The Washington herald., 1919-09-23
NEW YORK CITY
By o. o. MCINTYRE

New York. Sept. 22.-Helrs
Kitchen-where they beat up a cop
per just for fun and blackjacked
strangers for a dime-has gone into
decay. There has been only one
killing there in a year. Thirty
ninth street and Eleventh avenue
was the sink of HelTs Kitchen.
They used to say that only a cop
without friends in the department
got that beat.
The war brought about the re-
formation OF Helrs Kitchen. The
gangsters were all young men and
those who did not skip to dodge
The draft enlisted. as Ring Lardner
says. in the draft. There was al
ways something cooking in Helrs
Kitchen.
Every night a gang of young Gig
arette-smoking hoodlums would
hang out on the corner-leaving
only enough to obey a whistle which
meant that somebody had started
the "growler" for the Dutchman's
II nothing turned up they would
start something-from upsetting
the apple stand Of some poor old
" d COP.
There was the typical instance of
one-Lung Curran. a rat-faced, little
dope fend in the throes of tuber-
culosiS He came staggering out
OF neighborhood saloon one night
and the gang hailed him with
bravados. That was enough for
one-Lung-then fairly jumping
with cocaine. He looked around and
saw a policeman talking to a wom-
an going home with the market
basket
|, He bet Is cents he could take the
policeman with a blackjack from
gal-girls are always gals in HeII's
Kitchen-and he did by telling tho
policeman with a blackjack from
behind and stripping him OF his
coat. All the while the gang
cheered.
Curran's girl made a sort of mil
itary coat for herself out of the
copper's uniform and soon all the
girls on Eleventh avenue were
wearing the same kind of military
conceit The girls would send their
fellows out to get policemen's coats
just to show that their love wasn't
dead. But now the gangs have been
broken up. Hell's Kitchen is as
o~AA . L al n dNtnut2
1t is quite astounding the way
New York highbrOws are falling for
the songs known as THE Blues" to
which the shimmy dancers do their
most artistic wiggling. These fuci-
tive songs OF the underworld are
actually finding a place in polite
society. Several of the highbrow
magazines are discussing them serI-
ously. Nearly all came from the
honky-tonks OF the Barbary Coast.
Gilda Gray. who was the shimmy-
ing sensation Of a Broadway show,
is now the hostess at the Bal Tab
arin, stunty night life cafe She
Is singing some revived Blues" I"
Here is part Of the lyric OF one:
The graveyard is a nasty old place,
They lay you on your back and
throw dirt on your face.
Get over dirty!
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
II the blues don't get you, well the
shimmy must.
Step on it boys!
why do people go to Maine on
their vacations? The answer seem.
easy in the light of statements
from homecoming vacationists.
Maine, they say is the wettest State
III INC Chlol whereas II Is supposed
to be the dryest It is possible to
get a jug of whisky any place at
any time and they even deliver the
whisky in motor vans. according to
some Of those who are home-wild-
ly anticipating another trip to
Maine next year. Whisky is said to
hc selling for 50 a gallon and there
isn't the danger OF wood alcohol
poisoning that one runs I'D against
here in New York