Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-01-07
SOCIAL SIDE OF LIFE
Two Divisions in City of New
York.
-FOUR HUNDRED" IN ONE
Workers Distinguished From Those
Who Draw Salaries.
DANCING ACADEMY A CENTER
Effect of the Removal of Churches
From Downtown Section
Homes in Flats.
DANCING ACADEMY A CENTER


There are two great divisions of people IN
New York about whose social life the fairly
well-to-do middle class, the layer of folks
whose income runs from $40 a week to
$4,000 and $4,000 year, have little actual
knowledge.
The swells, the misnamed 400" make up
one of the classes. The other, enormously
greater in numbers, is made up of the
working people," the wage-earners, as dis
tnguished from those who draw salaries
and have private incomes of their own The
term society life' may seem strangely
used with reference to the latter, but 1t
may be so used quite as properly as with
reference to the swells. Traditions and
usages in manners and conduct, though I'M
doubtedly different are as binding among
the majority of porters and clerks who
work for $40 and SIS week and the shop
girls, whose wages range from Sc to $40. as
they are among the Gerryblts or the Van
derastofs. in TACT, certain circumspec-
ton Is more rig1dly insisted on among the
former who play the social game than among
the latter, and infracton of the rules is far
more severely punished social vogue once
lost in her circle by the young woman wage
Garner, is not easily regained, and there
fore, IS more highly priced. Among the real
sWellS, as some who read this may suspect
social vogue is sometimes question of
money, and not at all of mere convention
alities.
A Social Center.
The dancing academies of New York are
the real social circles of society life as en-
Joyed by thousands of wage-earners in New
York; the churches, with their sociables and
mite societies, are still socially important
in some degree, but of late years the acad-
emies have been gaining ground rapidly.
Ihey are now enormously in the lead and
are hardly likely TO lose any ground that
they have gained. To most people who
suppose, perhaps, that the chief function of
the dancing academies and their masters is
to teach folks how to dance, the notion of
the dancing academy as a social center no
doubt is a novel one. But today there are
many dancing academies in New York the
major part of whose income is derived not
from classes" made up of those who wish
TO learn the steps, but from dancing parties
known chiefly as receptions and assem-
blies' and furnishing the chief social re-
Taxation to those who attend Them
There are dancing classes, of course. but
the scholars are mostly children; those
who attend the dancing academy affairs
as the receptions and assemblies are colIec-
lively termed, are of older growth; young
men and women who have long ago learned
all they need to know about the terpsicho-
rean art and practically have no other social
life than that which the academies afford
Flats Boom Academies.
The unbeltevedly contracted quarters in
which most New York wage-earners are
obliged to live have furnished one of the
most important factors in the booming of
the dancing academies. So, TOO, has the
withdrawal of many of the churches from
the downtown region where the mass of tho
wage-earners dwell, and the lack of in
terest in their social life shown by some of
the uptown churches, about which a wage
earning population has grown up
This Is not intended as a reflection on the
churches, 1t Is simply statement of fact:
there are churches, and churches supported
ny the very rich at that, such as st. Bar
tholomew,s ST. Georges Grace and some
others, which serve social centers for
workers, but the majority of the Protestant
churches in New York seem to have forgot
ten that they owe any social debts at all
TO them 1t should be said for the Catholic
churches that they are very careful to keen
their hold upon their people
II IS only falr, also, to say that, to the
casual observer. the influence of the dane
ing academies in their new social relations
as they exist, is by no means bad on the
contrary, IN many cases it is excellent
Without them many thousands of girls &C
nice as could be found anywhere and young
chaps, as clean cut and as manly as any
IN America, would be quite without the op-
portunity to meet socially. outside the dry
goods-box-like rooms of little flats or the
| narrow confines of cheap boarding house
parlors.
There were dancing academies in New
YORK always, you might say" said dap
per but serious-faced Washington Heights
dancing master the other evening in his lit
tie office just off the dancing hall where
nifty or sixty couples We're gaily whirIing
to the strains of Teasing" but as thew *
list today they are really quite a new thing
Proud Of His Work.
Look at the dancing floor" he added
,Io
Can you find smoother, SPRINGER one
in all New York? Isn't 1t the large and
fine room l have? See; eighty couples can
dance here without crowding
''Well let me tell you. When 1 began
teaching dancing in this town there wasn't
more than one academy to the ten of them
now. The floors were small too. and as
| for surfaces-why. they wouldn't compare
with the surface of the floor here at ALL
In those old days professors of dancIns
had no such chance as they have now
| First Off, there weren't anywhere so MANY
pupils to teach. Next, there We're mighty
| few receptions, such as we have nova
days. to bring up the academy's praots
More yet. in those days there were a good
many folks who didn't care about dancing
whose children are now learning hew end
who come to the receptions once in awhile
How abotA our receptions? Wen. III
tell you the facts If you're interested.
How Receptions Are Conducted.
eve give two or three receptions a week.
Tonight the academy is leased outright to
! social organization. We charge $50 or $50
when club wants to give It's own recep.
ton. and for that we furnish the music the
lights-everything
I'VE have four pieces, violin and piano
always, cornet and clarinet generally, put
sometimes we leave one of them GU. ana
put in a drum.
when We give our own receptions, we
charge 80 cents couple: So cents for the
man and 10 cents for the girl Is the way
| II divides, il they come separate
Amy objection to that? OF course not
Why should there be? A girl that mas no
steady company may like to dance and
yet be all right, suppose. Risk of admit
ting the kind most of the dancers wouldn't
like TO associate with? Yes, lttie bit
very little. let me tell you, and we'ra a
hundred times more likely to let in an OBJ