The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-13

dp OAAN 6Cv hAd0 Al CNCIybONy doesn't agree with you right away. I wish we could get Americans that self-conscious about their own liberties So Gene Buck gets a nice hike in salary from the American Society of Com posers, Authors and Publishers. His take is now $50,000 a year, and he'll earn it if he can get the name of the Society shortened so that somebody can remember it .. Can you imagine office rooms without hot water in a modern city? Well, my office in the Times Building, in the heart of the biggest city, has only cold water; never has had hot I suppose the impossibility of undermining some of the old buildings here about must be one of the reasons for tearing them down and aren't they coming down fastl
 It has been interesting to see two phases of transformation in Times Square. During the days of the big boom, 1927 to 1880, 1t was hard to work in my little room in the heart of the Square, be- cause of the noise of the riveting guns. as new buildings went sky ward. All one summer we had to shout against the terrific roar of these instruments as they raised the steel frame of the hideous Paramount building; just over the way. I lost my voice completely that summer from shouting dic- tation to a patient secretary.
 At that. time, we all believed that the whole Square and all the region around it would be rebuilt with skyscrapers. A tremendous offer was made for the Astor Hotel site and building. when there was a project a-blooming to put up the tallest building in the world at this crossroads of the world.
 Now we witness demolition of one old building after another in our neighborhood. These are buildings from four to twelve or fourteen stories high. They were slated for destruction during the boom period, to make way for skyscrapers. Now they're coming down to make room for two-story or one-story taxpayers.
 It looks as though the eventual scene might settle down to a sharply contrasting picture of very tall buildings (those built durin gthe boom) and simple structures one and two stories high. Not bad picture, either. Light will be less rare in the streets and in the lower stories of the tall buildings.
 Fact is, the antiquated build ings with slow elevators coud wa ter, faulty service and grimly dirty interior walls cannot com pete for tenants with the newer office buildings. They grow in- creasingly unprofitable to their owners as dissatisfied tenants move out. Bankers shake their heads, and down come the grimy walls.
 Wallace Bayliss. of the Booth and Bayliss Commercial School at Bridgeport. stood at the Bat tery on a recent Sunday, fasci- mated by the sight of the Norman die steaming out to sea. AS the great ship, having loosed herself from the fleet of tugs that nosed her down the river, took the wide curves of the harbor gracefully, like a long motorcar on a park way, we saw Staten Island, across the bay, disappear. The long liner actually plotted out the Island, from the perspective we were privileged to see.
 There is something inexpressi- ply thrilling in the departure of those big ships. Not only are they starting upon that trans-ocean voyage to foreign lands, which has always captured the imagination of landlubbers, but the very huge ness of them makes their swift movement seem modern miracle.
 Spot- -jottings: Floyd Gibbons, minus forty pounds of excess weight, works faster than he did when he was heaviest The in- decent literature racket has not been stopped in midtown New York. Worst offenders are still the peddlers of putrid parodies on wholesale comics of well-estab- lished reputation. Thus far. none of the hawks making the money out of this degenerate business has been arrested, according to my information And, speaking of rackets, wonder whether the gyp auctions are going to be per- mitted to take money away from Worlds Fair visitors, as they're taking it now from millions of everyday visitors Count Costa Morner is interested in a project that would sell space for commer- cial announcements on records used in 750O0 of those loud play ing machines in restaurants and places of amusement throughout the country, Wendell Hoss. one of the most talented players of wind instruments in the world, lives with his beautiful, white haired mother in an uptown apartment, and plays with top flight orchestras. His father, now