Chinatown, More: The Cost of Things
In 1904 a bottle of Snyders Ketchup is 17 cents, a croquet set will set you back as much as $2.50, they charge fifty cents a bottle for Cod Liver Oil, and back-to-school shoes for the kids will run you $1.98 a pair. [Source]
"Chinatown Hop's" photograph copyright Bianca Dorso.
You have a nourishng and reasonably priced meal in Chinatown, and you forget that some people regularly spend the equivalent of your rent on a dining experience that still leaves them asking the driver to stop at Nate 'n Al's afterward for a big slice of something from the pie carousel. And make that a la mode. Or so I've been told. These days there's such a wide range to what it costs to keep body and soul together.
A designer friend of mine is working on some dining room chairs for a client's new house. I am shown a sample of the hide which will adorn them. It is a lovingly treated skin from a small and very expensive animal. 900 dollars a hide, to be exact.
I am tempted to tell my friend where to pick up a whole dining room set for well under half that price, but I keep quiet. Maybe he's never heard of Ikea, or perhaps he harbors some grudge against Scandinavian design.
I learn it will take three hides per chair.
"Deargodinheaven," I observe, "that's twenty-seven hundred dollars a piece just for the upholstery."
In 1904 a dining room chair, as advertised in the Morris County New Jersey newspapers, would run anywhere from 39 cents to as much as $1.39. Each.
But there's more. As I listen I tally the costs for the chair itself, plus material and labor and then add the necessary profit margin. The designer has not yet settled on a per-unit price, but a figure approaching ten thousand dollars a piece does not seem inconceivable.
The order is for a set of twelve.
Now you may want to know whether or not, with a 70-thousand square foot house to decorate, the client might be tempted to skimp on the dining room chairs. Don't be silly. When the job is finished and the lady of the house hosts her first dinner party, she will want to be certain her guests are sitting on the very best money can buy. Making others comfortable is her only goal.
How can you put a price on that?
"Chinatown Hop's" photograph copyright Bianca Dorso.
You have a nourishng and reasonably priced meal in Chinatown, and you forget that some people regularly spend the equivalent of your rent on a dining experience that still leaves them asking the driver to stop at Nate 'n Al's afterward for a big slice of something from the pie carousel. And make that a la mode. Or so I've been told. These days there's such a wide range to what it costs to keep body and soul together.
A designer friend of mine is working on some dining room chairs for a client's new house. I am shown a sample of the hide which will adorn them. It is a lovingly treated skin from a small and very expensive animal. 900 dollars a hide, to be exact.
I am tempted to tell my friend where to pick up a whole dining room set for well under half that price, but I keep quiet. Maybe he's never heard of Ikea, or perhaps he harbors some grudge against Scandinavian design.
I learn it will take three hides per chair.
"Deargodinheaven," I observe, "that's twenty-seven hundred dollars a piece just for the upholstery."
In 1904 a dining room chair, as advertised in the Morris County New Jersey newspapers, would run anywhere from 39 cents to as much as $1.39. Each.
But there's more. As I listen I tally the costs for the chair itself, plus material and labor and then add the necessary profit margin. The designer has not yet settled on a per-unit price, but a figure approaching ten thousand dollars a piece does not seem inconceivable.
The order is for a set of twelve.
Now you may want to know whether or not, with a 70-thousand square foot house to decorate, the client might be tempted to skimp on the dining room chairs. Don't be silly. When the job is finished and the lady of the house hosts her first dinner party, she will want to be certain her guests are sitting on the very best money can buy. Making others comfortable is her only goal.
How can you put a price on that?
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