A midcentury Happy Mutant's dining guide to New York City

This is a page from Gustavademecum for the Island of Manhattan: A Check-List of the Best-Recommended or Most Interesting Eating-Places, Arranged in Approximate Order of Increasing Latitude and Longitude — Prepared for the convenience of mathematicians, experimental scientists, engineers, and explorers. Which is possibly the best name for a dining guide ever.

Physical chemist Robert Browning Sosman passed this pocket-sized guidebook out at conferences and updated it regularly between 1941 and 1962.

The key feature: Sosman's ... somewhat unique ... observations about the restaurants he visited. And the fact that much of that information was encoded in a sort of proprietary shorthand, cribbed from scientific symbols. The result looks something like a cross between restaurant listings and an alchemist's workbook.

In each of the guide's at least 15 editions, Sosman reviewed 300 restaurants, relaying facts like cuisine and cost, as well as esoteric observations like tableside lighting (measured in lumens) and waiters' estimated IQs. All of it was written in a mashup of mathematical figures, glyphs, Greek, and astrological symbols. A sigma meant there was samba dancing. A lowercase "m" suggested that Madison Avenue types frequented the restaurant

Sadly, the Saveur.com story that this comes from doesn't include a cheat sheet guide to deciphering Sosman's shorthand. A major disappointment. Perhaps one of you can add to the information here?

See more photos of Sosman's dining guide at Saveur

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: engineers • Food • guidebooks • happy mutants • History • restaurants • Science • vintage

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The Snowden Principle

awjt

data. DAAAAAAATAAAAAAAAAAA aaaaa…….. *drool*
Bruce Heerssen

“Heterochromatic Fish Frieze”

Love it.
- awjt
  
  Yeah, that caught my eye and I’m gonna start saying that from now on. ….*Tosses it into phrase bin*
http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

In Other Data, the astrological Taurus symbol appears to mean “specializes in steak”. King of the Sea has the symbols for Cancer (crab) and Pisces (fish). Trefner’s has Aquarius, probably meaning drinks, although there’s a teacup in there, so it’s probably a diner.

In Address, the numbers in the angular symbols probably means the floors up or down the restaurant is located on.

Aside from that, there’s not much inherent meaning in the letters and numbers.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

Bah. They don’t have my grandparent’s restaurant:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/6484723333/in/photostream
- http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  I would totally eat at your grandparent’s restaurant.
- awjt
  
  I’ve been out on a bulldozer all day! I am totally eating the minestrone at your grandparents’ tonight!!!
  
  ed: wait?! Ginsberg’s HOWL?!?!?!?!?!!?!! Holy shit!!!!!! AWESOME!!!!11!1!!11!!
  - http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones
    
    Note that that Village Voice review is from sixty years ago. Last I checked, there was an eyeglass store at that address.
    
    According to my parents, one of the Beat clientle, when they showed the week-old me around the place, advised them to “raise him as a death-ray repairman.”
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Herbert/100001916116969 George Herbert
      
      Hmm. That explains much.
    - awjt
      
      Haha, what do you do for a living? Anything remotely ray-oriented?
- madopal
  
  I hope they didn’t serve steak. I need a serrated knife to cut it…I bet all they had were straight edge ones.
http://www.facebook.com/Catgrin Christine Fisher

The “H” column is easily deciphered. It’s hours. For example: Epicure R. is open from noon-8pm, and I’m guessing the cross means they’re a Christian restaurant, closed on Sundays. Ruby Foo’s is probably open noon-3am, and as a Buddhist restaurant (eight-spoked wheel) is most likely open every day.
http://www.facebook.com/Catgrin Christine Fisher

For better clarification: the line that makes an “hour hand” shows opening time. For most restaurants, it’s noon. A few open early, at 10am. King of the Sea is one of those. The Baroque opens late, at 2pm.

The clock line then winds around. The Baroque closes at 10pm, so there’s no overlap in lines. Places that stay open late have a line that winds outside the original clock face. King of the Sea closes at about 2am, so there’s an overlap from the morning opening.
http://www.facebook.com/Catgrin Christine Fisher

I agree with Robert about the astrological symbols, because “terrapin” is also written into that area of specialties for Club 21, and “koldbord” (smorgasbord) is written in for Copenhagen R. Nice catch!
http://www.facebook.com/Catgrin Christine Fisher

Oh! and I just noticed that the Hickory House had great pie!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  That pie is gone.
  - http://www.facebook.com/Catgrin Christine Fisher
    
    True. Pity that. :)
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Actually, the correct answer is: Oh, that crazy pie!
http://www.facebook.com/Catgrin Christine Fisher

Madeline’s and Nino’s, too – sorry ’bout that!
http://www.facebook.com/jeffrey.m.ottem Jeffrey M. Ottem

I found a key to the Gustavademecum. I Love Column 18.

http://hughmerwin.weebly.com/the-gustavademecum.html
- Gimlet_eye
  
  “T: trampers, skiers, and the like admitted.” The key needs a key….
  - Jonathan Badger
    
    A tramper is an old-fashioned word for a hiker. According to the article, Sosman was an avid hiker and even completed the Appalachian Trail. I think he means that the restaurant doesn’t mind people dressed in informal hiking and other activity clothes, given that many restaurants at the time turned away men without coat and tie.
    - Gimlet_eye
      
      OK, but what’s a “skier”? I have a hard time imagining people snow or water skiing anywhere near NYC and then dropping into one of these places for dinner.
      - Ultan
        
        My family actually used to have a ski concession in one of the NYC parks. I’ll have to get the details.
http://www.facebook.com/Catgrin Christine Fisher

Bravo!
jaytkay

I think we found the Zodiac Killer