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J. M. Fenster


—J. M. Fenster is the author of the forthcoming Ether Day: A Strange Tale of the Discovery ‘of Anesthesia and the Haunted Men Who Made It .

Articles by this Author

The Taste of Time, April 1997 | Vol. 48, No. 2
All across America, there are restaurants that serve up the spirit and conviviality of eras long past.
At a time when driving from Manhattan to Yonkers was a supreme challenge, a half-dozen cars pointed their radiators west and set out from Times Square for Paris.
At their zenith, the great transatlantic liners were lean runways for Schiaparelli dresses and Sulka dressing gowns, gorgeous stage sets for ship-to-shore gossip, bon mots, cocktail shakers, and dancing all night. It still can happen.
Once seen as a vice and now as a public panacea, the national passion that got Thomas Jefferson in trouble has been expanding for two centuries.
Americans invented the grand hotel in the 1830s, and, during the next century, brought it to a zenith of democratic luxury that makes a visit to the surviving examples the most agreeable of historic pilgrimages.
Indy, May/June 1992 | Vol. 43, No. 3
Every spring, 30,000,000 Americans watch the Indianapolis 500. It’s the nation’s premier racing event and the pinnacle of a glamorous, murderous epic that stretches back nearly a century.
The Jeep, December 1991 | Vol. 42, No. 8