The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1922-06-17
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DAP By Day.
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NEW YORK. June 1s. Those
snowy little souvenir shops that
screech their phonogra phic call to
passersby along Forty-second street
and Broadway are oddly detached
from the usual fare of commerce.
Cigarette pufhng Turks heads
topped with a fez. await the Gus
toner eagerly.
Nothing is too much trouble. They
will spend an hour trying to sell
a 10-cent balloon toy. And IL they
fail, they salaam graciously and es-
cort the visitor to the door. bidding
him call again. The windows are
bullying with all sorts Of Jigumbobs
from a pen knife to a bass drum.
The proprietors are merchandising
specialists. What the usual store
hides away on basement counters
they put forth in gaudy dress to en-
tice the buyer. There is about the
souvenir shop the namboyant atmo-
sphere OF the country fair.
Blonde ladies thump the latest Tin
Pan alley ditties. Tenors, in seedy
Tuxedoes. sing the musical comedy
hits. Two or three monographs are
running at once. Noise max ,ng de-
vices are tested by clerks and trick
pencils explode with a bang. 1t IL
like a visit to some Coney Island
Wonderland.
Most of the shops are owned by a
syndicate. The statesmen have a SAL
airy guarantee-it takes little to live
in Manhattan's Turkish Guarter-but
theirl livelihood depends on making
sales for which they receive a per-
centage. That is why the clerks
are so persistently tenacious.
They do not work by the clock.
One OF the c'""ks told me his hours
were wha'"vo" he made them. AS
they are crs in a strange land
they como LEX In the evening and
usually labor until midnight. The
Broadway souvenir shops remain open
until o'clock in the morning to
catch the chorus girl trade. Those on
Forty-second street close at midnight
Trinity's sexton is one man In New
York who never takes q vacation.
Some one may require a burial or
marriage at any moment. In the dim
somewhere about He literally lives
among the half-lights of yesterday.
The present sexton has been on
the job forty years. He Is a cultured.
scholarly man who seems to be more
OF the days when Washington lived
on the block below and Exchange
Place had the domestic name of Tin
pot alley than Of the vivid present.
He has seen New York sweep north
ward with the rush OF a rocket. He
can recall the happy sleishing parties
that used to be held on lower Broad
way OF wintry evening. He Is al
ways happy to see visitors and to
show them about. pointing out the
Virgin. high above the door: the cru
cifx carved by Anton Lang. who
plays Christus at Oberammersau.
the throne OF purple occupied by
the Archbishop OF Canterbury In
1904 and the magnificent altar en-
broideries. investments, frontals.
chalice wells and stones.
The clerk in the poetry department
OF New York's largest book store
tells me that fat men are the greatest
readers Of poetry. And-whisper It
softly-he says they always want
the mushiest kind OF sonnets."
Few persons have been so uni
versally mourned along Broadway at
death as was Miss Lillian Russell.
She was part OF the Broadway
consciousness-as much so as Long
acre Square. Herald Square and Co.
lumbus Circle. The news was a dis
tinct blow to Joe Weber. Lew Fields
and Willie Collier. To them she was
a pal and counselor. They had come
up from the old mseum days together
and each had seen the other scale
the heights. She was. without doubt.
the most popular actress in the length
and breadth Of Broadway.