The Washington herald., 1920-01-10
NEW YORK CITY
By o. o. MCINTYRE

joy-rides OF the Broadway reveiers
have diminished of late, The stage
door Johns used to leave the cafes
about one o'clock for q dash to the
Westchester road-houses and cock
tail drinking became a progressive
anair-fron one, to another-until
dawn or until. the revel stopped by a
Twin Ten going over a cliff or
climbing a tree.
There was something appealing to
the hardened Broadwayite about IAN
auto drive at midnight. 1t took him
out of an atmosphere of tobacco
smoke. jags, wine. perfume and
forced hilarity and into the atmos-
phere picturesque and rural.
The vari-colored dance floor spot
light Is gaudy and cheap when COM
pared to the high and benign
ly white moon that bathes the rib
bon-like roads along the Sound.
Chorus girls found a time to reflect.
too. as the cars hummed and sang
their way past dignified villages and
out again into the countryside.
There are flashes, too, Of the moon
enlightened water shimmering
ghostly-like among the weeds and
trees and after one has had several
cocktails the tremendous dignity Of
the thing goes to ones head and one
Is liable to become sentimental and
sniffle about home and mother and
a false life.
Then one is liable to recline ones
head on another's shoulder. Hero
stun! But while the cafes and
saloons of Broadway are selling
openly the road houses are not TAX
ing any chances. They are selling
only to those whom they know and
promiscuous drinking until sun-up is
no more.
So 1t is that the Broadwayite
leaves his car in the garage and his
apartment becomes a rendezvous for
the all-night party. Nearly every
man who plays the busy hive of
Broadway at night these days has
dance space in his apartment. He
also has a well-stocked liquor cab
met and the parties go on until
sun-up just the same.
Except that they do not get the
fresh air and the inspiration for
sentimentality that they did in the
cid joy-riding road-house days that
are gone.
The Catharine Street Market. the
picturesque gathering of foreign
born Americans, aliens and sailor
merchants from all over the world.
has been closed by the police. Too
many carts blocked the street. The
| market was one of the most inter-
esting places on the lower East Side
S1ndaU nnnrninO-ft0 htatast
| time. Here came the Hindu sailor
from India and his parity. the cooiie
from China; sailors from Spain and
all over the world. A hardy lot.
They came to buy bargains before
daylight. The foreign sailors bar
gained for only those goods which
they could resell at a profit to their
fellow countrymen when they re-
turned home. There Is one old
tradesman who has been coming to
| the market every four years for the
last three decades to make purchases
for shop his wife conducts in
Bombay. 1t takes the old man
nearly all of the four years to get
home and back to the market by
shipping before the mast. He Is on
his way now, not knowing the mar
ket is closed.
IN push carts of Catharine Street
were marvels of ingenuity. While
they were pushed to market on two
wheels they resembled a huge box,
which, when unfolded. took up a
space about three times the original
size OF the cart. When unpacked
these department stores in miniature
made one wonder IL Aladdin had not
rubbed his lamp to bring so much
out of so small a place. On these
carts one could buy anything from
vegetables to an outfit of clothes.
Leonard Merrick said he had never
seen a city open it's eyes so good
humoredly as Paris and one always
thinks of Paris as frivolous as it's
flashing fountains. But Broadway
opens its eyes with a Crouch and 1t
is not until lunch time that sluggish
blood begins to circulate. Conduc-
tors, walters. clerk and policemen
are surly along Broadway early.
Pedestrians. too. will snarl at being
jostled but later they will smile.
New York seems to hate its morn
ings.