HE SET NEW YORK ALIGHT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 335, 23 November 1945, Page 24

HE SET NEW YORK ALIGHT

Station.2YA's 80-Year- Old Stamp Man E interviewed the other day a bearded office-boy who will be 80 on December 11. At any rate, he said he was an office boy; and he didn’t mind a bit when we asked: "Why the whiskers?" "That beard,’ he said, passing a hand lovingly round his chin, "keeps me from getting a sore throat -and I’m not pulling your leg." We came gently round to the office-boy question. "You see," he explained, "I have some very good friends who let me use a room in their office as my headquarters, and so I answer the telephone and do a few little office odds and ends for them. "I’m more or less on my own these days and I can tell you I’m a very happy man. There’s no one to ask me where I’m going or where I’ve been, and nobody to say, if I’m a bit late: ‘Now don’t tell me that you’ve been back at the office all this time." And if I want to smile at a nice girl, I can. If she doesn’t accept it, that’s her funeral. After all, I’m only 80." —

HE name of the old philosopher is E. Philpot-Crowther, of Wellington, known to many listeners for his authoritative stamp talks from 2YA. He has done lots of things. Years ago in Australia he rode a horse through a bush fire. But his earlier years contain much of the meat of his experiences. "Fed up with staying in one place," to use his own words, he left Charterhouse School, England, and made for America. He landed in New York in the *eighties, in a season when the harbour was covered with ice. In two days he secured a job with an electrical firm which was one of the city’s light companies and he was with the firm when it played a part in installing New York’s street lighting. "Public lighting at that time would make the average New Zealand electrical engineer’s hair stand on end and never lie down," he said. "It was in series, with up to 300 wires, electric and telegraph, on one pole." We looked wise and said nothing. Spectacle for Rubbernecks "I see you don’t realise quite what that means. But I can explain the danger of the arrangement by telling you that, in Printing House Square, I once saw a man burnt to a crisp. He had gone up to the wires to repair a short-circuit. I was one of the 100,000 spectators. Nobody would go up the pole after him, so all the power and light in that section of the city had to be cut off before the body could be brought down." | We asked what London was doing about street-lighting at this time. "J went back there for a spell and, to my astonishment, found that Londoners were still using gas," said Mr. Crowther. "In New York we used arc lights at first. In Union Square and Maddison Square there were masts 150ft. high, with a ring of arc lamps winched up to the top. They made a very pretty silhouette effect on the pavements as the lights shone through the trees,

"And, talking about lighting, I saw a film a little while ago on the life of Edison. Like Little Audrey, I laughed because though it was entertaining, some of the details did not square up with the facts." Mr. Crowther met many men well known in the development’ of public utilities of New York in the ’eighties and ‘nineties. "I knew the Reebling Brothers who designed the Brooklyn Bridge," he said. "One, a permanent invalid, lay on a couch in -his room and, through a window, watched the bridge going up day by day." He also saw one of the big parades for which the States are renowned-the funeral of General Grant. It took five hours for the procession to pass Fourth Street, ten men marching abreast. All were veterans of the Civil War. Up the Statue of Liberty So many tales as tall as the statue itself are told of the Statue of Liberty that we asked Mr. Crowther if he knew any. He did not know much about the technical detail of erection, he said, but he saw the statue being brought up the harbour in a ship, escorted by two old wooden warships. Later he made a closer acquaintance by going as millions are reputed to have done since, to the top of the statue. When he saw a performance of "The Belle of New York" in Wellington recently, it took his memory back 50 years, for he saw the first performance in New York. Edna May, who had been "discovered" in a church choir in Harlem, made her debut in the show. Then Mr. Crowther told us something about stamps-about perforations and roulettes and various philatelic oddities. "It’s been my hobby all my life," he said. "One thing about stamp collecting, you can carry on in wet or fine weather, standing up, sitting or lying in bed. I’m not. a dealer, but a collector; still, stamps are as good ‘as capital." (continued on next page)

----- a ree (continued from previous page) For the last ten years he has talked about stamps from 2YA. He says that there are many people in New Zealand "just aching to know something about collecting," but there are also in New Zealand very many advanced collectors. Mr. Crowther’s next stamp talk to children will be at 5.15 p.m. from 2YA on Friday, December 7. He will also be heard in the 2YA Radio Magazine discussing’ a variety of subjects on Saturday, December 8, at 8.30 p.m., three days before he becomes 80.