The Wilmington morning star., 1947-01-08
Looking Backward

Long ago-in the years just before our War
of independence and for some years after
ward-New York's gayer night life centered
about the lower end of Broadway, just above
the Bowling Green. Then the Fields, promot-
ed to City Hall Park, was the focus, with
High Fashion on Broadway and theatres in
Park Row and Chambers Street. Later still,
Union Square was the rallying point, and
after that Madison Square. Then came Her
aid Square, and next Times Square. In the
first decade of this century persons impatient
of the slow northward march OF progress
tired to move the center up to Columbus
Circle.
1t is a curious fact. hoWever-and 1t was
used by the inventors of Rockefeller Center
as an argument for their peculiar architec-
tural arrangement-that in New York, for
profitable use, the open space must not be
SO great as to prevent congestion. Business
and pleasure alike abhor a vacuum. Both
must have crowds to produce the air of hustle
and. the contagion of gaiety on which both
thrive. The Rockefeller people liked to remind
us that this was not just a New York idea.
Paris has it, too. The Rue de la Paix is
lined with busy shops. The Place Vendome
stops the procession of profit and pleasure.
1t begins again when you reach the Rue
Castiglione on the other side of the square
watched over by Napoleon on his column.
1t helps, it seems, il people can see both
sides of the market place. When the Rialto
was in Fourteenth street the lively part of it
lay east Of Union Square and turned up into
coy Irving Place. And Times Squares great
advantage, besides its strategic position on the
city's transportation map, is the fact that it
is narrow enough to keep both sides a part of
one big swarm and spectacle.
It is interesting to note, therefore, that Fit-
ty-ninth Street has all of d sudden become
a sort Of dress parade of nighttime gaiety.
The way is lined with inviting (and expensive)
restaurants from the Plaza westward. This,
though the broad sidewalk along the Park wall
opposite lies in shadow and the Park is a
dim and leafy reach FOR two and a half miles
beyond.
Our night side operative says that the horse
carriages which have always invited the ro-
mantically inclined to explore the Park after
dark and conferred upon the adventure
comparative safety - are no longer just
punched about the Fifth Avenue end of the
street at the Plaza. Now they stand and wait
all along the Swallowed side of the street be-
side the Park wall.
Their patient beasts and their vehicles
(Which grow quainter as more of ancient and
forgotten vintage are fetched out of storage)
now occupy an advance post under the bright
lights in front of the Maine Monument at the
Circle.
And the Circle. 1t isn't Times Square yet,
though our night side operative was asked by
a pleasant-taced young man in a locomotive
fireman's cap whether it wasn't, and though
the American Repertory Theatre is playing
shakespeare. 1bsen and Shaw in what he re-
members as the theatre in which we used to
see Fred Stone as the Scarecrow - or the
lin Woodman - We forget, at this distance,
which was Stone and which Montgomery. The
soap boxes, we understand, are still doing
business at the old stand, furnished with pro-
lectlve coloring by the Stars and Stripes, and
spllllng oratory from the mouths Of evange-
lists. But the soap-box orators are banished
from the place after II O'Clock 49, for the
sake, we are told. of the inhabitants of the
new apartments which have taken possession
of the southeast corner. And our scout Gid not
get there until around midnight.
However, dotted about the open space
around the column where the Great Navigator
stands fixed post still fingered little knots Of
men. They were in earnest argument - the
scout says - about matters which none o. us
quite understands and most Of us trv to face
with equanimity. And on the sidewalk where
the back drop was the dingy front Of what
used to be the Virginia Hotel. and has stood
south OF the Circle since back in the last CEN
tury, an excited orator had gathered a cruious
crowd about him.. His vehemence so disguised
any sense he was trying to make that our op-
eratlve could not discover what panacea he
was peddling. But a few feet away a serious
young man in spectacles had a small audience
OF his own. He was distinctly heard to saw that
philosophy was the love Of wisdom-a defini-
ton which satisfied our scout perfectly.-New
York Times.