Beer In Ads #4746: Miss Rheingold 1964 & Little Old New York
Jay Brooks
Friday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1964. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area and beyond. Miss Rheingold 1964 was Celeste Yarnall. She was born July 26, 1944 in Long Beach, California, and began acting when she was discovered by Ozzie Nelson and his son Ricky, first appearing on the Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet in 1962, while working as a model and auditioning for commercials. Her first film was Jerry Lewis’ “The Nutty Professor” in 1963. Other films included Elvis Presley’s “Live a Little, Love a Little” (notable because fellow Miss Rheingold winner Emily Banks also appeared in the film), and “Eve.” But she did a lot of television, appearing on such shows as The Wild Wild West, Bewitched, Gidget, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Captain Nice, Bonanza, Hogan’s Heroes, Love American Style, Mannix, Knots Landing, and Melrose Place. Though perhaps her best known role was on the Star Trek episode “The Apple,” in which she played “Yeoman Martha Landon.” She later became a successful commercial real estate broker, opening her own firm, got a PhD in nutrition, teaching it at Pacific Western University, and was a breeder of Tonkinese cats. She was also married three times, and had one daughter with her first husband, producer Sheldon Silverstein. She died in 2018 in Westlake Village, California, at age 74. In this newspaper item, also from March, Miss Rheingold 1964, Celeste Yarnall, is shown with the mayor of Mount Vernon, New York handing him the key to “Little Old New York,” which was an entertainment complex at the New York’s World’s Fair. One magazine at the time described it like this. “Nostalgia reigns at the most relaxing spot at the Fair. The scene is ‘Little Old New York’ in 1904, with a village green, bandstand, and park where one can stretch out on a bench and listen to a brass band or barbershop quartet, then retire to a turn-of-the-century Town House for a snack—and a beer, of course.”
Here’s a more information about it from the 1964 World’s Fair Information Manual:
The Rheingold exhibit is a recreation of Little Old New York in 1904. The focal point of the exhibit is a block of five two-story buildings off a village green in a park like setting. A restaurant and a tavern, at opposite ends of the cobblestone street, offers old-fashioned hospitality to visitors. The exteriors exactly reproduce the Victorian era architecture and decor.
The restaurant is an authentic Georgian Town House. It accommodates 300 persons for brunch, luncheon or dinner. One section of the restaurant is set aside for a solarium dining area, overlooking the Pool of Industry. Waitresses’ costumes, menus, and the decor will characterize the turn-of-the-century theme. As a gesture of hospitality, the first glass of beer served to diners will be “on the house”.
The Rheingold Tavern features steins of draft beer and an old-style lunch counter laden with sandwiches, pickles and cheese. Both the Town House and the Rheingold Tavern are operated by the Greyhound Post Houses, Incorporated, a subsidiary of Greyhound Corporation.
Other buildings in the exhibit area house exhibits, displays, and souvenirs of the period.
The park is composed of flowers, trees, a bandstand, and 600 seats and benches, some with tables and canopies. The bandstand provides entertainment, including costumed bands of the era, name entertainers, and fashion shows. Two kiosks located within the park area dispense light snacks and Rheingold and Tuborg beers. Sandwiches and beer are also sold in the park by costumed hawkers. After dark the park benches provide excellent seating to view the special events at the Pool of Industry.
Here’s the menu:
And here’s a few photos of Little Old New York:
The Rheingold Tavern and the adjacent sidewalk cafe specialize in sandwiches, beer, coffee and soft drinks. At the opposite end of the street, The Town House Restaurant presents a turn-of-the-century setting for brunch, luncheon and dinner with the first glass of beer on the house, as a gesture of old-fashioned hospitality.
Vendors at small carts offered up soft drinks, pop corn, hot dogs and other snacks. Not surprisingly, there were also numerous opportunities to enjoy a cold beer.
Rheingold occupied a fairly large site on a prime location near the Pool of Industry. There were a number of shops based on merchandise that would have been sold in New York City sixty years earlier.
