REAL NEW YORK

Evening Star, Issue 20993, 6 January 1932, Page 7

REAL NEW YORK

FANTASTIC CHARACTERS Every night, on a certain section of Broadway, the tourist with a dollar's worth of curiosity may step into a motor-coach and start upon a person-ally-conducted tour of Chinatown and Harlem. The conductor’s patter is called “ballyhoo.” Yesterday I picked up “Manhattan Side-show,” by Konrad Bercovici. At first glance it impressed me as just another bit of ballyhoo (writes Campbell Dixon, in the ‘Daily Telegraph’). I was wrong. Mr _ Bercovici guides you through no Chinatown or tong wars. He does not tell you the inside story of the killing of Arnold Rothstein, about which nothing will ever be quite certain except that the victim came high in the category of the Bettor Dead. Instead _he shows you the 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 else could you find a character like “ Sheriff Bob ” Chanler Chanler, a connection of the Paynes and Asters, “ had a queer habit of walking out, 6ft 3in and weighing 3001 b, in his pyjamas, and doing a rapid turnaround Gramercy Park.” Now Chanler, according to Mr Bercovici, was one of the 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 him interested. When a woman bored him he said “Get out!” When a man bored him he threw him through the window. And as soon as the inspiration moved him he would let the party reel on till daybreak while he, who did not drink at all, worked feverishly upstairs. One of my oddest exploits was to have himself and Richard Harding Davis made sheriffs of Westchester County and to gallop around dressed as cowboys in quest of evildoers to shoot up. Another time he had his brother confined to an asylum. But the brother had his revenge when Sheriff Bob” married Lina Cavalien, the singer. He telegraphed: Who s loony now ” . ~ Bob Chanler admitted later that his brother was right. “ But,” he would say, shaking with laughter, legally he is loony and I am not.” Where else but New York could you meet the theatrical producer who advertised in the papers: Greetings, i have made my first million. —Sam MorU V the Middle Westerners who begged Mr Bercovici to show them all the more daring sights of Harlem iintil ho was tired out, and then retired to St. Louis, saying; “How can yon 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? r Or the author—need I say it was Mr Dreiser p —who crushed Mr Bercovici s remark about Russia with the reply, “Have von been there recently < “No.” “Well, I have. I know. You don’t. So don’t talk.”