The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-08-28
By JACK LAIT
TALE OF TWO CITIES -PLIJS HOLLYWOOD:

PLUS HOLLYWOOD:
 A bright young woman sent in her name-Marianne De Graff, representing the Brooklyn Eagle. She wanted to interview me. I took her to lunch at the Palm, that picturesque hangout for our craft around the corner. The youngster wanted to know about the forth coming book-which hasn't been announced. but of which her edl- tor had heard.
 It's New Confidential a collaboration with Lee Mortimer, now being printed for Readers Press, and due, I think. in fort night or so. She wanted especially to ask about our treatment of Brooklyn. Well, I had to admit we rather neglected the big borough over the river, as the Subject-mat- ter is concentrated largely on Man. hattan-Greenwic Village, China town, Harlem. Park Avenue and, especially Broadway. She asked:
 "But-you're a Chicagoan, aren't you?"
 I suppose. judging from my re- cent paragraphs, I am Chicago minded But I was New Yorker In the first instance, moved to Chi cago when I was 12, spent Is happy years there, started my professional career there, loved that city as only an inpressionable boy, growing to manhood in a community which treated him generously, where he was married and where his chill dren were born, could love 8 place.
 I have been a New Yorker again for more years than I had spent in Chicago. I returned here virtual stranger. The Big Burg fascinated me. I had more Broadway contacts than most New Workers, for all the big shots had to come to Chicago, and there they were lonesome, and they were glad to mingle. 1 was for years on Variety-not fulltime- and I talked their lingo. But, be- vond theatrical personalities. it was all pretty new to me.
 In New York-Confidentia Mortimer (who was born in Chi cago) and I have tried to set down what isn't in the guide books. There's practically nothing about Grants tomb, the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. But there's lots of loWdoWn on where the tourists cant crash. with case histories that aren't in the Sunday supplements and backstage scenery that isn't in the movies.
 We will follow this up with "Hol- lywood-Confidenti I'm going there again next week, on my 67th visit. I have home there. Mor- timer. the Mirror movie reviewer and reporter. as well as the night life columnist. has been there in numerable times, too Then we will go all out-for the third of the series will be "Chicago-Confi- dential.n That's one into which we'll really throw our hearts.
 Chicago has changed much. The war affected it's social life more than 1t did most big cities. And it has been undergoing metamor- phoses for years. have been tthere scores of times in score of years. I noticed the changes a lot more than the natives there could. These we will study first-hand, Then. with the old Chicago that we knew as atmosphere for contrast, parallel and relief, we should knock off a revealing book.
 There I lived through the gesta- tion and birth of gangsterism as we now know it; there, also, l met the finest, squarest, liveliest and most colorful Amricans of my life. That's one huge metropolis where one knows his neighbors; where every thing is on a colossal scale, but nothing as much so as friendships, where we played harder, worked harder, moved faster and lived more intensely than New York ever die or could.
 Yes, guess Marianne De Graf. was right. I'm still a Chicagoar Confidential
 A Crisis is Imminent in the dom rtio a fPoirc of tba Iobp Japob Az.