REAL NEW YORK

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1932, Page 18

REAL NEW YORK

Every night, on a certain section of Broadway, the tourist with a dollar's worth of curiosity may step iuto a motor-coach and start upon a person-ally-conducted tour of Chinatown and Harlem. The conductor's patter is called ballyhoo.

Yesterday j picked up "Manhattan Side-show," by Konrad Bercovici. At first glance it impressed me as just another bit of b/Ulyhoo, writes Campbell Dixon in the "Daily Telegraph." I was wrong. Mr. Bercovici guides you through no Chinatown or tong wars. Ho does not tell you the inside story of the killing of Arnold Rothsteiii, about which nothing will ever be quite certain except that the victim came high in tho category of the Better Dead. Instead ho shows, you :ne real New York, which is now like Naples and now like Dublin and now like Warsaw, and all the time quite unlike any other city in the world.

Where elso could you find a character like "Sheriff Bob" Chanler? Chanlcr, a connection of tho Paynes and Astors, "had a queer habit of walking out, 6ffc 3iu and weighing 3001b, in his pyjamas, and doing a rapid turn around Gramercy Pnrk."

Now Chanler, according to Mr. Bercovici, was one of tho finest artists in the world; but he could paint only when vicariously stimulated by the wildest and largest of parties. It was his pleasing custom to keep open house, and to it flocked famous actresses, writers, musicians—anybody who could keep kirn, interested.

FANTASTIC CHARACTERS

When a woman bored him be said "Got out!" When a man tjorecl lilni ho threw him through the window. And as soon as tho inspiration moved him ho would let tho party reel on till daybreak whilo he, who did not drink at all, worked feverishly upstairs. One of his oddest exploits was to have himself and Kiehard Harding Davis niado sheriffs of Westchester County and to gallop around dressed as cowboys in quest of evildoers to shoot up. Another time ho had his brother confined to an asylum. But the brother had his revenge when "Sheriff Bob" married Liua Cavalieri, the singer. Ho telegraphed: "Who's loony now?" Bob Chanlcr admitted later that his brother was right. "But," he would say, shaking with laughter, "legally ho is loony aud I am not."

Where, else but New York could you meet the theatrical producer who advertised in tho papers, "Greetings. I have made my first million.—Sam Morris"?

Or the Middle AVesterners who begged Mr. Bcrcovici to show them all the more daring sights of Harlem until he was tired out and then retired to St. Louis, saying: "Jlow cau you live there! Dreadful! Dreadful!"

Or the gatherings of young Communists of .all races and colours who make Marxian whoopee to raise funds for their English journal?

Or the author—need I say it was Mr. Dreiser?—who crushed Mr. Bercovici's remark about Russia with the reply, "Have, you been there recently V .No —weli, I have. I know. .You don't. So don't talk,' 5- -■■••- ..._....