Every morning at ten o'clock he took his
stand in the main corridor of the City Hall, really a
thoroughfare and short cut for the busiest part of town. With a
cigar in his mouth he stood there for an hour or so, holding
court, making appointments, attending to all sorts of political
business.
Presently his importance and his ideas of etiquette expanded to
such an extent that he had to establish the Blaine Club. Joe
House's Tilden Club was established two years later, in imitation
of Kelly. If you had very private and important business with
Kelly-- business of the kind of which the public must get no
inkling, you made--preferably by telephone--an appointment to
meet him in his real estate offices in the Hastings Building--a
suite with entrances and exits into three separated corridors.
If you wished to see him about ordinary matters and were a person
who could ``confer'' with Kelly without its causing talk you met
him at the Blaine Club. If you wished to cultivate him, to pay
court to him, you saw him at Herrmann's--or in the general rooms
of the club. If you were a busy man and had time only to
exchange greetings with him--to ``keep in touch''--you passed
through the City Hall now and then at his hour. Some bosses soon
grow too proud for the vulgar democracy of such a public stand;
but Kelly, partly through shrewdness, partly through inclination,
clung to the City Hall stand and encouraged the humblest citizens
to seek him there and tell him the news or ask his aid or his
advice.
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