New Britain herald., 1930-03-06

I &NC" | Oi hy AAdl. 1AS ADO"-i | is still the Bowery. Chain store opu- | lence has failed to blot out it's ac- customed dinginess. There are strips of the glowering wide thoroughfare as colorfully rowdy as they were iil the days of Suicide Hall and Steve Brodie's swing door saloon. Sidewalk hucksters arc still hawking everything from 1o-cent neckties to 50-cent workshirts. Plas- ter of Paris statues continue to be sold from capacious head baskets | of dark, sinister men with rings in their ears. Alcoholic harridans lurch from doorways to hiccough impreca- tions.
 |, Even the old time song book, featuring mournful ballads, are held out by shuffling figures and men with lost voices and sunkan noses whisper for a dime for "a cuppa caw-fee." Before daylight each morning the eternal breadlines form in front of missions. The scared Chinese theater - now called the The Cathedral Of | the derworld-attracts it's nightly voices in Washed in the Blood of the Lamb" while 6 creaky organ Uheezes it's dolorous accompanime
 Even the Mutoscope parlor flour ishes with all the penny-a-peep fa- | vorites on view-"After the Bath,' They Forgot to Lower the Cur | tain" and "The Rich Mans Play thing" Pictures, incidentally, not | half so naughty as the daily tabloid fare.
 Over pawnshop doors faint bells | tinkle at night to guide unsteady feet to havens where they may pro- cure change for shots of Bowery smoke" In one block were three "reliever" shops. Here patrons may exchange some article of wearing apparel for something shoddier - with few pennies to boot.
 On church steps after dusk are sprawled unfortunates, wrapped in newspapers, and fighting for a few hours of dreamless sleep. Hash houses, carpeted with sawdust, and their dim blobs of light add to the depressing etching of The Port of Missing Men.
 | In the Bowery dance hall adnis- sion is $1. For this one may dance ten dances. The hired dancing girls stand on one side of the room and at the first blare of the orchestra walk toward patrons who select their partners from among them. Sometimes three or four men will rush for the same girl and there is crowding and showing. But the bouncers are there with strips If rubber hose to see there are no fisti- cuffs.
 After midnight I dropped into q beefsteak place in Chatham Square. The menu offered the following: Pea soup, cents; coffee and sink CTS, cents; beef stew with crack CTS, 14 cents; potatoes, cents, and applie pie cents There were seven customers, two asleep over table tops. A legless man dragged himself in to play "Suawanec River" on a mouth organ. After Q few bars hc was driven out with a guttery curse.
 The waiter, pock-marked fel- low, with the most incredibly filthy apron l ever saw, cooked willy eye and inquired my wants. 1 ordered cup of coffee and an orange, ill., tending to touch neither. He scene to sense something out of the ordi- nary, hesitated-while my heart skipped beat-and slouched off sulkily to the kitchen. 1 overheard him say to someone in the rear: "An uptown boy looking us over. I dawdled over the coffee slipped the orange in my pocket and was l glade to see the policeman a few doors away!
 Chinatown, after midnight, had