God Bless America

Sun Luck
New York City, ca. 1956

One day in the mid-1950s, when celebrity publicist Gary Stevens walked into Sun Luck, a Chinese restaurant on West 49th Street, the manager asked him whether he knew a man sitting at a table who frequented the place about three times a week; was he perhaps a big Seventh Avenue manufacturer? Stevens looked over and recognized Irving Berlin having dinner with one of his daughters. Seeing that they were almost finished, Stevens walked over to say hello and related the manager’s theory. Berlin put his glasses down on the table and said, “Gary, that’s very funny. Most people think I look like an accountant.”1, 2

Songwriter Irving Berlin was born Israel Beilin in Russia in 1888. One of eight children, he came to the United States with his family in 1893. After passing through the newly-opened immigration station on Ellis Island, they settled in a cold-water basement flat on New York’s Lower East Side. His father, formerly a cantor in a Jewish synagogue, found work in a kosher meat market. When his father died, Berlin left home to make a living on the streets. Still a young teenager, he found that he had the ability to sing, soon joining with other young men who entertained customers in the saloons on the Bowery. In 1907 he published his first song, and four years later, his hit “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” made him a wealthy man.

Over the next five decades, Berlin composed over 1,000 songs including “Blue Skies,” “Always,” “Easter Parade,” “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “White Christmas,” and “God Bless America,” a paean to his beloved country. By the time Berlin died at the age of 101, many of his songs had become part of American culture, especially those he had composed for musicals and movie scores. As composer Jerome Kern once remarked, “Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music.”

Berlin spent a lot of time in Hollywood, but he regarded himself as a New Yorker. Manhattanites still reminisce about his favorite haunts, such as Gallagher’s Steak House, Lindy’s, Dinty Moore’s, and the Stork Club.3 Berlin also liked Chinese food—a cuisine that he may have grown to appreciate while working as a singing waiter in Chinatown in 1906—and often went to Sun Luck, a noteworthy Midtown restaurant which is now largely forgotten.

Sun Luck was located at 143 West 49th Street, nearby Radio City Music Hall and only a five-minute walk from Berlin’s music company at 1650 Broadway. (There was a sister restaurant named Sun Luck East at 75 East 55th Street.) In addition to its convenience, Sun Luck offered a wide variety of very good Chinese food. Owner Jack Yee worked as a chef in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou before immigrating to the United States.4 As a result, Sun Luck uniquely served dishes from four different regions in addition to the typical Chinese American fare (such as Chop Suey and Chow Mein) that was ubiquitous at the time. It was among the first in the country to emerge from the doldrums where Chinese restaurants had languished for decades. In that sense, the restaurateur and his famous patron had something in common; each was using his energy and talents to enrich the American cultural experience. After all, what could be more American than inventive Chinese food and the songs of Irving Berlin?

In 1956, food editor Craig Claiborne reported in the New York Times: “The fact that New Yorkers are becoming interested in Chinese dishes other than sweet and sour spareribs is a welcome sign that their gastronomical interests are widening. Feeding their new curiosity concerning the less familiar aspects of Chinese cooking is an exciting restaurant, Sun Luck…This large establishment, seating almost 300 guests, lists the specialties of Canton, which are already known to many here, plus the less well-known dishes of Peiping (sic), Chungking, and Shanghai.”5 Among others, Claiborne recommended Soo Ja Shrimps—flakey, fried shrimp prepared in the “Mandarin” style, a term applied to any Northern, non-Cantonese dish. In addition to the items on the regular menu shown below, Sun Luck also maintained a small booklet listing more than 500 dishes which were also available. O. O. Soup, reported on this menu as having been served to “the royal family,” was presumably enjoyed by the Queen Mother during her visit to the city in 1954.

Sun Luck opened a new place near Times Square in 1969. Now operating at seven locations in Manhattan and Queens, it had grown to become perhaps the largest Chinese restaurant chain on the East Coast, if not the country.6 Craig Claiborne reported that the food at their newest establishment came off “surprisingly well,” but the cycle of decline was soon evident.7 In the early 1970s Sun Luck was routinely cited for violations of the city’s health code.8  By the time the Health Department closed Sun Luck East in 1974, other upscale restaurants were popping up, taking Chinese cuisine to the next level. For example, Shun Lee Palace opened in 1971 at 155 East 55th Street, a few doors down the block from Sun Luck East. The following year, Shun Lee Palace’s chef T. T. Wang and partner Michael Tong opened Hunan, the first restaurant in the country serving Hunanese-style food.

The story of Chinese immigration, much like the Jewish experience, was often marked by struggle, progress, setbacks, discrimination, assimilation, and success. Restaurateur Jack Yee and Irving Berlin, one forgotten and the other immortalized, were both American success stories. But as Berlin himself once observed, “The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success.”

Notes:
1. Gary Stevens also produced shows including the game show “Twenty Questions,” first on radio and later on television, and the celebrity interview show “Luncheon at Sardi’s;” and the television program “The Stork Club,” which was set in the nightclub.
2. Robert Kimball, Linda Emmet, The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin, New York, 2001.
3. New York Times, 23 December 2005.
4. Jack Yee worked as a chef at the large Golden-Gate restaurant in Shanghai, Capitol restaurant in Hong Kong, and the Diamond restaurant in Guangzhou.
5. New York Times, 31 October 1956.
6. Sun Luck locations included Times Square (200 West 44th St.), the Imperial (965 Lexington Avenue at 69th St.), Sun Luck East (75 East 55th St.), “Gourmet” (157 West 49th St.), Flushing (144-08 Northern Blvd., Queens), Elmhurst (91-16 59th Ave., Queens), and Sunnyside (45-12 Queens Blvd., Queens).
7. New York Times, 31 October 1969.
8. New York Times, 18 June 1972, 4 July 1972, 22 May 1973, 15 October 1974.