The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-08-26
F IN HI H NEW \ II YORK
By PAUL HARRISON

pressed in thls space recentiy tuaS George M. Conan hadn't been per- suaded to write a song to whoop up the MIRA drive. We'll, MT Conan is writing one-although 1t may only take the form of some new
 lyrics to his great war ditty. over
 There" Inctdentany, the orls-
 inal manuscript of the latter song
 is in the government arcnives aI Washington as oneof the treasureo | s.ofIiciaI documents." The late Leo Feist. music publisher. bought the song outright from Conan Tor s25,OOO and later gave the manu- script to the government. Conan, in turn, gave the .$25,000 Co . war relief organization.
 Berlin's First Backer
 Broadway is popularly supposed | to be peopled by a lot of sentimen- | talists, but sometimes it forgets in- | dividuals who have played impor- tant but obscure roles in it's de- velopment as a Gay Way, The | other day, for instance, there were
 small items about, the death of
 retired sportsman named Henry Watterson at his summer estate | near Saratoga Springs As
 mtter of fact, Watterson was the
 discoverer of Irving Berlin, and thus was partly responsible for the
 change in tempo of Americas pop ular music.
 In the days when Berlin was a pretty terrible performer and abe | solutely unknown as composer. | he was making the rounds of Tin Pan Alley with his first pieces, and
 being laughed out of the very best | offices Watterson, who had managed the Crystal Palace the ater and then become a music publisher in a small way. decided | that ragtime had chance of
 catching on, so he accepted Ber- lin's early efforts. Then came "Do- l rando," "Alexander's Ragtime
 Band" and others; also the firm of Watterson, Berlin and Snyder In 1912 Berlin broke away and formed his own company.
 That Was Chinatown Incidentally, one of the places
 where Irving Berlin used to sing
 in those early days is going to bs
 revived. It's the Mandarin, in
 Chinatown, bright and romantic spotof the Bowery some 25 years | ducer of the Scandals, danced there too, and there were many | others. The walters all wore queues, the food was genuinely Chinese, and the atmospheric | thrills were real Now, of
 course, therell be chop suey and | a jazz orchestra, and If you see an Oriental sinking around a corner
 with dagger in his teeth you may be pretty sure he's just a stooge for the management. For all that, the district could l use another good restaurant. Right
 now the Port Arthur and the Chi nese Delmonico's are about the
 best, most of their eastwhile rivals having moved up to the Broadway ! belt, and right into the capitalistfc clutches of Messrs Chin and Lee |. These two gentlemen have
 made themselves quite wealthy selling chow mein and chop suey,
 which they deliver regularly to hundreds of restaurants and also sell in the numerous places they
 have come to own by now. Chin
 and Lee live in Greenwich Village
 instead of Chinatown. And, by the way, neither of them ever eats
 chop suey or chow mein.
 Make Hot Spots Pay
 Most of the gawdy dance-and-
 dine palaces are controlled by
 syndicates of Chinese bankers and importers, who also deal largely
 in the kitchen concessions of other kinds of night clubs and restau-
 rants. You'd be surprised, in fact, to know how many swanky hot spots have been financed entirely by Chinese capital.
 The first major invasion of Broadway by the chop ,suey men
 was. when the Palais Royale be- came the Palais DOT. Many of
 the best bands in the country to-
 day played there at one time or
 another = Guy Lombardo, Paul Whiteman, B.. A. Rolfe, Ted Lewis,
 Ted Waring and so ion. The place
 prospered, and it still does-and
 the Chinese proprietor now goes
 under the name of MT Dor
 Next to feel Oriental domination
 was theold Delmonico's at Forty
 eighth street and Broadway. It
 already had failed dismally under four different night club manage
 ments, and once had borne the
 nameof Paul Whiteman. But the
 Chinese made success of it from
 the start.