FRENCH WRITER ON NEW YORK

Hokitika Guardian, 1 September 1930, Page 2

FRENCH WRITER ON NEW YORK

WHERE LIFE IS LIKE AN ELECTRIC SPARK.

“Every time I am in New York I feel like putting fire to the town for the .sole pleasure of seeing the fire brigade turn out. For this, is my estimation, is one of the finest spectacles on earth. Huge scarlet juggernauts that fume and seem to spit energy roar through the streets. Clinging to the niekle tops of the cars as they storm to the assault are huge men, who seem like warriors out of some fantistic night watch. When an entire brigade flies through the canyons of Broadway there is a sound like the blast of a thousand siege guns.” So writes Paul Morand, famous Parisian voyageur and writer, in his new book “New York,” which sold 100,000 copies in Paris alone within a. week after publication M. Alorand is one of the best-known chroniclers of bizarre and strange sights anywhere on the face of the earth. His travel accounts on the African jungles and the exotic mysteries of the Orient are famous throughout the civilised world, Of the Statue of Liberty he says tliat lie often wondered why they put the lady out on an island. “Are the Americans afraid that she might set fire to things with that huge torch in her. hands?” he ; asks sardonically. Someone told Morand tliat pat. riotic societies -are in the habit of holding their banquets In the head of the stafiie “which is a huge empty room,"

. 'Apart from a few naivettes of this kjpd, and remarks about the soul of New York being discoverable twenty minutes after arrival by having a look at, the city from Brooklyn Bridge the book is causing a sensation in France bpcause of a, revelation of the stupendous size .of the city and things therein., . GLOATS OVER BEAUTY. Morand also makes the French see the beauty of New York. He find the Sub-Treasury a pure Grecian ..temple, the Cunard Building a marvel of architecture-, the skyscrapers wonders of symmetry. The book';is packed frill of. information, a good, deal, of which might have even escaped the notice of native New Yorkers.

“I love New York,” says Morland, “not only because it’s the biggest and most interesting city on earth,- but also because it is inhabited by a strong people, the only people who went back to work after the war and organised themselves, and who .do not intend to live on the. credit of the past-. The oulv people who do not destroy, hut build.” ' EaUing into a- political considerjation/M. Morand adds: “One of the happy things about New York is. the fact neither gas nor electricity, telegraph nor telephone, means of communication, nor education are State or . municipal monopolies, and for that reason they do not function. ’ “In the West and California they never,-talk about Europe. But New York thinks of it and. occupies itself with things of European interest, for New York is less naive, less chauvinistic, less childish, more tolerant and more Intelligent. Our European ideas penetrate into America by way of New York,' i

“Some people are so foolish as to declare that New York has nothing original, as if the. architecture of the town isn’t something that the world has never seen before. New York’s conception of life and its manners are so original that they will upset the world.” MACHINE of emotions.

The commonplace statement that New York is not representative of America is answered this way by M. Morand: “New York is not America, but it is certain and evident that all America would like to be like New York (with the exception of certain /delicate souls in Boston, some high Government officials in Washington, some artists in Arizona and some movie stars on the Pacifijc Coast). New York is the only citadel against intolerances in the country and the Puritan inquisition Manhattan is the microcosmos of the United States. American life is a machine of emotions, and there are more emotions on Broadway in one day than in all forty-eight States of the Union combined. -Chicago is too new. San Francisco does not appear of solid permanency. Los Angeles is a showtown; New Orleans is decrepit, New York alone progresses morally and in a solid manner. To live in New York is to feel the pulse of the country. “If this planet ever cools off, that town will represent the hottest and most exciting moment of the earth’s existence just the same, New York is what all other cities will be like a hundred and a thousand years from now. New York abandons its old motor cars in the streets. The municipality throws them in the water. New York dares everything, spends everything, speculates, ruins itself, makes ,a new fortune Juid laughs. They don’t die in New York until, the last moment, and as little as possible. Night doesn’t exist in New York. They go away for a week-end in New York and when they come back they don’t know their street any more. Old buildings have been thrown down and new ones are going up. The. air of New York is so vigorous that it makes me drunk, the atmosphere is . intoxicating. Everything is gay and terrible in New York. Life is an electric spark. There are eight million telephone calls a day in New York. Mr Harrman, the railway king, has a hundred telephones in his home. New York is a perpetual , thunderstorm.”