Unique No Evils

Unieke HZZ - Einzigartige “3 Affen“

www.three-monkeys.info

 

 

 

Item:

A dedicated 3 monkey statue

Een speciaal HZZ beeld

Eine gewidmete 3-Affen Statue

Text:

On the front of the pedestal is: J. Earl. Seiter

On the bottom: Commemorating our friendship    John Henry Miller

KMPoLLev  Hear no Evil    Speak no Evil     See no Evil    1938

Origin:

U.S.A

Year:

1938

Dimensions:

10” x 6” x 5”

25 x 15 x 12 cm

25 x 15 x 12 cm

Description:

The monkeys were given to my grandfather Joseph Earl Seiter by John Henry Miller, who owned Miller Brothers restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland USA. My grandfather, J.Earl Seiter was an executive in the local power company and was instrumental in bringing steam heat into many of the downtown buildings in Baltimore. Apparently this freed basement space in the downtown buildings, which were then rented out etc. This occurred during the depression era, so the extra rental money was helpful to the business owners. Miller Brothers restaurant just so happened to be in one of these basement areas. According to my aunt, J.Earl and John Henry Miller were business associates and good friends. (The statue always made me wonder why this particular theme of "see no evil....." was important to them)

 

Here is a bit of history on Miller Bros I picked up on the web. 

Miller Brothers
Known simply as “the place to eat,” Miller Brothers Fayette Street Seafood opened in 1913 and became the regular haunt of the Round Table, a luncheon club of Democratic pols and their friends (males, that is), as well as countless others- the restaurant could seat 450 on its first floor. Following the Anschluss in 1938, chef Paul Pantzer evermore wore a black toque (in honor of the collapse of independent Austria) while creating the restaurant’s signature whale steak and green sea turtle soup. Elk was also a customer favorite, and when a freshly killed one arrived, the restaurant would display it on Fayette Street before butchering it, which always drew a crowd.

In 1962, Leonard Bernstein stomped out of Miller Brothers after the restaurant refused to serve a black member of his party. Not long afterward, three “African diplomats” from the new republic of Gabon (actually three black reporters from the Baltimore Afro-American dressed in costumes rented from A.T. Jones) entered the restaurant. Then-Gov. Millard Tawes had requested that Maryland restaurants serve foreign dignitaries (Africans included), even though most wouldn’t serve African-Americans, and the three “diplomats” were thus given service. When the trick- and the irony of the policy of serving foreigners but not natives- was revealed, Miller Brothers earned a spate of publicity (but not the kind it would necessarily have asked for). By 1963, the restaurant had closed, torn down to make way for construction of the new Charles Center. The new Hilton hotel (now the Omni) that went up on the spot briefly resurrected the name “Miller Bros.” for its swank dining room in the late ‘60s.

 Richard Roys, USA.

Notes: