Evening star., 1924-07-18
MANHATTAN DAYS
AND NIGHTS
BY HERBERT COREY.

! NEW YORK. July 15.-Old-timers
say New York isn't as interesting as
| 1t used to be. Shucks! That's be-
| cause they're old-timers Let US take
| account of stock The high-light
stories of the good old days clustered
about these pivotal points:
The bread line.
Five Points, Mulberry Bend, China
| town, the Bowery. Suicide Hall.
Mrs. Astor's gold chairs.
Diamond Jim Brady, Big Tim Sui
livan, J. p. Morgan, the Hudson
busters.
Nowadays we have no breadline.
1t may have been interesting, but it's
a good riddance. Hardly any pan
handlers. I've been held up three
times in a week. Two were men who
really wanted work and could prove
sort:
"On your way" / said. Il don't
like your stuff. It's raw
You poor fish," said the pam
handler. II got more money in my
pockets right now than you have"
1t was sheer ostentation, and / re-
sented it. But he hauled out hand
full of silver. He said he would never
work again. Also he said that he did
not drink. Not that | think that
| proves anything.
i x 81 x
The old Hudson busters are gone,
| but they never amounted to much.
Beer fuddIers, brass knuckle workers,
cheap river thieves. Now the police
complain that river piracy has be-
come II business. They want all the
junk boats cleared eff the river. Some
junk men are honest, of course. but
the police say it would take the navy
u 49,
Watch them drift along at night"
they say. a dim light showing,
showing noiselessly into dark slips.
| Give us back our dear Hudson
busters"
Spanish Louis and his gunner
were as we'll known in New York his
tory as Benvenuto Cellini was in
ltaly's. There are forty gangs,
maybe more. that could make IA tar
get out of Spanish Louis We used
to have filibusters who ran rifles to
Latin American revolutionists. To-
day there are real pirates. A dozen
or more rum running steamers have
been boarded and robbed by them just
outside the twelve-mile limit.
wv hat are We going to do about it%'
ask the police. Protect the rum
runners? That's a laugh"
They haven't made any one walk
the plank. so far any one knows,
but the total of their piratical loot
=
look like the penny stealing of a kid.
They took half a million dollars from
one steamer alone.
Safe crackers have faded away.
cluttered with them. Whenever the
fiops on the Rowery We're raided a
score of hard boiled yeggs were
caught. The safes have become too
hard to crack. Nowadays stick-up
men shoot bank guards and rob the
with il. Wall Street has no such
leader as J. +. Morgan, but one rea-
son is that the city has become over
poweringly rfch--it is the gold capital
of the world-that there are many
leaders. each in his own field. 1t is
the difference between a wagon show
and a thr ee- ring circus.
= X 4
The pawn brokers shops were al
ways good for a story in the old
days Now they have old tools and
nickel watches in the windows The
fences have Offices uptown where
they handle the high-ClaSs gem-stea
ing trade In a dignified manner. Sec
ond-hand stores where one could once
find bits of ancient artistry have be-
come antique shops. bit of real
Americana-say kitchen charts
worth hundreds of dollars. A mill
lionaire yesterday paid 500 for yell
low pine table. His home is so full
of yellow pine tables now that one
cannot revolve in it.
i. X
Here is list of show window titles
taken on Madison avenue: Pearls,
pewter. paintings, old furniture,
wrought iron, fireplaces, ancient fab
RIGS, boat models, old English and
Dutch silver, Spanish leather. ivory,
jade
The list might be enlarged indef-
nitely. And on either side are small
streets packed with gems of artistry.
One sits in a cafe transplanted from
Paris in which one rarely hears an
English word. The morning papers
tell that in less than six months more
than three billion dollars worth
three billion dollars-of New York
real estate has been sold.
And the old-timers say New York
is no longer interesting. Poor old
timers. II has grown beyond them
in power and glory and gold and
luxury. They are almost ready for
the Sailors Snug Harbor-for today
we have almost run out of sailors.