The Washington herald., 1922-05-12
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NEW YORK. April 11.-Thoughts
while strolling around New York:
The Washington Square art center.
Intellectual giants and pygmies.
Living in attics and top floors of
old mansions, Jolly black boards
and flowing ties. Haggard and
restless exotics. Tragic eyes and
mouths like red Sits in Pierrot
white faces. Why does art have TO
be so serious?
Men and women sculpting before
open windows. Ashcans piled with
pinch-bottles, stale sandwiches and
Russian cigarette butts. Coffee and
tea rooms a-buzz with cynics. Tiny
parks with middle class husbands
rolling their own-baby carriages
Sidewalk groups discussing mill
looms. shorter hours, capitalism and
perhaps violence. Barrel organs
and lollypops.
Fourteenth street. Coquettish and
cheaply perfumed. No art. just
strident commerce. Merchant prince
lings in the making. Fifth ave-
nue. top-notchers started here. They
still have penny-arcades. And medi-
cal museums with Van Dyked medi-
cal charlstans on the floor above
Viennese bakeries and latticed pref
eel stands.
Baskets of pink-nosed rabbits.
Twenty-Five cents a pair. like to
watch their noses twitch Cellar
book shops heaped with phiIosophic
rubbish yellow with age. Summer
vagabonds doing In the starry
spaces. Short streets that blurr
into shambles. The old cafe where
Jack London used to expound
socialistic theories. And drink It
straight.
Clerks in white flannels subway.
Ing to Coney Island. Row after
row OF boarded saloons. who was
1t said men kill the thing they
love? Jo Anderson. the sculptor.
Ancient cabbies dropping on their
perches in front Of the Brevoort.
John Siddall, the editor. Scrubbed
white stone steps and shiny brass
knockers. And Mark Twain's peace
full old home. An empty seat atop
bus. Now for a ride near the
clouds.
Karl Kitchen. the globe trotting
journalist. recently occupied the
same state room with Douglas
Fairbanks en- route to California.
One morning they were in the midst
OF an interesting discussiou and the
train went suddenly into long
tunnel. Kitchen was driving home
forcible point and when the train
came out into the sunlight again
he found himself talking to an
empty plush seat. Fairbanks had
prankishly lifted himself into the
clothes shelf along the side of the
room.
Talking about acrobatics. every
now and then at the n. v. A. club
home OF vaudevillians-some Of
the testers walk out OF the club on
their hands and stand about talk
ing to each other while trarfc pro-
ceeds to come to a full and decided
stop. Then they pull phony fights
on summer evenings. One acrobat.
after a crowd has collected. swings
at another and the man receiving
the blow turns a back somersault in
the air and after lighting crouches
and calls "I dare you to hit me-"
The broadway dancing "acade-
mics" are being raided almost
weekly. Many of them are said to
he run by astute criminals who
have the professional dancers"
there to lure men to robbery and
confidence schemes. Also the girls
always know Of some secret place
where one may buy a drink Of per-
haps a quart of the good old stun.
They get percentage OF all the
trade they secure. The places are
also haunts for the desperate young
criminals who have been playing
such havoc with cigar store cash
registers OF late.