The Metropole

The Metropole is a historic New York City restaurant and gathering place that serves as a site of memory, violence, and loss in The Great Gatsby. It is the setting where Meyer Wolfsheim, Gatsby's business partner, recounts the 1912 murder of gambler Rosy Rosenthal, a story that reveals the underworld connections and sentimental brutality of Gatsby's world. The Metropole functions as a symbol of a bygone era of gangland violence, a place where the past is both mourned and mythologized, and its mention casts a shadow over Gatsby's glittering parties and the Jazz Age's surface glamour.

Location and Atmosphere

The Metropole is a restaurant located across the street from the restaurant where Nick Carraway, Gatsby, and Wolfsheim have lunch. Wolfsheim describes it as "hot and small" but "full of memories," contrasting it with the more comfortable but less evocative establishment where they are dining. The restaurant is associated with a specific, violent history: it was the site of the murder of Rosy Rosenthal, a gambler who was shot three times in the belly on the sidewalk after being called outside. Wolfsheim's nostalgic tone—"Filled with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever"—imbues the location with a melancholic, almost sacred quality, transforming a crime scene into a personal shrine of loss.

The Rosy Rosenthal Murder

During the lunch at the other restaurant, Wolfsheim narrates the events of the night Rosenthal was killed at the Metropole. He recalls that he and five others were at a table, and Rosenthal had been eating and drinking heavily all evening. Near dawn, a waiter approached Rosenthal with a "funny look" and said someone wanted to speak to him outside. Wolfsheim pulled Rosenthal back into his chair, urging him not to go: "Let the bastards come in here if they want you, Rosy, but don't you, so help me, move outside this room." Rosenthal ignored the warning, turned at the door to say, "Don't let that waiter take away my coffee!" and walked onto the sidewalk, where he was shot three times in his full belly. The killers drove away. Nick remembers that four of the perpetrators were electrocuted, and Wolfsheim adds, "Five, with Becker," referring to a police officer involved in the murder. The story is told with a mixture of grim detail and sentimental reverence, revealing Wolfsheim's deep emotional connection to the event and his code of loyalty among criminals.

Narrative Significance

The Metropole and the Rosenthal murder serve multiple narrative functions. First, they establish Wolfsheim's character as a sentimental gangster who romanticizes a violent past, a man who "becomes very sentimental sometimes" and who keeps a photograph of the scene in his memory. Second, the story provides a concrete example of the underworld violence that lurks beneath the surface of Gatsby's world, foreshadowing the novel's own violent climax. Third, the Metropole functions as a symbol of a lost era of "faces dead and gone," contrasting with the ephemeral, careless parties of Gatsby's mansion. The location's association with fixed gambling and murder also connects directly to Wolfsheim's known criminal activities, including his fixing of the 1919 World Series, and underscores the corrupt foundations of Gatsby's wealth. Finally, the Metropole story highlights the theme of memory and the past's inescapable grip: Wolfsheim cannot forget the night of the murder, just as Gatsby cannot forget Daisy, and just as the novel itself is a meditation on the past's power over the present.