Show a U V V A aap I 1 ACMA N US MAST raa tto PF alim N IA K dy E N NEW E YORK BEFORE IT WAS DE magnetized deneath beneath tho big receiving float of tho the F C A aerial line twinkled tho the scattered night lights of now new york city the now new york tho the now york of 1962 capt martin master alrig alligator ator retired and tho the young float superintendent puffed luxuriously urious ly at their midnight cigars and gazed down into the vast silence hundreds of tiny air craft their dinglo white turret lights marking them hs aa private streamed to and fro along tile the passenger lanes the traffic lanes empty save for the inevitable lumbering newspaper carriers hearing bearing the hours papers to the express floats at tho the lower end and of the island no hum of crowded humanity came upward through the night to the float for the humanity that once had packed manhattan island now was scattered over the new mile metropolitan area rea a feat that had bad been made possible by Du durango Durn mastery of the law lav of gravitation and the consequent development of cheap safe and swift aerial so ria 1 transportation and they tell me said the superintendent in musingly that once upon a time that island was crowded so tightly that people wore were pushed off tile the titers aye said Alac macmanus Manus in tho the days of my youth the year of 1012 and thereabouts such was tho the case dut but why persisted per slated the younger wan man why did the people abarm so to that little lettla island when there was tho the whole open country all around because said macmanus it was now york new york my boy continued tho the veteran vo teran now york was new york it if you had bad aved in chat hat time you would auve understood what that meant now that people have stopped imitating sheep cheep and it Is hard bard to explain new york was a sort of 0 magnet that mesmerized all tho the young people and lots of the old ones in this country and put into their heads the delusion that they had to go to new mew york to live can you imagine such a thing charley thousands and millions of people laboring under the delusion that they had to live in one certain place to be happy and that place new york city I 1 1 I give it up said the superintendent what was wag tho matter with them thema they were afflicted with the new york bug reply macmanus the place had them hypnotized as I 1 say no matter how bow far away they might live it make any difference who or what or why they were at some time or other the bug was sure cure to strike them and they the began to look up time tables to manhattan island milliners Alil liners artists and anarchists writers or ival waitresses tresses they were all alike it was new york or bust with them all the fact act that the place already was packed tighter lighter than a dynamo made no difference n always room for one more they hey said there was too it if they had the price but the room was apt to be at tho the end of a hall and 6 by 8 in size elze did that discourage them you ask it did not you see after anybody had lived in now new york over two weeks lo in those days daya they developed what was known among our forefathers as the la york point of view it was a strange thing thine that point of view I 1 it t made a naan man talk of his bla little cubbyhole ou on the fifth floor of a tenement oa as my apartments it made him put up a 0 front as near to a millionaires as all lie ho could imitate and hod hed libeon pork and beans in other words the now york point of view was calculated to make everybody and everything look like money and that was all anybody ever looked for there at that time A young man would come from the hinterland to now york and got get a job and for tho the first few weeks hed go along his way as a young man should go who expected to bo be the boss some day hed go homo home at night nigh t and sa s1 sleep 00 P and hed save eave a little money but soon the bug would start working on him the first symptom would show in his buying a cane cana and discovering broadway Broadw ny tho the next downward stop step would bo be learning to cat spaghetti in italian restaurants after that the rest was simple tho the young man would go homo home in the evening but only to change his collar and get his big stick sometimes ho he would eat and sometimes he be but no matter when see him uptown at night under un der the lights you had to ad mit that he looked like a typical now new yorker corker and that was what the young roans mans soul craved after that hed go home and feet feel that the day had not been jeen misspent misspend mis spent by this time it if you ever asked him t lie ho como come front from oskaloosa or chicago or some other american city tied hed be ready to fight ile he was a new yorker by this time and if he got as far as coney island he thought he was traveling raveling and with this we close the look book on a young but misspent misspend mis spent life or nobody over ever recovered after the bug had done its work they were sealed to manhattan island then they rather live thero there thirty minutes than ban any other place thirty years hey sold said so themselves that was JIMME ta i ri ajl A N 4 wr 41 hey called it broadway because it had nothing to do with the at raight and narrow path I 1 why the park benches always were so full what became of them all nobody knew 0 or r cared now new york wai was the first city in this country to discover that it could do away with its heart and soul people used to talk about tho the heart of now new york it had none other cities tried to imitate it tn in this thip but they looked like nice little school children playing robbers it a person had money all of new york knew where he was you bet it did it needed him in its business if he had bad no money nobody except perhaps the policeman on night duty in the parks knew that he existed so long as aa ones money lasted a fellow was followed by a procession usually headed beaded by a prosperous looking young woman then in order a head waiter a chaut beur a bartender and a crowd ot of friends after his money was gone the procession consisted of ono one past the order of nd vas strong in new york in that era you set get away from them if you looked like vou rou had the golt gait but if you failed to make a spectacular front goodnight good night who ever q saw aw you before be fora you have to have any money wider understand stand you only bad to look like it A typical now new yorker who was good at the job could look like a millionaire and owe owa for laundry at the same time you have heard beard of new york art chatley charley well that was it new yorkers were all artists in that line ano I 1 two kinds of people came tn city in those days people who want d to to make inano money and people who wanted to spend it it was the first kind that kept the place crowded like a present day cut rate greenland summer excursion but it was the second crowd that paid far the lights tho the lights were most of them down there charley under that long passenger lane you see goo below you they called it broadway because it had nothing to do with the he straight and narrow path now we have lights guide us around the heavens but bat there was nothing like that in old new york then they had them to trim the spenders b by ive heard of that place they used to call broadway Dro adway said the superintendent ten dont lillian rusell rudoll sings a song about it at the Z T aerial theater 1 1 I know said the captain and she was just as beautiful and youthful then as she la Is now she was one of the things that helped make now new york the hypnotic magnet it was every la undress lu in the country said to herself at night lily russell w went ent to now york and look at her now why cant I 1 go and do the same there was a place called coney island too there said the superintendent perin yes coney island was the most crowded epston the globe in summer time on a sunday it was packed tighter than manhattan island tha now new Yorke yorkers rEf idea of a change of scene was waa to got get out of one crowd into a bigger one when he was wag jammed in BO 00 tight that his bla lungs lunga work he was happy tho the straight front corset corbet was wall invented in new york at this time for obvious reasons rea sona the people coming into now new york from the rest of the country must have felt strangely out of place mused tho the superintendent they did said the captain if they came from tho united states the visitor from kalamazoo would try to get chummy with hla his neighbor la in the theater kalai kalamazoo azoo the neighbor would say its ita in africa icv it no michigan oh yes michigan one of the western states what tho the best part of it was that the ether fallo follow has just got sa in from mancle ind the day before but suppose you came from london oh deah chap then you were at home really new york always felt ashamed of the fact that it was located so near to america english styles used to como come out there before they did in london when the president of the united states paid the town a visit they sent a traffic pdt iceman to the depot to see that his taxicab taxi cab break any speed laws when any member of B english royalty deigned to come over the mounted police were swept away like chaff by the surge of coffree free bom now yorkers rushing for 0 bp L tho be moving picture ox of s batting Wat ting arrival or r duy duhe or connaught if tho the royal machine would hit a citizen the roan man would dle die happy Such Awas the patriotism of that great city at that time they ever go out and see the rest of the country said the superintendent ten derit only when they had to the only time they enjoyed themselves then was when they up and registered from new york city There the rest oi the time they were wishing they were back in the crowd the superintendent stared musingly down into the silent space below there must have been something about the town after all to make such a strong attraction said he be there was said captain mao manus about five million people copyright by NV 0 chapman |