Evening star., 1943-02-27
BY WARD MOREHOUSE.

Start, say, below Forty-second
street and your course is northward
along Broadway and its fringes. If
it's rainy night the dimout be-
comes an approximation of Lon
don's blackout; the streets are scary,
the pavements slick and cabs are
forever scooting from around the
corners and scudding through the
curb puddles.
But wet or dry. there's now an
eeriness to Broadway after pm,
and this is particularly apparent as
you start your pilgrimage-start it
in the forbidding stiffness of 39th
street, where the name of Maxine
Elliott remains above q Shuttered
playhouse and where, just across the
way, the tiny Princess used to tingle
with the melodies of "Oh, Boy!'
Move into Broadway. Red and
blue lights blink wanly from the
marquee of the Met. A fruit vender
materializes on one corner and
flower peddler on another. The flow
OF taxicabs is continuous and in all
directions-yellow cabs and greens,
creams and saucy oranges and others
In garish skidding,
careening, footing, splashing. And
there at the intersection white
belted cop looms as a gymnastic
wrath in the dimout.
Forms in the Night.
The Empire, standing right where
it's been for half a century-its
lobby walls adorned with portraits
of great ladies who have graced its
stage, and the lobby serving now
as one of the towns meeting places.
Katherine Cornell is there on
the wall and Gertrude Lawrence
and Ethel Barrymore, but where's
Jeanne Eagels?
Go along to Times Square. There
are grotesque forms and shapes on
every side, always emerging sud-
denly out of the shadows. A west
bound, cross-toWn trolley is clang-
ing at your elbow and a northbound
bus almost bowls you over. The
hometown paper man chants his
wares and pedestrians are david
ling, jostling, window gazing. Only
on Broadway, in the great city New
York, and along Main street, Rocky
Mount, N. c., do hatless girls, arm
in-arm, stroll four abreast along a
crowded sidewalk.
Anna May Wong at the New York
=. Walgreen's and Chin's and the
famous Astor, an institution since
1907. -. Shoes for sale on the site
of the old Cadillac, the site on
which Eugene O'Neill was born. Tof-
fenetti's doing rousing restaurant
business on the very spot where
Herman Rosenthal was murdered.
Rugs for sale, flowers that glow
in the dimout, coffee and dough-
nuts and Tennessee johnson" at
the Astor Wilson Miner just
wouldn't know the street in which
he used to proWl.
Gaiety and Globe Missed.
Continue northward and you're in
the square we call Longacre. :.
James Cagney in Yankee Doodle
Dandy What's become of the
famous Gaiety Theater? There,
where "Lightnin' Played for three
years, the structure is now called
simply Latf Movie, and they let 1t
go at that. The Globe, Charlie
Dillingham's famous house? The
name stands and movies reign. :.
Doused for the duration are the big
signs of Rupert and Schaefer and
Pepsi-Cola.
Longacre square? The Service
mems Center holds forth nightly and
the blind John LAM still presides
over the news stand he has had for
20 years. The dimout has never
affected Johns business, he knows
the voice of every customer and
hasn't been fooled 10 times in all
his sightless life.
Chin Lees and the China Palace.
:. Lindy's and the Hurricane.
Pingpong and table tennis. i.
Coffee and doughnuts and skinless
frankfurters with beans. Rug
sales, greeting cards, photos while
you wait, blackout flowers, giant
malts, cut-rate books, chop suey,