The Washington times., 1923-01-16
new YORK LIKES
ITS NIGHT
NOISES
Can't Sleep Without Usual
TumuFt-objects to
Reform.
By WARD GREENE
Cosmopolitan News Service.

Cosmopolitan News Service.
NEW YORK, Jan. 16.-Today
saw reforms campaign launched
against New York night noises.
simultaneously q million noise-in.
ured natives rose up and shouted
mol! to plans for protection OF
their eardruns.
The Bronx, where cats prowl and
dance halls glitter after dark, led
the protest They welcome any
night wall, said its citizens, but
the wall of the piccolo in the cor
ner trottery is sacred.
Broadway said eliminate the cop
per's prying amy liquor laere?'
but to let the ballyhoo bark, let
the taxi honk, let the honky tonk,
let the jazz band bray, let the
sub-rosa champagne cork pop, let
necessary" noises stay.
Would Censor the Censor.
From Greenwich Village came q
cheer and q kick. To q censor a
night noise? Asked the Hobohe.
MANS. Then censor the censor!
But let the clamors of the garnet,
the den, the studio, the cellar,
L
mostly gin talking.
The East Side Joined the chorus.
Stop, If you can, the crack OF the
gangster's gat, said It's innocent
bystanders, but leave Is our huruY.
/ gurdies. our venderS' cries, our
children's yells, our privilege to
hagRle and quarrel and laugh and
love and mourn in dozen Oil:
ferent tongues. :.
Only from Fifth avenue and
i downtown Manhattan came no OBJ.
| lection to reform. And Fifth ave.
nue. has no night noises save the
soft purr Of motor tires. while only
the wind keeps vigil after twilight
with the silent Waterman guarding
the money tornbs Of lower New
York.
4 Noise?
i Only Visitors Complain.
The visitor shrinks from the sub.
wav's roar. the rattle OF the a."
the triffic whistles, the changing
Il gongs, the fire sirene's shrek; ell
the dreadful hurly-burly of Little
4 Old New York. But Its people, by
birth or by choice, cannot live con-
i tent-or even sleep-without it. !,
i So CIemenceau, old campaigner
II he thought he was, passed restless.
~ his nights away until his break
4 fast of onion soup or hard.boiled
eggs, because sleep stood away from
him on his recent visit here, as
long as New York growled outside
Charles Dana Gibson's home.
So that famous little druggist
from Nancy, Monsieur Coue, gave
lup trying sleeper and sleeper
against the night voices Of Man
haitian ana moved to the home Of q
Ifiend in the country.
So Pf4mG md Princess Christie
lpher OF Greece metropolitans Of
many cities, received reporters at
the Ritz on the day after their ar
rival with the statement "it's a won
derful city, but when and how do
you sleep?"
Noise Music to Natives.
But dyed-in-the-tumult New York
ers work, play, eat, sleep, bicker,
brawI, worship, and rejoice to noises
which, to them, are music.
so one business executive Of big
concern says efficiency was never
lower in his office than after
riveterers finished hammering the
skyscraper going up opposite his
windows.
So Flo ziegfeld. at his homo in
the country, tOId If1en0 ne C0ulQ
not grow convalescent from his re.
cent illness till he heard Times
Square talking"
So twenty cliff-dwellers in Sew
enty-ninth street reported to work
late today. They missed, they said.
the scream Of their usual alarm
clock-Mrs. Cecilia Laszlo's parrot.
Mrs. Laszlo ID en- route to Europe
on the Royal Mail liner "Orduna."
And she took her parrot with her.
It was Polly that reused the neigh.
bors in the apartment building
promptly every morning at eight.
Night noises?
They are the life blood of New
York, whether you look down on
the great White Way and hear ite
heart beating UP to you in a
booming surf of sound, or whether
you reside on Riverside Drive and
are lulled to slumber by the hoarse
toot Of steamboats, in the Hudson
on foggy nights.
Crusades against them are cru.
sades against the impregnable. New
York really would not stop them ii
it could-even the wall of Mehitabel,
the cat.