Getting Lost in the World’s Largest Stack of Menus

After a lunch of mulligatawny soup and roast mutton on a wintry New Year’s Day in 1900, Miss Frank E. Buttolph struck upon a novel idea. “I stopped in the Columbia Restaurant for lunch and thought it might be interesting to file a bill of fare at the library,” Buttolph wrote in a letter dated February 14, noting the restaurant that was located in Manhattan’s Union Square. “A week later the thought occurred, why not preserve others?” Buttolph — whose given name was Frances but who preferred to be addressed as Frank — was already an avid collector of postcards with pictures of lighthouses. Preserving menus suited her penchant for collecting unique and colorful ephemera.