Show A AY Y I In New York I A ANEW NEW YORK YORK relieve Believe it or not not not- but one of those elaborate temples of cinema has his added a you while walt wait shoe repairing service ervice to Its list of attractions The patron atron can enter the theatre with heels I trun run Iun over and soles peering through He can leave these shoes with the cobbler cobbler cobbler cob cob- bler and be provided with a temporary temporary temporary tempo tempo- pair of slippers He can cnn then wander to his hla plush seat scat watch the movies hear the symphony symphony- and gaze upon the ballet balle girls After which t he emerges to find rubber heels and half his boots And so he goes happily upon his wa way S I Manhattan changes just lust a a. bit too rapidly these days visitor The of last year comes cornea this season and rubs his eyes as though he ha had stumbled Into the wrong place He lIe looks vainly about for landmarks that once directed his steps If he starts at atY Y Washington square only the tho arch archand and the few remaining red redbrick redbrick redbrick brick fronts seem familiar The rest is shut out by gargantuan towers and monotonous lines of tall talt apart apart- ments The charm of Gramercy park square long since has been blotted l out by the shadows of te steel l girders and stone The little square itself with its forbidding gates and Its private keys will ever ever remain one of NewYork's New Nev Yorks York's loveliest Jt spots The old bums bums of Union square move southward southward southward south south- ward t toward ward the Bowery as their skyline Is shut out The few homes homes- that Fifth avenue once boasted fast disappear Not even the rich can keep homes The great apartment hotels fast crowd them out Riverside Riverside Riverside River River- side drive no longer is even a pseudo fashionable residence place Scores of theatrical folk folk even even ShowgIrls show showgirls showgirls girls and models models live live there now The scrubby little east side theatres take tale on fronts resembling their Broadway competitors and palaces of cinema take the place where tuneless au automatic to pianos once tinkled Almost every week a quaint and charming landmark passes A sign tells me that the old Mark Twain house h has s been condemned and will come down ne next t year New NewYork NewYork NewYork York Is no respecter of traditions and gods Its physical life is from day to day It changes its Idols and Its skyline between sunsets Tonight's shrine Is tomorrows tomorrow's gas filling station S s e Which reminds me that the old Poe mansion offers one one of ot the city's Incongruities Once it stood where fields and woods rambled leisurely and brooks cu curled culled led and twisted and sang Today the subway subway subway sub sub- way dumps its corps of daily dally sightseers sightseers sightseers sight sight- seers to the cottage where The Lost Leist was ryas written Today the great concrete highway they call the grand concourse spreads al almost almost almost al- al most at its doorway Today tens lens of thousands of motor cars by and few are the motorists who motorists who so much as know they are passing the shrine of the lost Ulal me Today Today Today To To- day pilgrims come corne from the four corners of the the- earth r earth yellow arth and brown men tp men men tr to visit this shrine and to p pass pass ss out t and back baele to the subway subway entrance entrance a afew afew few v blocks away I If you were to ask the guard at this subway station station station sta sta- tion how to get to the Poe cottage he could not tell yo you nor could the ithe policeman who guides traffic at a nearby corner I haven't been here long hell he'll tell sou ou So o tl the e lost remains more or less lost to all but the pilgrims pilgrim's and the guide books And nd while still on the subject of th the incongruous I met a a. young lad lady the other day who bobs her hair in inthe inthe inthe the ultra boyish fashion and shakes cocktails yet cocktails-yet yet et she keeps one of those old auto graph books that you ou haven't ha seen since grandmas grandma's time where her friends inscribe modern versions Of bf when this you s see remember me me GILBERT SWAN Copyright 1928 NEA Service Inc |