stands.

South Street: 1905

from shorpy
comments that accompanied the picture:

The Chester W. Chapin was a passenger and freight steamer that ran aground up in Providence in 1901. This steamer was named for Chester W. Chapin (December 16, 1798 – June 10, 1883), U.S. Representative from Massachusetts (March 4, 1875-March 3, 1877). The ship was of the twin-screw type, 312 feet in length, 64 feet wide, with a tonnage of 1,882. It was built by the Maryland Steel Company of Sparrow's Point, Maryland, for the New Haven Steamboat Company in 1899. The piles of ballast stones near the bottom of the photo, as well as the railcar float to the left of Pier 20.

South Street: 1943

from shorpy

Chatham Square: 1905

From the great shorpy blog
Some of the informed comments that accompany the picture

1905 was the first year for racing at Belmont Park.
Chatham Square in the Bowery was the heart NYC's popular theater and public amusements in the late 1800s. It got rougher and raunchier, and for most of 20th century was home to derelicts, drunkards, served by many bars and flophouses and famous missions, to feed and save the men that haunted its shadows.
Proctor's 58th Street was a vaudeville house, one of several Proctor Theaters, later part of the Keith's Circuit, then RKO.
I get a kick out of the lion heads gracing the smokestack.
Notice that the horses are running clockwise in the illustration, the way they still run in Europe. Belmont ran clockwise until 1921, when they changed course to counterclockwise, which is the direction all horse racing in the United States is run. The Belmont Stakes was already 38 years old when the new Belmont Park opened to great fanfare in 1905, and is the oldest of the Triple Crown races, inaugurated in 1867, 8 years before the Kentucky Derby. Over a hundred years later a day at Belmont is still a great way to while away the afternoon under the beautiful trees.
Check out Google Maps street view for Chatham Square. You will be astounded at how many of the buildings are still there. Interesting to note is that even in this picture, many of the buildings look old. I wonder how old some of these "high rises" were in 1905. I have to believe they were already 30 years old, minimum, at the time of this photograph. Also, for you non-New Yorkers, this area is at the edge of Chinatown today. No sign of it in 1905

The Jefferson Theater

Jefferson Theater
the first photo is a segment of a larger one from shorpy
from cinema treasures

RKO Jefferson Theatre
214 E. 14th Street
Status: Closed/Demolished
Screens: Single Screen
Seats: 1916
Architect: George Keister, Thomas W. Lamb
The old Jefferson Theatre opened in 1913 as a B.F. Keith's vaudeville theater in what is now known as the edge of the East Village. Later the RKO Jefferson, this theater was located at 214 E. 14th Street near Third Avenue. The entrance was a narrow space between two tenement houses with the bulk of the theatre (auditorium) located in 13th Street. The Jefferson operated at least into the 1970's and was demolished in 2000. Today, the site is filled with bricks and debris from the demolition and the old Jefferson as passed on.
Also known as B.F. Keith's Jefferson Theatre
Last owner was a relative of the owner of the Wetson hamburger chain. He was almost singlehandedly trying to restore it with only one helper. A visit to the upstairs proved he was wasting his time as vandals had removed all the plumbing by that time & the inside of the theater was in shambles. He quickly found this out and gave up on this vanity project
posted by WilliamMcQuade on Mar 20, 2002 at 8:39am
The East 13th Street portion (or rear of this theatre's building) can be seen in Taxi Driver. The action with Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster and Harvey Kietel all take place around the corner from The Jefferson.
posted by Greenpoint on Feb 8, 2004 at 3:38pm
The Jefferson was another Adam design by Thomas W. Lamb, and was built by B.S. Moss and Sol Brill. It first opened on January 25, 1913 with Keith's vaudeville. During the heyday of vaudeville, the Jefferson was one of the top NYC houses. New acts that registered well with the audience were assured of getting a booking at the Palace on Broadway, which was the ultimate reward for an entertainer in those days. Through its Keith's affiliation, the Jefferson became an RKO movie theatre, but retained vaudeville on the programs until well into the 1930s.
posted by Warren G. Harris on Mar 22, 2004 at 1:32pm
George Keister was the Jefferson's architect. Thomas Lamb did only some minor alterations in the 1930s. The Jefferson was built by the Irvington Construction Company, and took nine months to complete. The original seating plan showed 1,885 seats-- 1,124 in the orchestra, 689 in the balcony, and 72 in boxes...George Keister's other NYC theatres included the Astor, Belasco, George M. Cohan's, Selwyn, Chaloner (later Town), and both versions of the Earl Carroll.
posted by Warren G. Harris on Mar 27, 2004 at 7:47am
The narration above says it was closed by the early 60's but I seem to recall when going to Luchows in the seventies triple kung fu bills playing? Maybe an independant took over when RKO gave it up?
Yes, it was operated by "indies" after RKO left. It would be very difficult to track the exact closing as a movie house because the operators never advertised in the newspapers or sought listings in magazines like New York. When I last had a chance to visit the dingy interior in 1981, the Jefferson was closed and awaiting re-development as a disco/rock palace, but that never happened.

Staten Island Ferry: 1900

from shorpy
comments from shorpy viewers

The Cincinnati has the round pilothouses (aka wheelhouses) typical of New York harbor ferries during the era, while ferries on the West Coast had square pilothouses like on the ferry Berkeley.
The great picture of the "Cincinnati" on the North River in 1900 reminds me of the Ramsdell ferries "Newburgh", "Beacon", "Orange" and "Dutchess" that plied the Hudson between Newburgh and Beacon NY up until 1963 when the I-84 bridge first breached the waters. Two of the above had two decks, and the other two, just a single deck. I can never remember which had what.
This is an interesting view of a ferry showing very little change in shape or function for well over 100 years. I've used many auto ferries over the years and never considered that they were earlier used to move horse-drawn wagons long before the advent of cars.
Citizen Kane, Illustrated
Mr. Bernstein:
One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on a ferry and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it, there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on -- and she was carrying a white parasol -- and I only saw her for one second and she didn't see me at all -- but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl.

David Caplan's Nearby World: Manhattan Terminal 1907

The comments about this picture from the shorpy post

The Brooklyn Bridge Promenade and Manhattan Terminal in 1907 amid a forest of billboards facing the trains. The domed structure is the New York World building. Detroit Publishing Company glass negative. View full size
Thank you for bringing attention to the Frank McLees sign on that distant building. Frank was my grandmother's brother, and son of Archibald McLees, a famous engraver of the 19th century. Frank grew up in Rutherford, thus the Passiac river connection. Frank took up his father's trade and was a quite good engraver himself, although I suspect his time witnessed the transition to more modern techniques. Some of his father's work can be seen in my picture gallery.
The World Building
Joseph Pulitzer had an office beneath its golden dome. Not that Joe ever used it much. Last I heard he worked ensconced in his yacht out in the harbor to avoid stressing his delicate hearing. I wonder if that story's true.
The tall building to the right of the terminal has the tenants' names painted between the floors. I found an old invoice for Fred K. Pearce Co., which seemed to be into electrical equipment and supplies. Here's an address for the invoice image, itself a real artifact from another age:
The pen is mightier than the sword. Waterman's capillary fountain pen design, patented 1884, is still on sale today. You have to look hard for a sword. While his name loomed large over New York City, Waterman himself died in 1901.
I find this photo really interesting - nobody seems to be in a hurry and there's not a cell phone or blackberry to be seen!
Man, that's more billboards than Carter has pills.
1. Based on the titles and venues seen in the theatrical signs, this shot seems to date from October or November 1907. 2. Francis Wilson, star of "When Knights Were Bold," was the first president of Actor's Equity (1913), and has an interesting connection with Eugene Field, author of "Wynken, Blynken and Nod." 3. Cerotypes were wax-engraved printing plates. Eleven years earlier, Frank McLees of the firm, while paddling a canoe on the Passaic River, accompanied by "a lady," rescued an 11-year-old boy from drowning (NYT 6/29/96).
That statue-with-trumpet on the building to the right... Amazing! It must've been
What strikes me about this magnificent photograph isn't its quaint antiquity but its modernity. It almost seems to be a futuristic vision, or glimpse of another planet. Everything in view, with the exception of the sky itself, is man-made. Gigantic words and phrases loom above everything; plumes of steam or smoke rise into the air, produced by infernal machines. H.G. Wells or Jules Verne come to mind.
The billboard for Carter's Pills brings to mind the company's later radio ads for: "Carter's Little Liver Pills - A mild diuretic for the kidneys"
I can't take it all in at once, this is the kind of picture that has to be studied. It's got to be one of the busiest city shots I've ever seen. Congratulations again to Shorpy. I hadn't thought of the Drake Schools for years, in the late 1940s I used to take college preparatory courses there.

260 Elizabeth Street: 1912

This is the lodging hose where 300 tenants were rocked by an explosion in 1908.
Hi definition image at shorpy.

March 1912. "Row of tenements, 260 to 268 Elizabeth St., New York, in which a great deal of finishing of clothes is carried on." View full size. 268 Elizabeth Street, in Little Italy, is now a "deluxe sweater bar" called Sample; 258 (Kips Bay) is a handbag boutique called Token. Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine.
Other incidents that took place here
1883- Listed as a residence in arrest report
1900 - An alleged gambling house
1901 - Raided by police
1902 - 1908 - It was a marionette theater operated by a Senor Parisi
1910 - It was a saloon owned by Francesco La Barbera that was bombed by the "Black Hand".

3rd Avenue El And The Majestic Hotel, Part 1, 1910

In the hi definition version of this photo at shorpy you can make out the Majestic Hotel on the left
Some comments on that shorpy post about the third rail on elevated lines

Third rail on the Els did not have coverboard like the IRT subway and most later systems. The third rail shoes were located above the rail and bore straight down on it unlike the subway type that pivots off the truck frame. Chicago transit still uses that system.

The original line here from 1878 was two single-track structures over the curb line, leaving most of the street open to the sky. Many old postcards and stereoviews show the structure in that state. This shows the rebuild as a three-track elevated over the middle of the street, which was done in 1914 or 1915.

There is most definitely a third rail there. It's easy to miss because the wooden guard rails block the view of the support chairs. I work around third rail to this day, so I literally HAVE to know how to look for it!

Perhaps you missed it. The 3rd Avenue El was electrified in 1903 when it was leased to the IRT.

No third rail -- so not electrically powered?

1911: Making Flowers, 302 Mott Street

from shorpy
This is between East Houston and Bleecker. The original tenement is no longer there
The comments that went with this photo.

December 1911. Family of Mrs. Mette making flowers in a very dirty tenement, 302 Mott Street, top floor. Josephine, 13, helps outside school hours until 9 P.M. sometimes. She is soon to be 14 and expects to go to work in an embroidery factory. Says she worked in that factory all last summer. Nicholas, 6 years old and Johnnie, 8 yrs. The old work some. All together earn only 40 to 50 cents a day. Baby (20 months old) plays with the flowers, and they expect he can help a little before long. The father drives a coach (or hack) irregularly. Photo and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.

The discussion on shorpy's post regarding the definition of cleanliness in 1911 and Hines' predelictions

This is Joe Manning, of the Lewis Hine Project. Hine had a habit of commenting about the cleanliness and neatness of his subject's houses or apartments. I suspect that it might have just been a value judgment based on his own preferences. Perhaps he was very fastidious, maybe picking that up from his mother when he was growing up in Wisconsin. We can't assume that he was just trying to exaggerate for effect. I did research on a woman who was photographed in her house in Leeds, Mass. She was putting bristles on toothbrushes. Hine's caption, in part, says, "putting bristles into tooth brushes in an untidy kitchen." I interviewed the woman's granddaughter, who had never seen the photo. When she saw the caption, she said, "Untidy kitchen? Gramma was spotless. You could eat off her floor."
Something we mention every now and then: The captions describing these tenement photos were written by photographer Lewis Hine almost 100 years ago. "Dirty" is his description. It helps to remember that he is trying to paint a bleak picture for his audience -- the U.S. Congress -- in his organization's effort to end the practice of child labor.
Poverty is not the same as being dirty. The linoleum on that floor may be a wreck from being where one enters the house. Perhaps they don't have the money to go out and replace it. The baby's high chair may also be putting black marks on the floor as it gets dragged around. They also might have to haul some coal upstairs for the stove.
These folks lived in a world of maybe 10 people in an apartment the size of the average kids bedroom these days. They are so poor that the entire family including kids is working to keep their heads above water financially. These weren't the days of handi-wipes and swiffers and vacuum cleaners and kids laying around all day playing on their computers and listening to their ipods.
BTW, the kids clothes all look very clean. Any mess on a baby is because it's a baby. There's no washer and dryer sitting nearby to pop the kid's jammies in every time they get a little mess on them

Shooting On Mott Street: 1910

High resolution version available at shorpy

166 Mott Street: Then And Now, Digging Deeper

When I zoomed in on the 1910 shorpy photo of 166 Mott Street, the sign below caught my eye. I the tried to see if I could get more info on Rocco Marasco.

In 1900 he's living at 284 Mott Street

In 1910, the realtor Rocco has made his way up the ladder and is living in Mamaraneck.
Looks like a classic immigrant story of upward striving, literally and figuratively. Rocco was a relatively early immigrant arriving in the states in 1875.

166 Mott Street: Then And Now

from shorpy, go there to see a hi-definition version
Some of the accompanying comments from shorpy's post.

1910. Mott Street in New York's Little Italy, now Chinatown. At the left, 166 Mott (Raffaele Venezia Cafe) is now Face to Face Skin Care. Google Street View. 8x10 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.Time travel, indeed
I recall a time travel novel that had as its basis the fiction that if one were to be so imbued with a time and place and strove to "live" as though you were in that period in a locale that existed now and then, one would wake up some fine day, open the shades and voila, 1910 would be there. How I wish that were true. For now I'll just sit here and revel in each detail of pictures such as this. Thanks again to Dave and all the other posters.
This is time travel in its purest sense, a view into a moment of time frozen forever. Italian cafe, shoemakers, street sweeper, horse carts, vegetable vendor, little children moving around in their home neighborhood. I love it.
The first home I remember was at 1244 15th Avenue in San Francisco. That was 1936. Went past there recently and the street looks exactly the same and it was anything but new when we lived there.
Bet you won't find today's buildings looking exactly the same 100 years from now. You're doing a wonderful job of teaching/reminding us of our history. Thank you.
Wow, I love pictures like this. Not posed at all, just a moment in time caught on film. There are kids playing with something, a guy reading a newspaper, looks like a guy jumping over a broom and every one wearing a hat. The dog, the groceries...perfect. Probably everyone in that picture has already passed on but this one moment in their lives has been captured.
Thanks for the opportunity to see this in a gorgeous and detailed vintage view and in an interesting modern view. I am a big fan of the "Then and Now" type books on different cities, and love to compare shots such as these. While I prefer the 1910 photo (if only filmmakers would get this kind of detail in their period-piece movies!), the Google shot has an interest all its own by virtue of one's being able to manipulate the view! Quite amazing, actually.
Mott Street, 1925 and today
This is a fine neighborhood for Dim Sum, and another site immortalized in popular song lyrics, this time in the 1925 Lorenz Hart song "Manhattan":
And tell me what street
Compares with Mott Street
In July?
Sweet pushcarts gently gliding by.
The great big city's a wondrous toy
Just made for a girl and boy.
We'll turn Manhattan
Into an isle of joy.
Wow! I walked down that street in December when I was visiting NYC (I'm from Brisbane, Australia). I love the black dog on the right. Somehow, I always spot the dogs.
I love that the buildings have changed barely at all. Really interesting to think of the history in those buildings that the people living there now have probably never considered.

158 Mott Street: 1910

A close up of one of the buildings on Mott from the previous post. 158 Mott is between Grand and Broome

Mott Street: 1910

from shorpy

Another view of Mott Street in New York's Little Italy (now Chinatown) circa 1910. The building in the middle, 156 Mott, with the Italian pharmacy, is now the Foot Reflexology Center in this Google Street View. The address on the right, 156 Mott, is now just two stories. Most of the basement entrances have been covered.

Some of the comments about this photo at shorpy:

Looks like the Bert Pilsner Beer hall isn't there anymore. What a shame. It looked like a neat building. Also, can you believe some of the original fire escapes are still being used. I wonder if they are still up to code.
Submitted by J Gioia on Wed, 05/21/2008 - 6:04am.
My great-great grandfather ran an Italian pharmacy a few blocks away, on Mulberry Street below Canal. Wong's Noodle Shop is now in its place.

This part of Mott Street is between Grand and Broome

Another Little Italy

From Shorpy
New York's First Avenue at East 29th Street during the annual Little Italy festa circa 1908. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.
comments that accompanied the photo

The the danger of fire was not the greatest of the problems caused by living in close proximity to the gas tanks. Before the Second World War, New York (and many other cities) were not supplied with natural gas. They used manufactured gas, which was made by heating cheap grades of bituminous coal or bunker oil in a retort. This process produced several byproducts, including noxious, sulfurous fumes which permeated the air in the surrounding district. These tanks were located in very close proximity to several large gas manufacturing plants.
What a fire and explosive hazard - gas tanks in a residential and commercial neighborhood. I guess there were no restrictions at that time.
That would absolutely put it in the East Village, though in 1908 I think it would have been the Lower East Side.
First Avenue ends at Houston Street. Little Italy is south of that, around Mulberry and Grand Streets. This was probably another Italian neighborhood. The area around lower First Avenue is now called the East Village (as opposed to the West Village, which is really Greenwich Village). The East Village area is being gentrified with new restaurants and upscale condos. The photograph really belongs in a Godfather II scene, it is amazing.
If we use the address number 489 as a clue, the first cross street in the photo would be Those are two of the many huge natural-gas storage tanks along the East River waterfront that gave the Gashouse District its name.

Organ Grinder 2

Another great organ grinder photo from shorpy circa 1904 in London
About organ grinders

The organ grinder was a musical novelty street performer of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, and refers to the operator of a street organ.Period literature often represents the grinder as a gentleman of ill repute or as an unfortunate representative of the lower classes. Newspaper reporters would sometimes describe them cynically or jocularly as minor extortionists who were paid to keep silent, given the repetitious nature of the music. Later depictions would stress the romantic or picturesque aspects of the activity. Whereas some organ grinders were itinerants or vagabonds, many were recent immigrants who chose to be street performers in order to support their families. Those who actually owned their barrel organs were more likely to take care of them and pursue the "profession" more seriously. A few organ grinders still remain, perhaps most famously Joe Bush in the United States.
Exceptionally, the grinder could be a woman, or small child, cranking away on a smaller organ or on a large organ mounted on a pushcart that was sometimes pulled by a donkey. More often than not the grinder was a man, bearing a medium sized barrel organ held in front of him and supported by a hinged or removable wooden stick or leg that was strapped to the back of the organ. The strap around his neck would balance the organ, leaving one hand free to turn the crank and the other to steady the organ. A tin cup on top of the organ or in the hand of a companion (or an animal) was used to solicit payments for his performance. There was an endless variation in the size of the organ. The size varied from a small organ with only 20 notes weighing only 18 pounds to a huge barrel organ with hundreds of pipes weighing several hundred pounds. Larger organs were usually mounted on a cart, although organ grinders were known to carry an instrument weighing over 100 pounds. The most elaborate organs could even have mechanical figures or automata mounted on top of or in the front of the case.
The grinder would crank his organ in a public place (either a business district or in a neighborhood), moving from place to place after collecting a few coins or in order to avoid being arrested for loitering or chased by persons who would not appreciate hearing his single tune over and over again. The grinder would often[citation needed] have as a companion a White-headed Capuchin monkey to do tricks and attract attention. The monkey would collect the money from the audience and sometimes collect other shiny objects that attracted his attention. Other attractions might be parrots, dogs, dancing bears and members of the organ grinder's family who would dance and sing.
Many cities in the United Kingdom had ordinances prohibiting organ grinders. The authorities often encouraged policemen to treat the grinders as beggars or public nuisances. In Paris there was a limited number of permits for organ grinders, and entry in that reserved circle was based on a waiting list or seniority system. In New York City (USA), there were as many as 1500 organ grinders on the streets at a time - one on almost every block.
Music lovers usually hated the organ grinders, since most grinders seemed to be tone deaf and lacking any sense of rhythm.[citation needed] They apparently were not interested in keeping their instrument in tune or cranking at a rate suited to the music which was "programmed" in their barrel organ. This was most likely true of the organs that were rented for the day from "organ liveries". The organ grinder would pick up an organ in a small store-front shop and then walk or take the streetcar to his chosen neighborhood. After moving from block to block throughout the day, they would return the organ to the livery and pay a portion of their take to the owner.
Often, they would make more money than was earned by the people who made donations. Of course, they dressed shabbily to conceal this fact. City dwellers who needed some measure of quiet for their writings or their scientific reflections could absolutely loathe organ grinders.
Charles Dickens wrote to a friend that he could not write for more than half an hour without being disturbed by the most excruciating sounds imaginable, coming in from barrel organs on the street. Charles Babbage was a particularly virulent enemy of the organ grinders. He would chase them around town, complain to authorities about their noisy presence, and forever[citation needed] ask the police to arrest them. Yehudi Menuhin on the other hand is quoted to have said: "we musicians must stick together" while handing an organ-grinder some change.
According to Ord-Hume the disappearance of organ grinders from European streets was in large part due to the early application of national and international Copyright laws. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century European publishers of sheet music and the holders of copyrights to the most popular operatic tunes of the day often banded together in order to enforce collection of performance duties from any musician playing their property in any venue.
When faced with notaries and the hounding of other legal representatives of the "music industry" of the time, in addition to the other sources of hostility mentioned above organ grinders soon disappeared.
Street organs were banned in New York City in 1936 by Fiorello La Guardia. An unfortunate consequence was the destruction of hundreds of organs. This was unfortunate because the barrels in these organ contained a record of the popular music of the day. Before the invention of the cylinder record player, this was the only permanent recording of these tunes. The law that banned barrel organ in New York was repealed in 1976 but that mode of musical performance had become obsolete by then. However, organ grinders did return to New York on the 9th of April 2006, when the first organ rally in the area was held on Coney Island.

The Organ Grinder

In his autobiography, Samuel Chotzinoff mentions the presence of the neighborhood organ grinders.
An organ grinder on the streets of New York's Lower East Side circa 1910. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection, from the great shorpy site
The comments from the posting at shorpy

My Yiddish is not great, but what I can understand of the sign on the right is: "Don't go any further Market." Following is an account of the different plates they sell, one of which is chicken. The right side of the sign is cut off, so I can't see the beginning of the phrases. Great image. This appears to be a 'pipe' organ type. A web search of 'Busker organ' will lead you to further information if you have an interest. "Busker" is a term for a street performer working for tips. They were much more prevalent in Europe than the U.S. (this is also true today). Like bagpipes, you either like the sound, or you don't. It is a virtual certainty that there was a monkey nearby.
The children appear to be watching something off to the right, possibly the monkey asking for money. The monkey could also be behind the grinder, the boy to his rear appears to be holding a tether. Angelo Rulli is an organ grinder historian. He says that while the music was supposed to be the real draw, the organ grinder's monkey was a necessary tool of the trade "The monkey was a matter of economics. Because the monkey has an opposable thumb the monkey could hold a cup and by holding a cup, the monkey could go out into the crowd and bang people on the knees and collect money while the grinder was plying his trade." The monkey may have collected the cash, but it wasn't necessarily for the reason you'd think. It was more often to get rid of them rather than for musical appreciation. "The irony of the grinder and the music that was played is that as often as not, they were paid to get out of the neighborhood...because it was for the most part terrible music.Ultimately, over the years, all of the major cities in America imposed laws, very, very strictly enforced laws as to the hours that a grinder could be on streets." In the end though, it wasn't laws or bad music that finished off organ grinders. "The transistor changed everything, music was now affordable for every American family it wasn't necessary to go to the streets for music. And at about the same time there became a greater awareness of the way that animals were being used for profit. So the organ grinder and the monkey sort of faded away more or less about the same time, after WWII."