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Mid Week Selection by Friell
MIDDLE
EAST
INTELEGENES
ASBBUA!
PRO
**** THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER
1958.
PATRICIA LEWIS IN MIAMI.
Yes, that's the Mecca on the coast for the people with the most!
UPAN
"I've a sneaking suspicion, and it's just possible,
Abboud may be pro-Abboud,”
BERLIN
RAST LEXMANT
"It's just a little sobriety test. All you have to do is
to say--it's a brow bricht Ulbricht nicht the nicht."
HOTEL DELIRIUM!
See how it's growing:
on
*ONEY," said the man in the red shirt spooning frozen daiquiries Diplomat, and soon it will be a
into long-stemmed glasses, "this is the most artificial piece of real estate in the world." He was referring to the seven-mile strip of re- claimed swamp called Miami Beach, the gorgeously gaudy, phenomenally phoney winter playground of America's Atlantic seaboard.
Been
Was the "Last December it Deauville, in 1955 the Amera- cina, in 1956 the Eden Roc, in 1954 the Fontainebleau, and so This year it will be the
new Roney Plaza."
Another Roney Plaza? "Yes, we are tearing the old placo Schino. replied Mr down," "And we are planning the most lavish hotel in the whole area.
People want ng David Schloe, president of happened in his political past. You've got to keep your pro-
duct up to date. he has come pretty
everything bigger, better and Schine Enterprises, which runs Roney and six other hotels,
newer." Young Mr Schine, you may thoughts on the present and remember, was the second half future of tourism in Mizmi.
any I have never thing like Miami Beach, for the reason probably that nowhere else could Miami Beach exist.
In wood-panelled office of that famous McCarthy-era
E beneath the swimming
pool of the
double-act known as Cohn and hotel old ocean-front
Schine, but whatever may have
here--Roney Plaza, opened 1827 I talked with tall, good-look-
A Gift with the right spirit
is always appreciated
NOW
CON DISPLAY
AT
CALDBECK
MACGREGOR
To John
Xsuas Happy
Mary,
Give a beautifully decorated S basket containing the finest wines and spirits.
Please order early for Xmas,
CALDBECK, MACGREGOR
20075.
2, CHATER ROAD, H.K.'
PHONE:
lucid
"It provides everything," ho said, "so It must became the outstanding resort and conven-
"
д
tion centre of the world. It bas climate..
(It is stil 85 deg. here, while steamy California, the rival sunshine State, is deep in snowdrifts.)
"It has perfect location the gateway to the Caribbean and, thanks to the new jets, the halfway house between North and South America.
"It has every facility-fishing, golf, horse-racing, dog tracks, football, baschall, theatre, opera, symphony. It hra all the things you may And in any major metropolis.
A Demand
"Look at the accommodation! We have nearly 6,000 hotels and motels, many of them unsur- passed in the world.
"Above all, we have a demand for our product. With people earning more money and having more time to enjoy, I am sure Miami Beach will become the holiday clly not just of America but of the world."
Each season there is at least one
brand new multi-milikon Miamal monster pandering to Beach's own Det Christmas tradition +0000 that
unless not fashionable you'ro
You book at the hotel of the year.
Sighed Roney's manager: It's a frightening thought, but every morning when I wake up there are 144 new hotel rooms to be Ailed.
* How to make Cocktail: take
#
Daiquiri two-thirds Bacard, the Juice of a fresh ime, One-sixth Grenadine, shake well, ośrain into glasses.
£55 A Day
Ronny obviously rhymes with money, because the new version is a $25,000,000 (£9,038,500) project.
па Fantastic
that
crtimate sounds it is still lagging five militon behind the ultimate cost
of the fancy Fontainebleau- the vintage 1954 address, which
boasts no neon sign but which
none of the newer places has
been able to equal in popularity.
numerous
brubi behind
this the whole place down and use Katr dimensions
ננ1
11803 a
הם
The fantasy belongs to a grizzled, harassed it for a parking lot."
Ittle man of 50, who
working One of the experts gold and wears hearing aid
is designer the annexe each bracelets on
Wrist Ben
Franklin Hughes, and he is also Novack
"this year's He sits In an office curved responsible for
hotel" -the $27,000,000 (29,- uke the hotel itself, yelling at two secretaries, three telephones 842,850) Diplomat. and several executives, while half-amoked cigarettes burn in scattered ashtrays over his crescent-shaped desk,
"Saturation point?" he bark- ed, pushing his spectacles up
fuzzy grey Into his
hair. That, Miss Lewis, is ilke ask- Ing me how high is up. While people still wanna come here, who cares? We gotla new ex- that's on here talon going добал col $10,000,000 (£3.- 51,400) and give us the largest hallromm of any hotel in world.
the
"What's that? Sure, it's the
urc
"My contract calls for me to control every visual aspect of the project," he explained, as he showed me around the al- completed Colossus. "I most
colour have used 12 different schemes, but the public rooms turquoise, black, mostly white, and yellow."
The Diplomat
be called originally to Beverley Beach Hotel, Motel Country and Cabana Club, but someone felt that was a little December too long-opens 18, with Tour Martla doing a
axa inst rabarel
the jewel- encrusted palm trees of the Cate Cristal.
on
it
was the
only hotel I own-and_belleve
Buch is the lever bore fox me, that is one too many."
being flest that the hotel fa A New Yorker shopkeeper, already fully booked until' the 250 day for spa- Novack first went into business spring At of Miami Beach in 1941, when view saltes.
to less Was duwa hia capital than £12.
Hurricane
Covering the old 14-acre Fire- He managed to raise enough stone Estate it has two pools, a muney to reht a smallish hotel called Monroe Towers, but be- yacht basin for So boats, a shopping centre, night club, fore the profits of the Christmas numerous bars, restaurants, aud season could be gleaned a hurri- coffee shops and a landscape
cane and Pearl Harbour threa
out of put him that "falthfully reproduces the iced to formal gardens of Fontaine- business, bleau and Versailles..
Happily the air force bullt base bear by, and Towers 08 This saved
The whole set-up is enough a training to knock both eyes out. It is took over Monroe the place where business men an officers' billet.
14
on holiday pay £55 a day tor Mr Novack from rain, and by sulte, plus the additional 1948 he was able to build his
89, a day for pool-side first hotel-the Sans Souci. cabana, and wives amuse the hours buying casual-trimmed sweaters at £150 in the arende of the stores.
The year after Fontainebleau opened-Novack calls it "the world's most pretentious hotel" - embittered ex-partner of When I arrived 1,000 mem-
Harry Mufsen, tried to go bis, bers of the American Trucking one better by creating the Association's convention were
almost equally showy Eden Roc milling round in the
bang next door. pillared lobby walling for come. dian Red Buttons to do lunch-time show.
The Director
vast
By the pool lights blazed in the sun and technicians lolled ns Frank Capra directed Edward G. Robinson and Frank Sinatra
By planning his now exten- sion
ww
But surprise, surprizet not everybody lives in a birth- day cake on the beach.
In those long, low, houses on green lalets,
white linkedi
by causeways, another life a led.
Demob Plan
A
I spent some time at such place the hibiscus-island home British-born of 35-year-old bachelor Bex Band. Having Service training..in done
the war My Florida Curing Itand decided to chance his huck in Mianil on his demob.
With capital of £40 he began
American, selling radio parts. Now he is " naturalised millionaire with three television radio stations, a bouse and
nearly £ 100,000 and scattered round worth several yachts the West Indies
"Where else?" he asked me
as we sat in his stone-flagged
bar by Ris grotto-blue pool.
to Fontainebleau Mr "Where else can I live like this, Novack will have his revenge—
have
the 285-room annexe is de- t auch murroundings, and -attti
designed berately
to block
business a prosperoUS out the sun from the Eden Roc's swimming pool!
within a few miles?”
"When that happens," said Novack's employees,
0/ onc
in a location scene for "Hole in "Mufton might just as well pull
the Head."
Maybe they are all absolutely right. Maybe Miami Beach is "the greatest." But the most what I still can't make up my
mind.
Reporter RON EVANS sees New York's tough cops fight their biggest battle...
Where Boys Use Guns-& Murder Isn't News
IT is midnight in Manhattan, and I am sitting in Sardi's, just off Broadway. This is one of the places to go in New York .the pricey, after-theatre haunt of show people and out-of-town tourists.
What happens when a nation's dead-end kids
get out of hand.
Listen to Police Captain Fre other countries which ought to charge of Now that has developed in Manhat- York's youth squad:
Bald, "I Evans." 110
Now year in
tan
Last
Just across from me sits Lena Horne, composed, coffee-coloured and beautiful beyond description. Just across from her, gazing in awe, derick Ludwig, crew-cutted take warning from the altuntión are four middle-aged Middle Westerners, up in the six-footer in city for a convention.
Outside, In the glittering patrolman lies crumpled, bleed- wouldn't no fate Central Park two-thirds of the major crime razzle-dazzle of the Great White Ing from tour bullet wounds. A at night unless I had my gun; arrests-murder, manslaughter, Way, crowds blacken the side- Junky (dope addict) shot him. and unless I had my gun out of rape, rubbery, violence, burglary walks; in Fifth Avenue they For no reason at all.
Its holster and in my pocket; and grand larceny came in that Manhattan
age group; and al- This also la
o unless I had my hand on the under-21
most half from the under- midnight-stark and violent and gun"
eighteens, brutal,
window-gaze at the aristocratic stores where the prices soar na high as the searchlight beams from the Empire State Building. And tomorrow the shootings Slowly he trimmed the ash of
will merit fow laconio lines his elgar. downpage in the early editions.
Evons, "And, Mr of the papers.
This is Manhattan at mid- night. gay, gaudy, expenalve. exciting. The Manhattan of the travel brochures.
£
York,
Is there a lesson to learn in the way the New York. pollen 1 are fighting their war?
Because war is in,
Around me ice cubes clinic in wouldn't fancy going into that the cocktail gings. I look at the park.".
Captain Ludwig's hand-picked squad in the spearhead.
To And out how they worse I
But there is another Man-
Laces and wonder how much Now Yorkers keep away from hattan, where' uiolenca they know or care of the war Central Park at night. Dul, went on patrol with two deboct- spawned in the lurking shadows, that erupts around them,
pway, a 14-year-old
visitors tives through the brooding And, in a fruit store not far Or if they have ever seen the tourista and overseas
wander there and for them slovenstong tenements of Hor- coloured squaikā saphalt battlefields of Hoodlum gangs are waiting, fergh hazard" area and boy is dying. A police bullet the crowded tenements, from
Not so long ago, the authorl another part of this city where elat him.
which I returned an hour ago.
walk alone at the boy New A partiman zow
is waging York
war tire would never have beloved no stranger
in night. war auch things could happen prowling, called on him to atop against teenage crime The boy rat. The patrolman that makes other nation crime- New York. Even when they be
Wayne Took like the squabbles gan to see the under-21 cm To be continued in a second fred.
post-wir In the garbage-sirown trickle in kindergarten playgrounds by rate increase in the
yours, as it is now rising in article: Teenage Terror. 1st on East side gutter, anotlior comparison.
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