The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-04-07
BROADWAY WAS
 READY TO DRINK BUT COULDN'T
Brewers Meant What They Said So the Thirsty Went Back to the Old SpeakeaSieS
BY SIDNEY NIPPLE

w AhAA A A<A1
 United Press Staff Correspondcnt)
 New York, April 7-(UP)- Broadway welcomed the "return" of real beer today in an atmos- phere of milk whoopee, some cyn- icism and no little suspicion.
 At midnight, when the taps were scheduled to fiow,. the Times Square district was amazed to find that the flow was merely trickle. The would-be joy-makers had thought they saw twinkle In the brewers eyes when the word went out, "no beer until A. M." But the twinkle wasn't there. Most of the brewers meant what they said.
 One lone beer truck passed through the Grand Central sector at A. M., and was followed by an impromptu parade of taxicabs and private cars. It's contents, de- posted at the Grand Central lunch bar, provided twenty minutes of refreshment for the assembled crowd and then there was no more.
 At 8 A. M., grills along upper Broadway had received 8 modest supply, but most of the clientele had gone home.
 At 4 A. M., Don Dickerman, proprietor of five of the city's most spectacular night clubs--in successive years-drank a stein of near beer and toasted myself tho biggest sucker the town ever produced" Four of his clubs have been closed by the depression and other things.
 Thousands of the would be beer drinkers, disappointed at the early morning luck of fluid sustenancc, decided to go to speakeasies. They found six of the best known speak easies in the 42nd street sector closed.
 One crowd followed a near-beer truck from one soft-drink bar to another, as 1t made it's deliveries, under the impression that 1t was distributing real beer. The cafe proprietors, through some over- sight, failed to disabuse their minds ,and an immense sale of the "cereal bevarage of less than one-half of one per cent of alco- hol content" followed.
 "It's very good beer-that's the old stuff,' most of the customers agreed.
 It was dieffrent in the German resorts of Hoboken, where "real beer" was on sale immediately after midnight. The difference be- tween the new beer and the beer that has been sold in Hoboken for 13 years is about five percent. Ho- boken has been enjoying 9 per cent beer from wildcat breweries.
 At the famous Meyers Brau- haus, in Hoboken, 13 barrels were unloaded at A. M., and the sing ing Bavarian walters. with East Side accents and feathers in their hats, sang "Ein Prosit" with a pre- tense to light hearted abandon.
 The Hofbrau House and Old third ward will meet at the home Heidelberg contributed typical "gemue-thlichkett" in which the singing of "Ias Das Nicht Fin Gartenhaus" provided as much en- tertainment as the beer.
 Greenwich Village speakeasies dropped their prices of hard stufr' to 35 cents 8 highball.
 Although beer trucks went pounding through Harlem on their way to midtown New York, they failed to stop at present-day "hot spots" such as the Cotton club ana Comics Inn and Harlem drank ginger ale and what -have-you.
 At dawn, restaurant proprietors opened up for the day, fixed signs in their windows saying 'beer on draught," and waited patiently on their sidewalks for the trucks to drive up.