Putnam patriot., 1929-06-06

that trail the floor in the back and touch their knees in the front The dH of the music is terrible, the food .s nohdescript. the prices awful, and the place is jammed nightly.
 At the Park Casino
 The transformation of the SC. Regis from it's twenty-year old groove was largely due to Mr. Anthony J. Drexel Riddle, young gentleman Of debonair manner, given Co somewhat conspieu- ous clothing, and favorite among ms friends. Mir. Riddle married the heir css to great tobacco fortune Who in- herited, among other properties, the St. Regis Hotel. Now MT. Riddle IS democratic and his motto IS Let Us Be Gay" One day, during the con struetion of the st. Regis Roof Gar den, Mir. Biddle's eyes roamed over Central Park and according to legend, rested upon the crumbling wooden mass of the Park Casino. The Casino, as you may remember, IS rather a#- ful looking wooden structure near the East Seventy Second Street entrance. Time was in the late Victorian days when horses in the Park were pos sessions of pride. when our fathers and mothers went to the Casino for lunch and many a elandestine romance was arranged there at the tea hour Of late years the Casino has fallen out of repute. The food served was very, very bad. The patronage was none too good. Mir. Riddle saw there a charming center for civic and social entertaining By devious routes, in- cluding the support of Mayor James J Walker, whose motto is even more superlative than Mir Biddles since 1t reads Let Us Ever Be Gay" Mir. Bid de and his friends gained possession of the lease on the Casino. Forth with he called in MT. Urban again, set up n stock company and spent al- most half a million dollars in making the Casino n thing of beauty. Movie magnates, real estate dealers, bankers and society people rallied to his aid, while the "penny dreadfuls" cried loud and long that young Mir. Riddle was snatching a playground from the people. Much of this was nonsense ''The people" had paid little or no at tention to the Casino for these many years. Under Mir, Riddle and Mir. Ur- bans management, together with their gilt-edged confreres, the place has been a beautiful spot that should have the atmosphere of those pleasant and luxurious restaurants in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, in the country called France which is a republic that k not republic This week Mir. Bid dle opened the Casino. a decided and delightful addition to the summer life of New York.
 Late Straw Hats
 Never before have We seen the straw hat season so late in arrival. Small wonder that the hat manufae- turers and the merchants are crying aloud of their losses Not only have the hats appeared in small numbers since the official date of May l5 for change, but there is a decided inclina- tion among the younger generation of males Co wear no hats at all. In Mad ison Avenue the other day, in the cen ter of the street with traffic whizzing to the right and to the left of him, we observed blonde young man, hatless and with his coat over his arm. calmly draw out a comb and pass it tenderly through his curly locks The other sex, too, has been in no hurry to put on summer headgear. A chief sales woman for big Fifth Avenue shop was heard to say the other day that fewer straws had been purchased by women this year than in ten years past. The weather is probably at fault for this. The loss to the mer- chants is enormous.
 ln this column we have hitherto urged all summer visitors to New York Co see that splendid and beauti- full play at the Henry Miller Theatre. Journeys End" to our way of think ing, nearly the most perfect thing that we have ever seen in the theatre. That glib and competent critic. Mir. Alexander Woleott, with whom we sometimes agree and frequently do not, has written for the current issue of Golfers Weekly, a fine and touch ing estimate of the piece. If you do not take our recommendation, read Mir. Woleott's tribute, a bit of writing of which he should be, and probably is, very proud.
 We predict with Mir. Wolcott that Journeys End" will run on like the brook. Meanwhile, the end of the sea- son weekly takes away it's quota of the seasons dramatic productions. That strange dramatic phenomenon, "The Strange Interlude," continues, ai- though the Theatre Guild would will lingly close it up and give the worm out players a rest after their year and a half of constant presentation of this tive-to-eleven theatrical curiosity Mir Freedley's two productions, Hold Ev- erything' and Spring Is Here" con- tinue among the most popular of the musical pieces and for contrast. at the Hippodrome. "rhe Passion Play" a gigantic spectacle surrounding the German Freiburg Players modest presentation of the life of Christ. is packing the huge playhouse to the doors
 Resumes of the theatrical season re- veal that on the whole the managers have lost sadly Success has come from unexpected sources. The Pulit- ger Prize Play, Street Scene" was predicted sure failure. "Journey's End. it was said. would never appeal to American audiences. Miss Barry more has had two quasi-successes, and Miss Cowl has had the same. Some of the musical plays have done well, others have done little or no business.