The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-09-12
In New York
. s~ss ss->.
BY PAUL HARRISON

New York-The development Of
stainless steel, together with the
rise In the price of gold, has played
hob with the gold-leaf business.
Goldbeating is one of the few
old crafts left in New York that
are passed along in families for
generations. There still are quite
a few families engaged in it.
mostly on Hudson Street, in
Greenwich Village, and over near
as proud and prosperous as in the
gilded days.
Repeal of prohibition has help
ed some, there being a demand
for gold-lettered liquor signs. But
there hasn't been big job since
the top of the, American Radiator
Building was covered with $10,-
900 worth of the precious stuff.
In idle moments, which are plen-
tiful, goldbeaters glare hatefully
at the great expanses of chromi-
UNI on the Empire State Building,
which would have been a gold-leaf
job If erected decade earlier.
Most of the expense of gold leaf
comes in the labor Of thinning it
QUITO q thickness of about three
or four one-millionths of an inch.
A good beaten gets about 1900
square feet of leaf from IL ounces
of gold. First 1t is melted with
secret alloy. then rolled very thin.
The sheets are cut in squares,
placed between layers of parchment
put on granite block and wal
loped with a heavy hammer. The
sheets keep spreading out and
every now and then the beating is
stopped to cut them into smaller
squares.
The final beatings are done with
the gold between goldbeaters'
skins - an extra expensive parch-
ment obtained somewhere in the
innards of oxen. The craftsmen
work in closed, practically air
tight rooms, and won't let any
body watch them. Atmospheric
conditions have. to be just right,
and even then the thin sheets
sometimes turn to powder.
Among my souvenirs is book
containing "a sheets of gold leaf,
one of my such tokens present
ed to reports a few years ago by
the late Daddy Browning during
a soiree in his new real estate Of
flee. One room was done in gold,
another was covered - walls and
ceiling - with letters from little
girls of IS and 20 who wanted to
be adopted.
Indoor Sports
With q chill in the evening air,
this is q good time for report on
the progress Of the sidewalk cafes
which have been SO widely hailed
as harbingers of gracious, cosmo-
politan living. Well, the fact Is that
they haven't been doing very well.
Nobody on lower Fifth Avenue -
which Is pretty clean will admit
failure, but in other sections the
proprietors confess that al fresco
drinking and dining was only a
noble experiment.
Manhattan Just isn't Paris, nor
yet Vienna. After q time one
finds 1t impossible to pretend that
the dust in ones soup is freshly
ground pepper, or that the alien
veloping carbon monoxidc is per-
fume from adjacent gardens.
There's another important differ
ence, too; much of the daytime
leisure INDUCED by New Workers
is strictly illicit. A fellow with a
job would rather head for a dark
cornor in an air-cooled cocktail
den than sit at a sidewalk table inn
full view of any passing boss, or
wife, or creditor.
Cashing in q Fortune
The towns first sidewalk cafe,
though pretty closely screened by
shrubbery, Is the old Royal on Sec
ond Avenue. It has tprospered for
something like two generations.
and apparently always will. Pros
porous, too, is Herman OF the Roy
al. Herman is not, as you'd imagine.
the owner, the chef, or even the
headwaiter. Herman is q busboy.
THE busboy, in fact, and has been
for % years. II he could read or
write he would have been q waiter,
and that would have been unfor-
tunate for Herman, who as a funk
ey has laid aside a tidy fortune and
educated two sons--one at Harvard,
one at West Point.
Herman gets generous tips
when. while helping patrons into
their coats, he complains politely
about the sad state of business and
the shocking ingratitude OF the av-
erage diner. But the way he has
made most Of his money ID cashing
checks for a small fee. 1t Ia said
that he always carries q thousand
dollars in his pocket for check
cashing purposes. II ID said. too,
that Herman never has lost Q
nickel BY misjudEement Of client.