New-York tribune. [volume], June 01, 1919, Page 10, Image 60

About New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924

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And N
The Seventh
sion's In
Boh<
GREEXWICH VILLAGE has been
rent (unhappy word!) and
torn by the opening to traffic
of the Seventh Avenue exten?
sion, tho first direct thoroughfare to
penetrate this residential backwater
longitudina'ly. A subway kiosk has
sprouted in Sheridan Square and rents
are climbing.
Italian tenement dwellers and garret
infesting Bohemians --- to escape high
rents?have started on a haegira that
may not stop this side of West Hobo?
ken. Already Titiy Tim, who used to
?=cll soul camlies in a volunteer fir'eman
makeup, has gone to New Jersey. But
Tim and his wife have made their pile
and own a home and everything. Their
case is not symptomatic; merely inter
esting.
The artistic ones chortled too loudly
from their Washington Square garrets
and hall bedrooms about tlie simplicity
of existence in the vicinity of the fur
therest south end of the Fifth Avenue
-l>us line. A swarm of creatures who
held jobs began to besiege the real
estate ofiice of Vincent Pepe, in Wash?
ington Square South. Then rents be?
gan to mount and houses were remod
elled. In a word, Washington Squaro
became fashionable, or almost fash
ionable. Right this very minute E. H.
Sothern and his wife, Julia Marlowe,
are seeking a permanent homo on the
Square.
Then those free wild villagers began
to emigrate. Those first ones who
ciossed Sixth Avenue and settled in
Sheridan Square were a bold lot indeed.
But were they so bold as will be the
intrepid explorers who first reach
Abingdon Square, where their ideas on
anything from the infiuence of arti
chokes on art to eroticism in litera
ture may be expounded from what is
now a drab_and dust covered public
bandstand?
"Polly's," with its bare board tables
, and benches along its green basement
?walls, regular food nnd a cost system
and the Greenwich Village Theatre came
and justified their being. But around
them sprouted and flourished patches
of weird tea rooms, some of which
were amusing and others just plain
silly.
Don Dickerman's Pirate Den, across
tho square from Polly's, was prosper
irg in a dark, dank basement. Tho
upper floors wore occupied by an as
sortment of queer placc.s calculated to
i pen the purscs of jaded thrill chas
ers from Waterloo, Iowa, and Wash?
ington Hoights. All about wero Signs
of the Vermilion Hound, and Pink
F'arrots. even to one bromide place
called The Camouflage. ?
Those
Unreasonable Police
Then came the police with perfectly
unreasonable commands and closed
many of these places. A fat bluecoat
who thought class consciousness meant
prohibition was placed in front of Don
nickerman's and barred out patrons
with real money to spend for ginger
file at 40 cents a glass and nothing
#xtra for atmosphere
bw Gr<
Avenue Exten
yasion of
emia
But all that is old stuff. There is
' no policeman in front of Don Dicker
[ man's Pirate Den now. The doors aro
falling in. Some wag with a first-hand
i knowledge of cooties, doubtless, has
painted on the face of the adjoining
vacant buildings; "Blue Ointment Ter?
race."
But there is a far more weighty
reason for the unoccupied state of the
cubicles abovo tlie Pirate Den than
any policeman, however fat. The rea?
son is an economic one. An architect,
who realizes that Greenwich Vil
lage is undergoing mctamorphosis, has
taken a long lease on the crumbling
building. He is planning to remodel
it into modern, and therefore high
priced, apartments. And why not?
The future occupants will be less than
ten minutes by the tube from Wall
Street, and about the same distance
measured by the cloek from Times
Square.
Miss E. B. Dunlap, who may have
settled in the Village because of
artistic hopes, or possibly they were
literary aspiratlons, but who has re?
mained as a real estate dealer in the
firm of Dunlap & Lloyd, says tha tea
rooms have gono for good. Her offlce
is on Sheridan Square, facing that tlny
trlangulur plot of iron-feneed grass
that is known to the Park Department
as Christopher Street Park.
"I have three people on my lists now
who are looking for places in which
to open tea rooms," said Miss Dunlap.
"I have nothing to offer them, and I
sb.an't have. Rents are prohibitive for
those places. The only reason so many
of them have hung on is the absurdly
low rents that have been charged for
the queer places they occupied. Now
they are beginning to go. Where do
they go from here?"
Then Miss Dunlap said something
about "Harlem to the Jersey City
Pier," but became more explicit and
fixed a dead line along Seventh Avenue.
"Most of the old ones who wish to stay
or the new ones will settle on the west?
ern side of Seventh Avenue."
The New
Bohemia
Already a number have sprouted up
in the block bounded by Grove,
Bleecker, Barrow and Bedford streets.
That is the nucleus of the new Bo?
hemia. There are plenty of garrets in
that region. Tho housea aro old, and
bathro^ms?the higher tho fewer. But
that region also is scheduled for reno
vation, if the renting agents are to bo
believed.
In New York "Italian quart&r" haa
always been a connotatlve term for
cheap rents, and Washington Square
to the Italians of New York is just
a3 much Garibaldl Square. The Ital?
ians no less than tho Bohemians are
being dispossesBed from the promising
sites in the village.
Twenty Italian families have been
ordered out of the tenement house at
the corner of Jones and Fourth
streets, two blocks east of tho new
Seventh Avenue cheap rent dead line.
eenwicl
" 2aJf5
& - v-^i J:v.'?.^j#
r:>^"' r^lkf MWt v~r~- >:.?
V%*.8
'A...?' i " \ ,. '!% wM
!#^V ,-:P ' , ii ,f! </
Most of them have found quarters
west of Seventh Avenue. The vacant
tenement is to be remodelled. When
the transformation is complete and
two bathrooms have been made to grow
where none grew beforo, when there is
an open fireplaco and white tiling and
gas ranges and expensive iceboxes
have blossomcd in the drab kitchens
of the former occupants, the owner
can say to himself, "pretty soft."
i Villa
|H 0$m *'' '-'???' '
Home life in 1920?if they
Then, instead of $5 and $6 a room he
can demand--and get?$15 and $25
a room, and the tenement house in
spector can scratch the building off
his list.
On the south side of Grove Street.
Just Fast of Seventh Avenue, the Ital?
ian tenement dwellers havo been or?
dered to move. They have been paying
$30 to $10 a month. Thc owner has
discovered or realized that his property
;e Becoi
keep on raising those rents
; can be converted into what the real
! estate men know as "high class studio
i apartments." These are to rent for
i $75 to $100 a month. Tho owner calls
it a good investment and most likely
j the people who occupy these studio
| apartments will pay their rent more
cheerfully than they ever did in nny
: uptown long hall apartment with dark
' bedrooms.
Business men are not overlooking
mes Pl
t
V
M? *LUA At
the village, either. The Corn Exchange
Bank is establishing a branch at Grove
and Fourth streets, facing Seventh
Avenue. The rear of the lot on which
its? building is being erected ex
tended beyond the business zone that
extends 100 feet each way from the
centre of Seventh Avenue through the
village. Tiie bank had to gain permis
sion from every property owner in the
block before. i t could extend its
tin New Yorlj
The Rents' Dramatic Rise and
the Tea Rooms' *
Fall ?
building a few feet beyond that 100
foot Hne. They gained the boon they
sought, but the men who persuaded the
villagers' to put the perraission in
writing will tell the metropolltan dis?
trict and the world that there is small
chance of business encroaching on the
residentlal portions of the village.
Satoons'
Substitutes
Seventh Avenue is quite another
matter, and the avidity with which va
cant saloon corners are being gobbled
up along Seventh Avenue from Tenth
Street to Times Square Is a fair indica
tion of the future of that newest
Broadway.
Vincent Pepe, from his offlce ln 40
Washington Square South, just a few
paces from what a hundred years ago
was the public hanglng place, watched
the village pa*s through the evolution
that transformed this once fashionable
section into a down-at-heel region of
decay.
Then he saw the beginning of the
Seventh Avenue extension, and city
engineers, Hke surgeons, cutting away
diseased tissues in the heart of the
village. Some venerable structures
were razed in the process, but when
this work that began October 21, 1918,
was completed only a few weeks
ago, there was a wide thoroughfaro
stretching without. interruption from
tho warehouse district of Franklin
Street to the southern border of Cen?
tral Park. Through tenements, houses,
even churches, the extension was
pushed until the street was outlined
like a huge scar, its edges marked by I
the. raw projections of buildings of
which only portions had been razed. j
The lines marked out by the surveyors j
were followed through a labyrinthian
maze of streets that ran obliquely in
the path of the new thoroughfare.
Eleventh Street, Perry, Charles, then !
West Tenth, Christophor, Grove, Bar- j
row, Morton were crossed at an angle j
until finally at Clarkson Street Seventh \
Avcnuo was joined with Varick Street,!
forming a new union between uptown !
New York and downtown.
Speaking of the period of decline in
the village Vincent Pepe said:
"For a period of about fifteen years,
or until quite recently, the Washington
Square and Greenwich Village dis?
tricts had been declining. This ten
dency started when the business sec?
tion from Houston Street to Four
tecnth Street, west of Mercer Street,
was going gradually west and the erec
tion of many loft buildings was chang
ing the tone of the neighborhood.
Panic of
Owners
"These loft buildings got as far as
West Broadway in the village and as
far as Washington Square East. Then
the property owners became alarmed
and began to give up hope of trying
to preserve the section. Many owners
left their private residenees to move
uptown, usually into a Riverside Drive
apartment.
"When the houses were vacated
cupantt could not be found to ?a
them as private residences. Con I.
quently they were rented to pttiaL
who wanted them for shops or as f
nished room houses. That cauied th
property to decline in value. Condition'
went from bad to worse. Finally ??.
property value level had dropped 80 h
40 per cent.
"When the estate of the late Genenl
Butterfield was sold at auction on
of his houses, for example, was sou
for $17,300. This was assessed at $2?!
000. This was a four-story and ba?!
ment brick house on a lot 25xlOQ ftt,
"Five years prior to the auction thii
same house had been on our book
for sale at $24,000. Five other hou*,
on the eouth side of West Twelftv
street of similar dimensions were uU
for $16,500 each. Every oae of the,
at these figures went at about 25 p,,]
cent less than the assessed value at||
38 per cent less than the origim|l
value. c l
"A change for the better began whrf
the People s Institute appqinted a ?j[
retary for Greenwich Village activii
ties. I was inforraed that their wcril
was being financed by some of the defl
partment stores, which feared to %tt
the district destroyed as a residentlaf
quarter. This would have compelhdl
the department stores to move also. i
"Mr. Benedict asked me to aiil
Finally we issued a little booklet &M
scribing places of interest in the ?f;,5
lage. It was illustrated and contahwJ
pictures of the Colonial houses, Tlil
booklet was entitled 'How Would Y?qi
Like to Open One of These Doori ?|
Greenwich Village!'
"This booklet arpused intere?t amoBg]
horneseekers, but usually one look i:
the unimproved interiors of the housu
discouraged them, no matter how kectl
they were about the picturesque quibi
ties of the places shown them.
"Ono day in Gramercy I'ark I noticiii
a very attractive remodclled house. !?
made up my mind that the Wa: hingtetl
Square section was adaptable for thtil
sort of improvement.
"After several preliminary e xperl- i
ments which were successful I tooi*
over a house at 124 Waverley Placi |
This was dilapidated and had be? j
rented as a rooming house at $ l.OOO i
year. By spending about $7,000 I fo.
creased the rental from $1,000 to $4,wi
a year. There is another house i-.f
Washington Square that for a tirail
was renting for $1,400 a ye.-ir. Bri
spending $15,000 the owner has it-1
increased the rental to $S,000 a year.'
Built of ehabby red brick, with shut-1
ters hanging by oiie. hinge, with ??
cient, ill-tempered plumbing, there *?!
little to attract tenants to the unie
proved house?. But pa<n'?rj iB!
plumbers and bricklayers workii
magic. The way those changes aremifc
13 another story, but the fact that the?
are made i? one of the reason" ihsttk
Greenwich Village of pofts - in pHrrtO
and peasants (Italian i in tenement!li
disappcaring. The Seventh A.eiuen
tension is the other reason
Ander
WILLIAM H. ANDERSON,
State Superintendent of the
Antl-Saloon League, ln the
five years and five months
that he has been fighting the liquor in?
terests in the Empire State has so suc
eessfully and relentlessly battled with
the "wets" that his name is as familiar
to the r'eader of newspapers as that of
the Governor, or either of the United
States Senators, or the leading movie
actor, or the highest paid ballplayer.
The liquor men at one and the same
time detest and fear him. He never
has asked for quarter from them. Year
after year he has taken a drubbing, and
year after year he came back for more
?until 1919, when he swapped places
with the hosts of John Barleycorn.
Now he ftghts the "wets" from the in?
side of the breastworks. The "wcts"
are on the outside.
J*e had scarcely got started in his
this state before he stood the
rmen on their heads, Aguratively
Paking, by having lntroduced at Al?
bany a bill requiring that all packages
containing alcoholic liquor for beve/age
purposes with 2 per cent or more of
aicoholic content should be labelled
with a ekul! and crossbones and the
?cientific statcment: "This preparation
contains alcohol, which is a habit
foraning, irrltant, narcotic poison."
The bill did not become a law. An
'-*rson did not exject that it would.
What he wanted was advertising, and
y.< got it. The liquor men raved about
"that roughneck, Anderson," and by
ta? t'tmfi they were done the tall Wcst
arntr was one of the best advertised
t*-.mp?ranc4? agitators in the United
States.
F ought All
The Way
From that time tinti! i.he pr<-i.?;nt
hour Anderson has demonstr?t?d ?
t
son
propenslty for slam-bang, two-handed
| fighting that has kept his opponents
nervous. He is on top to-day beeause
he fought his way to the top, like a
heavyweight prizefi^'hter.
"Anything but a dull time. If there
is nothing doing, start something!" ls
one of his mottoes, lived up to.
"What is the explanation of your
picturesque vocabulary and your use
of slang?" asked a Tribune representa?
tive.
"There ls not any," said Anderson.
"I do not lntend to use slang.
Prohibitionist
At Ten
"All I want is to say things so they
*get across.* Tho only purpose I have
ls to pack the most meaning Into the
smallest compass, so that lt will stick,
and also so that tho average man will
not nced an interpreter or a diction
ary ln order to understand it. I do try
to behave myself, for I have been sol
emnly admonished by some good breth
ren of the highbrow sort, who thought
I was talking below the dignity of a
great reform movement. Now, I do
not object to dignity provided it does
not get in the way, but results are the
acid test of any poliey! I would rather
have a lop-eared, splay-footed, flea
bitten mule and a dump cart that
'would deliver the goods than a pneu?
matic tired benzine buggy that would
cough and dic on the first hill. I never
had much tirne to use language for the
purpose of concealing thought."
William Hamilton Anderson was
born in the village of Carlinville, 111.,
on Augtist 8, 1874, of Scotch-Irish an
eestry. His father Is a country law
ye/, with a love for the soil and poli
tics. His Mcthodlst mother raincd her
boy a teetotalcr, and he became a rad
ical prohibitionist nt the age of ten
when he read in the publio school
le
about the effect of alcohol upon the
human system. The local Women's
Christian Temperance TJnion in Car
linville offered prizes for the best
essay and the best examination on
the textbooks used in the school, and
Anderson won all the prizes in sight.
After flnlshing the public school course
Anderson went to Blackburn College,
ln the same village. Later he grad?
uated in law at Ann Arbor, Mich.
As president of the Epworth League
of the Springfield district of the Meth?
odist Church the young lawyer went
to a state convention of Epworthlans
and heard Howard II. Russell, founder
of the Anti-Saloon League, give the
first expoBition of the league, then a
new thing ln Illinois. Dr. Russell
quoted an Ohio farmer on the success?
ful work of the newly organized league
in the Buckeye State, who said: "If
thia thing keeps going lt will knock
hell out of politics."
Tho idea stuck in the mind of the
young lawyer, and soon thereafter he
made up his mind to make temperance
reform his lifework. First, he was
state superintendent of the Illinois
league. He drafted and built the or?
ganization that passed the Illinois
local option law, under which between
900 and 1,000 townahips voted dry in a
single day.
Then he went to Maryland as state
superintendent, after serving a year in
a subordinate capacity in this Btate.
After suporintending the league work
in Maryland for seven years Ander?
son on January 1, 1914, came to New
York with a programme and a policy
fully outlined.
On the
War Path
William Barnes, the Republican
leader, didn't like the statement
fathered by Anderson ^hat Barnes wns
;?,. i.'!?.?.iiiiwiiwiiiniimiiiiiiiiiiiiiii mi aimiu?!'
William H. Anderson, state su
Anti-Saloo
"the boss of tho liquor end of tho Re?
publican party of the state" and sued
Anderson. A new stenographer ln An
derson's office put the obnoxlous ap
pcllation after Mr. Barnos'a name on
tho outsido of an envelope and the en?
velope promptly found Its way to Mr.
Barnes's office in Albany. Nothing
camo of tho suit, beeause the postal
law says that no one shall "knowingly"
address n letter like that. The case
was lost sight of ln Mr. Barnes's suit
''\ . ?> /v J ' I
SXk-:??:.. %w*pw-~''"'?' , i- 2 222 . v 2 iKjj:
perintendent of the New York
m League
against Colonei Theodore Roosevelt.
Next Mr. Anderson took the traiD
after^ Speaker Sweet, whose com?
position of the Assembly Excise Com?
mittee from year to year was such that
a dry bill could not get out of com?
mittee. Anderson carried the war
against the Speaker to Oswego County,
the home of Mr. Sweet. Thereafter the
Assembly Committee on Excise found
n way to report out dry bills. Thia
year Speaker Sweet lent a hand ln
n
putting ratlfication through the Legis- !
lature.
When The Tribune representative
one day last week called on Mr. Ander?
son at his office on the sixteenth floor
of 900 Broadway he found that in?
dividual, who is about 6 feet 2 inches
tall and well proportioned, busy as
a beaver dictating correspondence.
"What is the Anderson code?" asked
the scribe.
"A moral idea is the mightieBt thing
beneath the throne of God," said Mr.
Anderson. "The right will prevail if
it has a fighting chance and you give
it time enough. The liquor business
had to go beeause it always was
wrong."
"And what were some of the things
that kept you going?"
"An intense conviction of having
been divinely called into this particu?
lar work, and that no minister in or?
dinary pulpit work has a higher call,"
said the rum fighter. "A faith based
upon this conviction that when a thing
is right it is bound to win ln the long
run, and that the only question at all
involved is whether the human instru?
ment has 'sand' enough to take pun
ishment until his time comes, and then
whether he has senso enough not to get
spoiled by success.
"An instltutlon that is wrong ls
bound to be foolish beeause sin itself
is foolish, and the forces of evil can
alwaya be depended upon to come to
bat with a bonehead play at the
critical moment.
"When an institution is wrong, like
the liquor tratfic, anything it does is
a mistake.
"I believe in a poliey of dcliberately
prodding the opposition into making
a fool of itself and then taking ad?
vantage of what it does; a poliey of
preparedness, the maintcnance of
private war college, with skeleton can%
paigns for every contingency.
"I recognize the inherent wisdom in
tho philosophy of the village halfwit
who, when a valuable horse was lost
and a reward was offered, found the
Barl*
horse, and. being interrogatcd as :
to how he did it said: 7 thinks to my
self what would I do was I a horsc
and I did.'
"I believe in a policy of recognizing
that the other fellow has a limit and
of staying until his limit is reached.
A policy of having no limit whatever
that one is not willing to go inside the
law. A policy of no hunting for trou?
ble but never running from any.
"I beHeve in applying to politics the
Biblical proposition against putting
new wine in old bottles, namely a re
ognition that the old politieal methods
of manipulation and barter are not
applicable to a moral movement; a
policy of planting a movement upon
fundamental moral principles and re
fusing utterly to make any sort of
compromise. ^
"I long ago recognized the fact that
2ycorn
a movement that depends upon publ:f
sentiment is cssentially n publidfr
proposition.
"I believe n reform agency shojjp
have a sense of new? valuca and iOS?
faculty for thinking up and pullingrf
stunts that are news. '"'
"I believe that while th* politiciud
have to win beeause- they need thi
loaves and fishes, a mora! movement
does not have to win any particulW
light. All a moral movement has tl
do is to show intelligent agfrression
in the right direction.
"There ir, an advantage in having
a coiiBtituency that is used to beinj
whipped and that undcrstands thi
philosophy of losing battles in ordef
to win wars.
"Finally, I believe in a poliey ?J
never being caught out with a fort
when it is raining soup."
The Diffident Young
Man
By Harry Godfrey
? "I' ^0?YOU ever," the hote! clerk
? 1 asked, "print an article
* ^ without using names?"
"That depends," the Diffi?
dent Young Man replied. "What's the
story ?"
"If you've got to use the name
there's no story. If you'll keep the
name out?see here. There's a cer?
tain kind of thing happens every day
When it gets Into the papers moat
always they give the name of the
girl?only the girl. Understand?"
"Of course. But that's 'old stuff.'
Unless there's a new feature to it?
Bomething unusual"
The clerk's eyes were flashing.
"There isn't any new feature, and
it isn't unusual, and it is 'old stuff,'" !
he interrupted, "and that's why you
ought <o print it, and write in your
story that it isn't unusuaf. Maybe I
that would help make lt unusual." I
He took a packet of letters ff?i
his pocket.
"These," he said, "lured a c:rl fro?
upstate to New York. IShc went baxk
home this morning with her fath*
She forgot these?they were under b*
pillow. Do you know what l'm go'1*
to do with them ?"
The Diffldent Young Man didn't
"Well, l'm going to show theffi
my girl?my daughter. She's just tW
age of the girl they were written t*
Now do you understand ?"
He handed the letters over.
They were "old stuff." Crowded *w
avowals of love, subtle flatteries *"
flatteries not so subtle. Just one th^l
was not in them. The one thing |j|
girl took for granted, the one thitf
the man didn't propose: marriage
"Well," said the clerk, "now do |f
want the name?"
"Yes?the name signed to the !l*
ters."
"I guess you didn't notice." said-^J
clerk wearily, "the lett<
signed. That kind never
?ttcrs ?r??1
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