The evening world. Newspaper, July 3, 1922, Page 13

a — ——— By Willis Brooks Hawkins, ted guests. 80, Louts was sent out into the night, miles from New York @opyright, 1922 (New York Evening World), by Press Publishing Company. ORTY-FIVE years ago a young map without a bed slept on the sand at Coney Island In the morning he got a job at a little - shack of a dance hall, where he had nothing to do but serve as waiter, bus boy, dishwasher, po- tato peeler, chicken killer (real, not metaphorical), bartender, planist and general roustabout. Incidentally, he cleaned sixty oil lamps every morning and lugged as many pails of water from a well a quarter of a mile away. His wage was $15 a month and the privilege of sleeping on the kitchen Boor. That same young man—still much younger in appearance and activity than sixty-four years are supposed to Wwarrant—has just sold one of his pieces of Coney Island property for $500,000, and, as his intimates agree, nobody knows how much more he ts worth, Yet this man sald to me the other day matters I've been a damned fool all my life. If I had been a reasonably shrewd busi- Ress man | might have been worth any number of millions to-day.” His name !s known wherever Coney Island has been heard of; and that takes in a goodly part of the earth's surface. An Australian sea captain, living in Melbourne and sailing in the Bouth Sea Island trade, recently re- solved to take a vacation and show somewhat of the world to his wife. “Where would you like to go first?” he asked her. “Let's go to Coney Island and Btauch’s place that we've heard so much about," she answered. They came, they saw, and they @anced together in one of the largest @nd finest dancing pavilfons in she world, in the midst of a famous res- faurant with table accommodations for 5,000 persons. This is the property, that has just been sold for a half mil- Non dollars, and good judges say it is worth much more. Louis Stauch was born in a loft on 7th Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, in the section of Manhattan known as Hell's Kitchen, The com. Pulsory education laws were not then what they are now, so Louis had Ut- We or no schooling; but, with a natu- ral aptitude for music, he became a skilful planist before he was twelve years old. At sixteen he got a job playing eve- nings in a German stube on Ninth Avenue between 84th and 35th Streets, receiving 25 cents, a sandwich and a glass of beer for each night's work, Soon he was lured to Brady's Dancing Academy, at the corner of Broadway and 54th Street, by the munificent of- fer of $1.50 a night; and a little later to the Olehouse Academy, Broadway and Houston Street, where he played mornings, afternoons and evenings at @ wage that might almost be dignified asa salary. There, one day, came Fate in the form of a wealthy merchant whose daughter was to be married that eve- ning at her home, in Bath Beach, then a far distant fashionable suburb, He offered the young pianist $5 to play for the wedding dance and was to give him a bed for the night, since there v\uld be no way to reach New York before morning. But when the @ance was over it was found that all Svailable beds must be given to ve- “In money but not so far from Coney Island, Thus it came about that he who was destined to add so much to Coney's fame and prosperity tramped to the seashore, slept an hour on the beach and became so closely identi- “the Island’’ that in these forty-five years he has set foot off it Of these notable two were to fled with only four times, journeys “‘abroad’’ Brooklyn and two to Manhattan, Young Stauch’s first job was at Paul Bauer's place, on the site after- LOUIS STAUCH in @ pose amiliar to Coney landers ward occupled by Dreamland, but he Soon left there to take a similar job at Walsh’s dance hall on Surf Ave- hue, directly in front of the present Stauch pavilion, on the Bowery. At that time the ocean came to within 100 feet of Surf Avenue. It is now 1,000 feet away, and Stauch's build- ing covers 760 feet of it, so generous has Neptune been in making land for the boy who slept on his beach. 9 Two years later, when Stauch had saved $310 from his wages, he learyd Welsh's place for two years at $700 @ year and set out to become a rival of Warren Lewis, one of the leading sporting men of his time, who had -he most popular dance hall on the island, employing ten pieces of music, while Stauch had only un old piano and himself to play it. But Lewis's band ned to play all the time, so Stauch took advantage of the inter- vals and attracted many patrons. By undercelling L bar and elgar counter he held so many of these customers that before his lease expired he was doing a bleger business than Lewis was—so big u of Lewis's is at his Got a Job in the Morning, Saved $310, Opened His First Place, Then Lost One by Storm, Three by Fire,—Left Island Four Times in 45 Years, Made Fortune, Now Sells Out for $500,000. business, indeed, that he renewed lis lease for ten years at $2,000 4 y ar Until then he had always slept on the premises, but with risin prosper {ty came desire for 4 home apart. He bought a ¢ with two rooms und a kitchen for $40 and es- tablished himself with ull his pezsonal belongings in it on the seach, One night, when he there, a violent storm swept him and his gyp- sy wagon y wagon was a into the sea and wrecked his place of bu he had earthly pot he had on— that,"* as he deser utterly s. hen his sole swum to the As soon as he could borrow # patr of trousers he went to Jolin Y, Me Kane, the ‘boss’? of the island, who wus later sent to the pe tury for jenorin Supreme Junction, after say “Injur don't go on Coney Island." “What do you want 2" Moe Kane asked of Stauch “I want to put up a building 60 by 120 feet." “AN right," MeKane, “I'l send my brother Jim to see you." That ufternoon James McKune, a builder, cume with his foreman und suid the buildin would cost $10,000. “I haven't w dollar in the world,” said uch, “That's none of my business,"* Jim replied. ‘John suid to do what you wanted.’ He turned to his foreman “Put up a good bt as quick for this man ts you cun, and begin w on it to-morrow mornin With the toe of his boot he serutched a smut rectangle in the sur “Muke it 1 feet this way und sixty this wa he said ere were the on chitectural plans und that buildin Stauch signed notes for the $40,0 and before night hud bought the lan pecitication IN for $300, givir Since then three period @f fifteen yc seen his buildir Loy Y WNUSS nyed by tres whic and each tine larger and more the one “ has he t nee, His $750, rom At money he had e me $° another note for that. + compotely de- ed els GROUP OF STAUCHS IMPLOVYEES WHO HAVE WORKED FOR HIM FOR YE, “yr OY YS». S44 SKS YSIS RIN within rs Louis Stauch LY y VYIRGS S al AGN NAS NY s Point, It can be bought for $50,000, and I know some People who will, furnish the money and let us tn on ft." Stauch gave him the $300, but at the ena of seven days Abbott had failed to raise the money, With only three days of his option left, Louts went to see Otto Huber, the brewer, his was one of the four times he has and since he first went B kept him waiting two clous days, then sent his confiden- man with Louis to see the prop- ty. They had to wait three hours for a train to Coney on the jd Gun- ther railr and then hired a rig to take them to Norton's Point (now Sea Gate). The long trip did not tm- prove the P| Huber's) man, nd when he saw the property, con- sting of sand dunes with just enough unted undergrowth to make hom hundreds of wild rabbits, Stauch for bringing him on 8 errand indignantly re- report that the whole not worth $50, ¢ month if th Baking cht the property and eixty dave later sold and Improve- ment Company for $150,00 Then Mr. Huber can Louls Stauch, and t a per of afl and turned to Point was later Wi lly to been the best of nda ever since. When tauch, a little later, advised Huber m, to buy the parcel now oceupled by to give them $100,000 ¢ Steeplechase Park tho brewer Ustened, and now he ta drawing a yearly land rent from. that sand waste nearly equal to the full pur- chase price, with no more trouble to bimself than is involved in the signing of a lease, Just to prove his assertion that he hax been a@ fool all his life, Stauch tells the following story: Thirty-odd years agé the late Will- fam Rock was running some penny- {n-the-slot machines at pmapson & Dundy's p to the Moon,’ which was the for inner of the present marvel of the Island Park, “Put in $2,000 make you rich one day. ‘*Motion coming thing."* “I don't know anything about mo- tion pictures,” Stauch answered. “Neither do 1,’" Rock confessed, yut I can learn Stauch kept his $2,000, but Rock became a pioneer in the motion pie- ture industry and made $3,000,000 out of it In a few years Later Louis Stauch made even a greater mistake, One day word came to him that William Rock wished to see him and Samuel Gumperz at Oyster Bay. Louis and Sum, think- ing it was only a social invitation and being too busy to accept, paid no attention to it. Next day they learned that Rock was dead, He had sent for Stauch and Gumperz beenuse, know- Ing he was near his he wanted ch and make n he fatled indignantly the pictures are 4 them his executors. Wh to hear from them he changed his plans A faraway look comes Stauch's when he into Mr eyes tells this story. ‘If only I had known he was aick—dying"—His lower Ip trem- bles, his voice thickens and ceases A large portrait of William Rock hangs in the place of honor in Louis Stauch's private off Mr. Stauch is a amokeless smoker. From early morning until far into the night he may be seen keeping a SS —— ) Ny J SS watchful eye upon the various de« partments of his busy place, and al- Ways with a clgar between his teeth, He “smokes from fifty to seventy five expensive cigars a day, though they are seldom lighted. Every few minutes he takes a fresh one and puts Its predecessor into his pocket. At the end of each week he sends these ‘butts,’ as he calls them, to atients in the Long Island State Hospital and Kings County Hospital, inclosing a dollar bill for each of the many unfortunates whom he knows personally. Mr, Stauch has Mterally thousands sonal acquaintances, many of them leaders in the various soctal, industrial and political walks of life, but they must all come to see him, for he practically never steps outside of his place of business. For twenty, years he has striven to have a board. walk bullt along the waterfront of the island, yet now that the construc~ tion has reached the border of his own pavilion property, he has never seen any part of it Some years ago he resolved to make his place a winter as well as a sum- mer resort. Now there ts seldom @ week throughout the winter when there are not three or four social affairs held there. Usually these are large dinner and dancing purties given by society people who haye not sult~ able aceommodations for so many, guesta in their homes, wh the contract for the sale wvillon has been signed, Louls ‘tauch will continue In possession un- tl Oct. 1 next, and, at his option, may hold it until Oct. 1, 1923. says he has never met the new owt ers, does not even know thelr names, of and has had no tntimation of what they intend to do with the property, who has been with him for fifteen years, says he understands that the whola Island is soon to undergo a» radia@ change and that the Stauch hull@ngs will be replaced by others for totally different purposes,