The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-03-02
One small bit of Broadways dazzling night life
Managers of Leading Cabarets Declare
They'll Find Way to Jazz
at High Pitch

TIME cowpath Broadway was des-
tined to follow was never a
- straight line. At the present
moment those curves of the historic
cows meanderings which lie between
Fortleth and Seventeen streets form
gigantic, memorable question mark.
The night life may not see it. The
caterers to the nightiife can't see any
thing else.
The hicks are to blame for this state
of affairs. The poor despised hicks
the class Broadway has guyed and
bunked and battened on for years
have taken n really melodramatic
vengeance. They've got their white
lighted exploiters thinking hard
against the clock and getting nothing
but wrinkles by it. The hicks have put
one over, and there isn't any comeback.
and here it's March and the next thing
you know it'll be July
And July the United Hick States OF
America, within whose jurisdiction
Broadway is after all. will go dry, un-
der the Jones rider section of the food
production law. The hicks have done
up the hics. Manhattan's world IA
nous primrose path Is already a night
blooming serious.
What are we going to do?"
That is the question mark.
Broadway's two winter amusement
businesses are restaurants and shows.
Straight showmen. theatre and movie
men, are easy in their minds so far as
the drought is concerned. They have
watched II work in Detroit and other
big cities and they believe 1t won't hurt
their business-will tend to do 1t good.
Hotel men aren't worrying. Virtually
all OF them have been making much
Of restaurant and tea room and dance
features with service bar attachments,
not to mention the regular bar. The
sale Of drinks has returned higher
percentage net profit than any other
item-which, OF course. Is circum-
stance not restricted to hotels. Loss
Of this part OF their incomes would be
grave in many cases. But the hotel
man has another lucrative commodity
to sell a commodity for which the
present demand is great, out of all
proportion to the supply. He sells
rooms. So far as he can see, II he
must loose money under prohibition,
he'll be able to make it up on higher
rates for food and lodging. What he
will do with his dried bar facilities he
doesn't, for publication. know as yet.
This leaves the restaurant operator
-the's4 roadway restaurant operator
the king of the lobster palace, the
cabaretter. Where does 1t leave him?
II you could tell him, he'd pay you
q lot Of money. He has nobody's eX-
perience to judge by. There have
been white light restaurants in cities
that have dried, but there have been
none like his.
To say that he is worried would
be unfair. He denies 1t strenuously'
In a whole days canvass the
writer could not find one worried
specimen, and this was odd, since
Invariably, "all the other men in the
business are wondering where they
ret off. But we aren't. Not for one
minute. Listen. We're going to intro
duce-"
The things they are going to intro
duce are manifold.
Let's see. The alcohol permitted In
beverages will be. as the matter stands
now. a fraction Of one per cent The
restaurant man does not intend to
try to beat the rules. He hopes that
Providence or something Will alter
them In time. (fIe's bitter on the sub
jsct of personal iibertyJ If Providence
Heclines to intervene, then he hopes
40 hold the public without alcohol.
His problem. although he does not
state It Just this way. IL. how much
>aIcoh6, IL any. is absolutely ncees'
ssry 20 ssss up the evening for patrons
On q party? -.
A regular problem. too. jazz. ia III
larrer meaning. is the thing he hai
"a sell. And he's got to sell It. In