St. Paul Recorder

WAY I SEE IT
BY NELL DODSON RUSSELL

NEW YORK'S FINEST: This happened several nights ago in one of Harlem's best-known bars.

Two big red-faced policemen come in. They were on duty; the squad car was parked outside. The bartender, with a great deal of bowing and showing of teeth, made them two stiff drinks. The drinks were about half whiskey and half mix. The two cops took the drinks over to a booth and pulled on them slowly while they watched the television screen where a baseball game was in progress. One of them came back to the bar. The bartender made refills. Again half whiskey and half mix. Before they had finished these two loaded highballs, some half-drunk character lurched up to the booth and asked to buy them another drink. They played it cool this time. They only took a bottle of ale apiece. They were in the bar every bit of an hour.

Now these two of "New York's finest" had the sworn duty of protecting thousands of citizens. With two heavy drinks plus a bottle of ale under their belts, they went out to continue their tour of duty. They wouldn't have dared do it downtown. Or would they?

It may be beside the point that this particular bar, during the day, has become a hang-out for numbers players and race-track players. The sidewalk outside becomes so crowded from noon on until the last racing results are in, that it's like running a gauntlet to get through. The characters who hang around leer, stare and comment at any woman who passes by. Women park baby carriages while they go inside to place their numbers or their racing bets. Some of these people play as high as five and six dollars a day on numbers and races.

Add this to the overcrowding, the dirt, the bad housing, the exploitation, the ignorance, the shameful condition of the Harlem public school plus the tragic apathy of Negro leadership - and you get a dismal picture. A picture that is repeated in so many Negro communities throughout the country.

There isn't a Negro leader, so-called, in New York who has to go South to find a case. Nor does any savior of the race, so-called, have to go to Europe, South America, Mexico, Asia or anywhere else to yammer and yowl.

There's enough to do in Harlem to keep 'em ALL busy. There's enough to do in EVERY Negro community in America today to keep the local neighborhood yammer-glammer boys busy.

HERE AND THERE: Lost Sue Scott Kelley's address and have been madly searching for it. Was walking up Fifth Avenue Friday afternoon. Bless me, if I didn't meet Sue coming down the Avenue. She looks fine. We were so glad to see each other that we almost had a crying good time ...Navy blue is the smart fall color. Navy blue and black dominate the scene on the Avenue. Mr. Leiser of Gerners (and I do hope I spelled his name right) told me about Orbach's on Fourteenth street. He's never told me wrong in all the years I've traded at Gerners. I hope he saw the write-up in Fortune magazine about Orbach's. Orbach's has some wonderful clothes priced about one-third to one-half of the Avenue merchandise. No fancy location to pay for and a rapid turn-over makes this possible. Sometime I will tell you ladies about Fourteenth street. But most certainly, if you come to New York, visit Orbach's. Incidentally, Gerners in Minneapolis can give you the same kind of merchandise you can buy at some of the best stores on Fifth Avenue here. Mr. Leiser's suits and coats are fabulous! ... Did you hear that Gordon Parks had his new Buick car-napped from in front of the Life Mag building, but the gendarmes got it back? Sally, home for a visit must have reported this one. Parks may be the glamorous Life Mag fotog to so many New Yorkers, but you should hear what his good friend, lensman Cecil Layne calls him! Lug-head, squarehead are among the choice titles. ... To the small Minnesota colony here, he's still Parks. Much to his credit, he still acts like Parks. That's an accomplishment .., In other words, Parks is still the same guy who used to ride up in a gas station with Woody Mills, George Berry, Ollie Grantham, Lonnie Thompson or Howie Barksdale, and be among the gang who would have the nerve to ask for ONE gallon of gasoline. It was Berry's car. I'll bet Parks, in spite of all that Buick, would still ride up in a gas station and ask for ONE. He doesn't let things go to his head ...

Cecil Layne and I were set to go to Peekskill on a free-lance assignment for the Courier, but Billy Rowe got it. Rowe also got some eight-hundred dollars worth of damage to his 1949 Buick during the rioting....The only appropriate comment about Peekskill is: How stupid can you get? The press, the public, the radio and the fool Westchester officials fell into the trap with a crash heard clear to Moscow!...."Lost Boundaries," the film about the Negro family who passed for white, has just chalked up its eleventh week on Broadway ... CULINARY DEPARTMENT: For a delicious fruit cup or for Sunday dessert, try fresh pear fruit balls in chilled ginger ale. Peel the pears, use your mechanical baller gadget, put pear balls in individual dishes, pour chilled ginger ale over them. Ummm! If you are entertaining Aly and Rita, by all means substitute champagne for the ginger ale. For next Sunday breakfast, how about a little garlic toast? Rub garlic clove lightly over toast, then butter while still hot ... Canasta is the card game of the cafe society and plush set downtown is going car-azy over these days. Gin rummy is on the way out. That's what my Stork Club contact tells me, dearie... Folks here are still squawking about the Look magazine article by Walter White. The one about the stuff that is supposed to bleach a colored brother to lily white. Consensus of opinion seems to be that Walter has definitely snagged his panties in more ways than one. Well, that remains to be seen. If you ask me, he doesn't give a hoot-in-hell about public opinion and therefore can probably get away with just about anything. Two will get you one in the Theresa bar that his leave of absence from NAACP will be permanent, leaving Roy Wilkins to keep the top spot ... There's rumor around that the New York Age, published by the English gentleman with the pretty brownskin wife, will give up the ghost and be taken over by new money and new publishers. It wasn't told to me, I only heard. Harlem is still without a GOOD Negro newspaper, believe it or not.