The Washington herald., 1920-02-14
New York City
By o. o. Mcintyre

new 1Ofk, req. b.-Ihe most Typical
New Yorkish crowd is to be found at
the vaudeville theaters-where variety,
indeed, proves the spice Of life to
young gents from Brooklyn who say
'sawr"' for saw and ''ideer" for idea,
and for Cert and Mayme up Bronx
way who wear tams and chew gum.
1t Is in the variety houses that the
applause 10 real and prolonged. The
problem plays and dray-mahs OF
Broadway are not applauded too gen.
erously for it stamps the applaudee of
the bourgeoise. The Keith houses are
sprinkled all over town. beginning
with the Palace. in Longacre. and ex-
tending to the far reaches of Bronx
and Harlem.
Neighborhood crowds, snappy young
clerks. pretty stenographers and 9TH
ers of the greatly beloved middle
class gather here. Some occupy the
same seats year in and year out. and
they discuss a new skit or q new dane
ing team with more earnestness than
a group of serious thinkers discuss
Barrymore in ''Declasse" around a
Ritz tea table. =
Vaudeville is made up week after
week of the same ingredients. But it
always finds a responsive chord with
the Manhattanese. The fat soprano
lin a blue-spangled gown. who sings
OF the little gray home out yonder.
brings tears with her final screech
"Miserere." She is billed as Nine. Gal
vino, the celebrated Milan soprano. In
real life she Is Mrs. Maggie O'Riley.
OF Tenth avenue.
Then the eccentric dancers! They
are always sure fire hits from the time
they float out on a billow of applause
in a ballroom dance until they get out
their jerseys and cigarette butts and
show the horrors OF life among the
Paris Apaches.
Gilhooley and Rose seem to hold
their own. OF course, you know them.
Gilhooley Is rather stout, wears a
checkered suit, brown spats and a
pearl derby and swings a cane-the
man-about-town type. Rose Is chic
the program says so. She wears
ballet costume and a mappy hat.
While she sings. Gilhooley supplies in
termediate lines. He is a wise-crack-
ing guy, and never fails to get his
share of laughs.
No bill is complete, too, without the
Shimmy Queen. She has a hard face,
winks at the galleries and talks to the
orchestra leader with easy familiarity.
One of her lines, while she is trying
to shake off her tights. apparently
goes like this: "And l quit a regular
job to do this" The animal act. which
invariably closes the bill, is never
walked out on in New York. People
stay until the final drop of the curtain.
Thirteen miles or more without a
single church. That's Is the unusual
part of q walk or ride along Third
avenue from Fourteenth street to its
terminus at Fordham in the Bronx.
There seems to be no clear reason for
Third avenues present state of ap-
parent ungodliness. Perhaps the era
of prohibition will alter Third avenues
religious situation. The churches may
now secure the foothold formerly held
There were 435 saloons along the thir.
teen miles of thoroughfafe.'
There is a Born and bred New York
er who lives a few blocks north of
my demesne and within sight of the
Central Park Obelisk Yet In CONVEX
sation with him the other day he re-
called only family of, having seen it.
To me that is the strange phase Of
metropolitan existence. Back in our
town we would walk from one end of
the town to the other to see a ship
carved in a bottle, or a travelling gen.
tleman with a high collar at the hotel.
And here is the Obelisk presented to
New York by a Khedive of Egypt,
transported on special steamer. that
goes unheralded and unnoted by a
man who has it at his very doorway.
The Obelisk was one of the two known
as "Cleopatra's Needles" and was
quarried from Nubian granite and set
up originally at Heliopolis by Thut-
NOSE III, an ancient ruler of Egypt
The expense of transporting the stone
to this country was borne by William
H. Vanderbilt.
A filter In the most exclusive Ia
dies tailor shop in Manhattan recent
ly sued for back salary, and it was
revealed that she got $500 salary and
percentage of the sales of the suits
she fitted. Most filters are young
East Side girls, who start as errana
girls and learn all branches Of the
business.