"Red Mike" v. "Tony's" Casino

Near the centre of Manhattan's Central Park has stood for nearly 60 years a sprawly rustic building known as the Casino. Last week the Casino appeared likely to become an issue in New York City politics--a class war issue between Democracy and Aristocracy. The Casino belongs to the city. It was built as an eating place to offset, in a measure, the litter caused by basket parties on the lawns. Recently the city leased the place to a $500,000 private corporation which undertook to make it a "place for the fashionable and fastidious." The rental was $8,500 per year. The corporation sold the hat-check privilege alone for $12,000. Joseph Urban was hired to decorate the interior in rhythmic maroons and greens. A black glass ceiling was placed over the ballroom. A "continental atmosphere" was evoked. Last week the Casino was opened to 600 special guests carefully culled from the Social Register by Anthony Joseph Drexel ("Tony") Biddle Jr., Board Chairman of the corporation and social arbiter of the new Casino. Said Mr. Biddle: "All we wanted to do is something for the public. ... We did it for the city. . . . This place is city property." Collected for the first night were such as Mr. & Mrs. William Kissam Vanderbilt, Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, Mr. & Mrs. Conde Nast, Mr. & Mrs. Adolph Zukor, Mr. & Mrs. Oscar Grab and the Sheriff of New York County. Maitre d'Hotel Rene Black, "Master of Forty Sauces," hovered majestically. Quick was the Press to pick up this dining place as a likely morsel for public fun. Its menu prices were broadcast: chicken okra soup 65-c-, baked lobster thermidor $2, lamb stew $1.70, royal squab en crapaudine, $2.75, baked potato 450, coffee 45-c-, demi tasse 50-c-. Jokesters insisted that the park air was still free and that the poor did not have to pay anything to watch the rich dine in their park. To point the issue even more, on the day the Casino opened, 93 ordinary citizens were haled to court, fined for eating their lunches on newspapers spread on the grass of their park. Onetime Mayor John Frances ("Red Mike") Hylan, again a candidate for that office, was quick to make use of the political potentialities of the new Casino. "A night club for the 400 in Central Park." roared he over the radio, "would never have been permitted during my administration."