Daily Arizona silver belt., 1909-10-24
STAY TOPICS
 FROM GOTHAM

NEW YORK, October 23--Before an other year has passed another of New
 York s old hotels will share the fate
 of the old Fifth Avenue Hotel and of the Sinclair House. The Gilsey House
 property, on the corner of Broadway
 and Twenty street was sold the
 other day for $1, 100000 to a contractor
 who will build twenty-story office
 building on the site. The amount paid
 for the property represents the present
 value of the ground occupied by the
 hotel. In 1870, when the house was was built, the land was worth $30o,000
 The old Gilsey House, which has
 many memories for old New Workers and for the older generation of stage
 folk, was built on ground leased from
 the Astor estate, and was managed for
 the greater part of its career by Jan es
 H. Breslin, Henry Gilsey, and Peter
 Gardner. It had highly successful
 cancer for many years, and only within
 comparatively recent period have the
 newer and more magnificent hostelries
 taken away it's business and robbed if of its fame. In it's days of prosperity,
 when it was considered one of the finest
 hotels in the city, such men as Roscoe
 Genkling, the elder Gould, Cornelius
 Vanderbilt, and William II. Vanderbilt,
 used to frequent it, and at one time
 President Chester A. Arthur stopped
 there. Later it became the most prom
 inent hotel for theatrical peaople in
 the city. The deReske brothers used
 to stop there and made it popular with
 opera singers. Latter on, when the
 Weber-Field Music Hall, right across
 the street, was at the height of its sue
 cess, the Gilsey House was the favorite
 resort of the late Peter Daily, Mir. Web
 CT, De Wolf Hopper, and others Not
 infrequently contracts of great import
 ance in theatrical circles were signed
 on the marble-topped tables in the Gdd-
 sey House cafe.
 Not for fifteen or twenty years has
 New York seen so many silver dollars as during and since the Hadson- Fulton celebration. During the last decade sil- yer dollars were so rare in New York that thousands of people forgot all about the existence of that kind of coin Once in Q while some visitors, straight from the west, where silver dollars are plentiful, put few of these dollars in circulation and in some cases the ticket sellers of the elevated or the subway found it extremely difficult to get rid of the large sjlver coins. It is an actual fact that in several instances passengers refnsed to take silver dollars in change, remarking that they wanted fAmeriean Money" The present unusual freau- ency of these coins is due to the fact that during the Hudson- Fulton celebra. tion New York was flooded with visitors 1 from the west, many of whom were sup piled with silver dollars and which they put in circulation in all parts of the city.
 The death of Napthali Herz Iber, the Yiddish poet who immortalized himself | among the people of his race by writing the words of "Hatikvah, which ex- presses the hope of the Jewish people in the restoration of the Zion and which has been accepted as the national hymn of the Zionists throughout the world, has east shadow of gloom upon the East side of New York. Like most poets he lived and died in poverty. His fancy dwelt in ethereal realms and never gave thought to the grim necess- ity of providing for the morrow. Like a wandering minstrel of yore he travel. ed from place to place, always giving his best and receiving in retsrn friendly | welcome and hospitality, it is true, but little of the worldly goods tliat may be deposited in savings bank. But, if lmber did not accumulate wealth, he won the love and gratitude of his peo- pie and when he died they vied withI each other in showing their appreciation If the poor poet. His people s gratg- .ude kept him out of the potter's field md his Hatikvah'' will keep fresh md glorious his memory among the Jews for centuries to come.
 The foolish practice of keeping sign. d blank checks in accessible places has 'een critiized so often that one. would 'e justified in believing that no longer would any sane person become guilty of # that folly. That the foolkiller has lot been attending to his job in proper ashion is evident from the fact that here are still individuals who make | 'ractice of signing blank checks and eaving them lying about the house. A voman up state tried the experiment he other day and it proved eminently uccessful. A burglar entered her house, ound the check in her bank book and fter he had carefully balanced the ccount to find out how much money he woman had in the bank, he filled n the exact amount in the blank check. rev the money and skipped. The DO. ee have description of the man who btained the money on the check, but s this transaction took place some inc ago, while the woman was away f rom homo tbora iS hut l;t+Io ,,..,....'A |