Canteen's Birthday

One year old this week, American Theatre Wing's Stage Door Canteen (TIME, April 6) has made a sizable record for an infant. Into its smoky, dusky Manhattan basement have poured over 500,000 men in the uniforms of almost all the United Nations, from U.S. leathernecks to men of the Royal Netherlands Navy and Chinese aviation cadets; and lately it has done a roaring trade in French sailors. In a year, its pretty hostesses have danced an estimated 2,184,000 miles. Ships at sea have signaled to one another: "When in New York, don't miss the Stage Door Canteen." It has been celebrated in song (Irving Berlin's I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen), will soon be famed in story (United Artists' forthcoming Stage Door Canteen), has been thriving in radio (Corn Products Refining Go's Stage Door Canteen).

Among the Canteen's visitors have been Eleanor Roosevelt, the Duchess of Windsor (same evening), Lord & Lady Halifax, Herbert Hoover. Among its 300 entertainers each week have been Marlene Dietrich, Gertrude Lawrence, Grace Moore, Tallulah Bankhead, Ethel Merman. Other tidbits:

> Sixty gramophone records of Good Night, Sweetheart (the Canteen's version of Taps) have been literally played to death.

> A British sailor at the Canteen was so overjoyed to see mustard that he smeared it on a jelly sandwich.

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