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Show Manhattan Ueartbeat Fifth Avenue, the teeming boule-vard boule-vard which runs the gauntlet from 1 south to 2340 north in the heart of the world's most important Treasure Island, is the Avenue FOR the Americas. In 1918. during the first World War. it was for a time called the Avenue ot the Allies, which fooled nobody. With a past as glamorous as Camille's. a present pres-ent as active as the dollar's, its future is as bright as radar's! Come Sunday, the city fathers of the good old days shut the Avenue off so that Sabbath worshippers could have absolute quiet. Now it's almost necessary to rope off the glittering store windows so that the strollers can't have free rein! . . . The Avenue Is an International hodgepodge of everything: Toy factories, fac-tories, two art museums the Metropolitan Metro-politan and the Frick). famous cathedrals, churches and synagogues, syna-gogues, the Empire State (the world's highest, widest and handsomest), hand-somest), architects and stock brokers, haberdashers, Interior decorators, women's apparel specialists, spe-cialists, Radio City (which gives natives na-tives their largest Christmas tree and an outdoor ice skating rink), a party favor house, swank restaurants, restau-rants, banks, and mansions filled with ghosts. The first Fifth Avenue Hotel six stories high (or can you stand it?) was opened in 1859. It featured a novelty, New York's first vertical railway. What's that? Why, a passenger elevator you dope. . . . Elevators along Fifth these days are such elegant affairs that operators opera-tors are likely to look down their shafts at ordinary pilots of the Air Forces. John Barrymore earned and lost several fortunes during his turbulent turbu-lent career. When a colleague chided him for his financial irresponsibility, irre-sponsibility, Barrymore recited an epitaph he had seen in Westminster Westmin-ster Abbey: "What I gave, I have. What I spent. I had. What I left, I lost by not giving it." Some of ns wondered why Jed Harris, who once made a million dollars as a Broadway showman, didn't connect in Hollywood. ... Insiders In-siders insist this Is why. . . . Friends brought him to Louis B. Mayer, the movie magnate, who had been In-formed In-formed of Jed's genius on B'way. "How much money do you want a week?" asked Mayer. "How much do YOU get?" demanded de-manded Harris. That did it! When Heywood Broun first started start-ed reviewing Broadway shows he had the habit of making notes during dur-ing dull shows to appear that he wasn't bored. . . . The worse the show the more he scribbled. . . . One night he stopped making memos during a second act . . . After the second- interval the beaming beam-ing producer said: "I feel better since I noticed you put away your pad." "Yes," grumbled Broun. "I broke my pencil." Sounds in the Dark: At the Singapore: Sing-apore: "He reaches for the check like It was an atomic bomb!" . . . At the Stuyvesant Casino: "They say he'i an awful bore but I think he's rather expert at It." . . . At tiro's: "When he dies the only guy who'll be sorry will be his Insurance In-surance agent." ... At the Park Central Lounge: "A layman is a pedestrian who Jumped too late!" ... At the Garden Restaurant: "He was Just promoted from Account Executive to Office Boy." ... At the China Doll: "Her love is so fickle It oughta be listed on the Stock Exchange." ... At the Bronx' Zoo: "But son, I've told you a hundred hun-dred times. Senator Bilbo is In Washington!" Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once related re-lated a bantering conversation he had with a $10-a-wcek actor who was cast In one of his plays. The young chap had laughingly suggested suggest-ed that the two agree to divide their Incomes with each other for the rest of their lives. . . . Naturally, Sir Arthur had refused "such a ridiculous offer." The SlO-a-weck youngster was Charlie Chaplin. Harry WagMaff Cribble, the pro-ducer. pro-ducer. director, author and all around play expert, has coined a swelegant new word to replace the inaccurate "Colored" and equally untrue "Negro." ... The casts of both "Anna Lucasta" troupes are thrilled about It. It's a pip, to wit: Negramerlcan. This one has been pinned on various vari-ous hefty humans. But Alec Wooll-cott Wooll-cott rnjoyed pinning It on himself. . . When Alec was tipping the scales (in the 300s) two actors noticed no-ticed him wading In the Athnt., City surf. Said one: "Let's go swim-mlng." swim-mlng." "How can we?" quiprd the other. oth-er. "Woollcott's using the ocean!" B'way IT. Weathrrlyl Confucius: There i No New Thing Under the Sun. But Some Ot The Old Ones Are Tlenty of Fun I |