The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-07-13
SUMMER USE FOR PUBLIC HALLS
The Bicycle Craze Brings Profits to the
Lessees in the Dull Season.

The Bicycle Craze Brings Profits to the
Lessees in the Dull Season.
The present bicycle craze has been ex-
tremely satisfactory to the owners Of halls
in various parts of town, many OF which
have been turned for the summer into BIZ
cycle schools. There are more than 300
bicycle schools in all parts of town, and
the number is increasing.
A public hall in New York City is in
chief demand during the autumn, winter
and spring, and especially the winter
months, when balls, receptions, banquets,
presentations, weddings and dancing
parties are most numerous. A popular
hall is often rented fine nights week on
an average, and on the east side OF town
there is serious competition to secure an
open Sunday night, for Sunday is deemed
the most desirable night of the week. In
autumn, In addition to the other seekers
for public halls, the political organizations
and candidates appear, desiring halls Tor
mass-meetlng or club-room purposes.
But heretofore in summer there has been
no demand for halls. Public receptions
and entertainments are given in gardens
or picnic grounds; there are no mass-meet-
ings of exultant or dissatisfied citizens
banquets are few, and dances there are
none to speak Of AS a general thing,
therefore, the lessees of halls find them
selves without customers at this season,
and this is double disadvantage because
nearly every public hall in New York City
is an annex to either a saloon or restaurant.
When the hall is rented, the demand for
drinks or meals is extensive; when it is I'M
tenanted there are no hungry or thirsty
souls to be supplied, and the bar and res
taurant business of the hall suffers cor
respondingly. This year proprietor of a
hall, seeing a dull season ahead and OBJ
serving also that the bicycle craze seemed
to be growing, secured the services of a
bicycle teacher, and thus made his hall
profitable for the summer. Soon other
halls began to be utilized for the same pur-
pose, and now there are many OF them IN
which bicycle riding is taught at the aver
age rate of fifty cents lesson, lesson
lasting anywhere from thirty minutes to
an hour. Just as the three months of sum-
mer are the closed time for indoor dances
they are the open season for cyclists and
other ardent deyotees of outdoor sport.
In most cases those who have rented the
halls for bicycle lessons have not been sat-
listed to depend solely upon tuition charges
for the revenue, but have added another
business-the sale, on commission, of bicy-
Giles. An instructor has many facilities for
making pupil acquainted with the excel
lent qualities of a wheel in the booming of
which he is interested. He has equal facil-
ity in pointing out the disadvantages of
other wheels-at least, such disadvantages
as may seem potent to the mind of his
pupil, the prospective purchaser.
While the bicycle craze lasts, or until
knowledge of bicycIeriding has become
more generally diffused than it is at
present, these halls for bicycle instruction
may be expected to flourish. When, how
ever, the supply of pupils ceases, the sup
ply of instructors may be expected to fall
off, too and when that time comes there
may be many untenanted halls in New
York City again. But meanwhile the pro-
prietors of halls are reaping rich harvest,
and the bicycle instructors are doing well,
too -New York SIM