A GOLDEN AVENUE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 635, 11 April 1929, Page 16

A GOLDEN AVENUE

CROESUS’S SIXTY ACRES MANSIONS OF MILLIONAIRES Park Avenue, New York, glitters before the eye in an atmosphere ot gold, writes Mr. Maurice Mermey, in the “North American Review.” Whereas Great Britain, on whose Empire the sun never sets, has 562 millionaires, Park Avenue, whose three miles even a mediocre athlete can run in less than sixteen minutes, has more than 2,000. On the world's richest street there are 5,000 families, representing a population of 20,000. They live in their own mansions, in apartments renting from 100 dollars a month, furnished, to 35,000 dollars a year, unfurnished; and in co-opera-tive apartments which sell for from 40,000 dollars to 200,000 dollars. The Park Avenue Association modestly declares that the aggregate fortune of its members is three billions of dollars, but there are experts willing to risk their reputation on a guess of live billions. France could write off its war debt to the United States with that tidy sum and have enough left over for a rousing toast with rare champagne. FORTUNE ON LUXURIES

“According to the association's estimate, the Avenue spent 280,000,000 dollars in 1927 for necessities and luxuries. The announcement of that fact constituted front-page news in almost every paper in the country; and the story girdled the globe. Within a year the association received no less than 6,000 letters from the six continents and the islands of the Seven Seas, asking it to pass a very capacious hat among the fabulously wealthy for ‘worthy causes.’ “More wealth, more spending, and a 25 per cent, increase in population have caused the figures to be revised sharply upward. In 1929 This Avenue, as it is intimately known, will spend—according to a reliable estimate the stupendous sum of 420.000,000 dollars, an average of 84,000 dollars a family. “Superlatives and astounding adjectives like ‘stupendous’ have long ceased to have a convincing ring to Americans, but consider: Although it has but one-third of 1 per cent, of New York City’s population. Park Avenue will spend three and two-fifths times more than the city allotted for education in 1928. Numerically insignificant, its population will give to tradesmen an amount equal to onefifth of the entire nation’s expenditure in 1925-26 for elementary and secondary school education.

“The average Park Avenue family will spend 37,000 dollars in 1929 for food, clothing, and shelter, an aggregate expenditure of 185,000,000 dollars; which is as much as 100,000 clerks earn in a year. Amusements, art galleries, music, automobiles, yachts and travel will cost 18,000 dollars a family, or 90,000,000 dollars for the Avenue. An additional 145,000,000 dollars will pay for such exquisitries

as perfume, flowers, charity, beauty shops, liquor, and debutante daughters As for the liquor item, those who ought to know say 15,000,000 dollars is a reasonable estimate of the bootlegger’s bill.”