THE MODERN BABYLON.

Otago Witness, Issue 3292, 18 April 1917, Page 54

THE MODERN BABYLON.

ALL-NIGHT REVELS IN NEW YORK'S GOLDEN WAY. Mr J. W. T. Mason, Daily Express correspondent in New York, writes : Broadway, New York's centre of night life, has changed its title from ' the great white way' to ' the great golden way.' Its blazing lights and illuminated advertisements that provided the meaning of the former title aire more brilliant than ever; but the old name has been replaced by the newer, because outshining the lights are the increasing piles of golden dollars that glitter along the thoroughfare as the result of New York's war prosperity.

" Never before has Broadway known such spending capacity as is now everywhere rampant. Earlier in the war the spenders were lavish beyond precedent; but this winter the buying is far greater than it has been at any time since the war began. The accumulators of wealth in America outside New York are now making for the metropolis in droves and herds, and it is their presence, added to the normal capacity of New York to make the dollars fly, that has caused Broadway to surpass the most extravagant dreams of its amusement caterers as the world's greatest golden harvest field. "New Yorkers are delighted to refer to their city as surpassing Babylon in all that Babylon was famed 'for. New Yorkers are proud of ' going the limit' in night revels. The one proviso, tvpical of New York, is that everything shall be expensive. What is not expensive cannot be good, according to the New York dictum; and so the dollars are scattered along Broadway, partly in return for amusement, and partly because it is part of the amusement just to scatter the dollars.

" It is necessary to reserve rooms long in advance in these days if one wants to be sure of being received in any of the leading hotels. Since the rush' of out-of-town visitors began this winter, NewYork has found it is short of hotels, and-, with usual American rapidity of action, plans have been filed with the building department for three new ones—one to be the largest in the world, with 2100 rooms, and the others to have 1000 rooms each. "The theatres have never known such a season for high prices. The regulation charge for stalls at New York theatres is 8s; but, with everybody in town indifferent to _ the value of money, the theatres are raising their prices to unheardof heights through the medium of speculators. The other night, when ' Carmen ' was put on at the Metropolitan Opera House, with Caruso and Geraldine Farrar in the cast, stalls which sell ordinarily for 24s were sold to eager buyers by speculators in some cases for £lO each. " Restaurants, with a dancing floor for customers and a stage vaudeville by professional performers, are springing up along Broadway almost too fast to count. In the most popular of these cabarets it is impossible to obtain a table at 1 o'clock in the morning. The revels begin after the theatres are closed, and continue as long as the night lasts. New York has gone as .mad over the game of stopping up at night as if its inhabitants were children verging on the age at which parental restrictions are" relaxed. ' I had a gorgeous time last night; I was up until 4- o'clock,' is the way New Yorkers now emphasise to one another the uttermost limits of pleasurable evenings. "To dine out, then to go to the theatre, then to spend the rest of the night at a cabaret until the morning bedtime hour comes—this is the war-time programme of thousands in New York, who owe their ability to carry on the pace to the ease with which they have made their pile out of the trans-Atlantic conflict. One theatre in New York is now trying to. cater for all three of these desires on the part of its patrons. It is the Century Music Hall, constructed only a few years ago by a group of multi-millionariea, who had the curious idea that New York would appreciate a temple of the drama devoted to the highest class plays, after the manner of the Comedie Francaise in Paris. The venture failed, -and the theatre went through various unsuccessful adventures until this season it finally met great success by becoming a music hall on a scale of magnificence not hitherto- known in New York. "A restaurant is now to be added to the music hall, and a cabaret performance in Avhat is called the ' Cocoanut Grove' is to be opened on the roof of the theatre. Thereafter it will be unnecessary "to move outside the walls of the Century to acquire all three delights that are so absorbing >to New Yorkers out for a night of mad "revels. "The chorus girls along Broadway are sharing in the general prosperity. The gilded youths who haunt New York's stage doors now have far larger allowances from their fond parents than even extravagant Pittsburg has been accustomed to give to its noted prodigals. The past Christmas-tide was referred to by New York's chorus girl as ' the merry jeweltide,' so profuse were the distributions of expensive rings, necklaces, and other ornaments. "Waiters.' too, have reason to be satisfied with the general prosperity. New Yorkers, in their own phrasing, dislike being ' pikers,' which means thev are willing "to scatter their money with a royal impartiality when the* 7 start out for a good time." In consequecce tips at restaurants have advanced in conformity with the increases in the prices on the bills of fare. It is far from unusual for a waiter to pick up £lO a week in tips during these golden days. "As with the chorus ofirls and waiters., so it is with everybody associated with 'the golden way.' It may be a cold winter elseTvirtcre ; but for Broadway the warmth and luxury and extravagance have driven l l" thoughts of "bleakness.

New York is seeing only the golden side of the war. When the war-made prosperity stops there will be an awful headache ; but New York has no time to think ot that now. Its single cry for the moment is ' On with the dance.' "